On Sat, 17 Feb 2001, Chris Brooke wrote:
> Does Rousseau think mutual dependence "defines us as human"?
No, clearly not. Although it's one of the weaker parts of his argument. All the interesting stuff in his argument taken as a whole (i.e., read together with the Social Contract and Emile and Heloise) happens after we're interdependent.
Also. when he says that humans can theoretically exist in happy isolation, it's fair to ask if he isn't setting the bar too low. He spends several pages in one of the footnotes of the second discourse arguing that savage man walks among us still in the form of the Pongo, aka the Orangutan, which he thinks has been mistaken for a beast only because it can't talk. But he says, this is no reason, because he's just shown that language is not natural to humans.
It's not unreasonable to disagree with that and say language is part of what it means to be human, and that before that, we were something else. In which case, you can cite Rousseau against himself and say yep, if you maintain that you can't have language without mutual dependence, then you've argued that you can't have humanity without it.
And of course on the slavery question, Rousseau was the first to assert that it was possible for mutual dependence, freedom and equality all to be rendered compatible through the mediation of the general will. And that, given that mutual dependence was an inseparable part of society, and that there was no going backwards once we'd formed it, this was the only way we would have any kind of freedom and equality ever again.
Except for girls, of course. They were needed at home.
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com