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Discourse on the Origin of Inequality by Patrick Coleman, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Franklin Philip
iinasomnia's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
2.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Racism
Minor: Racial slurs
shroudofthesea's review against another edition
3.0
operates off of a similar sense of imperialism as hobbes & locke, BUT rousseau at least can admit that hierarchy is a fundamentally twisted & unreasonable thing :)
microglyphics's review against another edition
4.0
Interesting relatively short read if you skip the fawning intro, which I recommend, and the last chapter, which was a compilation of his writing notes. The entire piece ends up being a Romantic thought experiment, as he is bound by the religious beliefs of the day not to counter the orthodoxy of the origin story of Genesis in the bible.
[Spoiler Alert (tl;dr)] The origin of inequality is property and civilisation.
[Spoiler Alert (tl;dr)] The origin of inequality is property and civilisation.
theromancedove's review against another edition
3.0
FOR SCHOOL
he wrote this all jumbled like 5 things at once it was so confusing
he wrote this all jumbled like 5 things at once it was so confusing
numbersarereal's review against another edition
If you get past the first part which seems to be questionable takes in Anthropology more so than either philosophy or the foundation for an argument, the second part is a very interesting and scarily relevant look into illegitimate rule and tyranny.
nicole6559's review against another edition
4.0
This book gave a very interesting argument as to why there is inequality in the world. As a person who doesn't tend to read books of this nature I have to say I enjoyed this one.
sophie_howl's review against another edition
4.0
The book itself was a little ripper, but here I wish to express my delight at the editor's inclusion of [a:Voltaire|5754446|Voltaire|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1393683411p2/5754446.jpg]'s commentary in the endnotes. Writing in the margins of the copy sent to him by Rousseau, Voltaire shows himself to be less than impressed by the efforts of his contemporary. Alongside single-word zingers like "Ridiculous" and "False", perhaps my favourite Voltairean shut-down follows this passage, where Rousseau claims that "savages" are incapable of experiencing the "moral" aspect of love:
"Imagination, which causes so much havoc among us, never speaks to the heart of savages; everyone quietly awaits the impulse of nature, responds to it involuntarily with more pleasure than frenzy; and once the need is satisfied, all desire is extinguished." (p. 103)
To which the salty Voltaire responds:
"How do you know? Have you ever seen savages making love?"
I dare say he hadn't, no.
May philosophical spatting live long and flourish for yet another three centuries to come!
"Imagination, which causes so much havoc among us, never speaks to the heart of savages; everyone quietly awaits the impulse of nature, responds to it involuntarily with more pleasure than frenzy; and once the need is satisfied, all desire is extinguished." (p. 103)
To which the salty Voltaire responds:
"How do you know? Have you ever seen savages making love?"
I dare say he hadn't, no.
May philosophical spatting live long and flourish for yet another three centuries to come!