Rousseau was born in Geneva year 1712 and had no education after the age of twelve. His mother died giving birth to him, so the poor old chap was not off to a particularly advantageous start in life. Rousseau himself had five children but gave them all away, to an orphanage. He be lived that children are bonded to their parents and that such a notion is not freedom, likewise parents are obligated to be responsible to their children which is not freedom either.
Rousseau didn't agree with Hobbes's state of nature, he believed that we were free before society and his ideas try to get us back to that freedom although it is impossible and he sometimes suggests that. He thinks that we have been influenced by the bad habits of civilization.
The Social Contract was written in year 1762, where he speaks of the chains of society 'man is free yet everywhere he is chains'. Today we live in a Representative democracy which makes sense, one student pointed out that we are not born free though, we are born into the 'chains' of society. This idea disproves Rousseau's idea that we are born free and then somehow captured into systems of society.
Rousseau believed in the general will, where there was a sense of belonging and a becoming a part of a system, anyone who refuses would 'be forced to be free'. Rousseau can be difficult to read because he is ambiguous and contradicts himself.
As well as discussing the Rousseau topic our seminar leader encouraged us to explore ideas on freedom, what it is to be free, are we free and the difference between freedom and liberty. We were all asked to write what we feel the difference between liberty and freedom is. I wrote that 'freedom is a natural occurrence to do with the individual such as forgiveness or a state of being. Liberty is the result of a war or specifically strategist movement, often something following after violence'. The seminar leader explained that the word 'freedom' comes from English and that 'liberty' comes from Latin. 'Freedom' is used in philosophical and moral things whilst 'liberty' is to do with political things. He pointed out that in French or German there are not two words to describe these similar things and that being English speaking we should learn to differentiate between the two and make use of them. I think an easy was to understand the difference in usage is to look at phrases such as 'free spirit' or 'free thinker' (you wouldn't use liberty in either of those examples). One student defined freedom for herself as 'being able to do anything buProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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being aware of the consequences'.
The government censors what we see (media), we then talk about what we see, and in this regard the government controls what we talk about/ So are we free? We are only shown one aspect of reality, we make assumptions, we flock. 'Society of the Spectacle' by Guy Debord is a good book to read on this topic, there is also a black and white film (see youtube). The book 'White' was also recommended this is a book by Richard Dyer and it explores how how ethnicity is presented; what we see on TV is not true reality. Is the white, good looking, muscular man really the epiphany of sexual attractiveness or do we assume so just because this is what is portrayed in media? I grabbed this book out of the library and intend to take a peek.
What is your idea of freedom?
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