Abstract
Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality describes the primitive condition that he thinks was most durable and most conducive to human happiness. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas studied an indigenous African population that is probably descended from people who never left the area in which modern humans evolved, and had until recently undergone less cultural evolution than any other living people. Thomas’ study of these people supports Rousseau’s conjectures about the nature of early social life and enriches his account with a detailed analysis of the social practices that have made this way of life especially durable. The new evidence she supplies is consistent with Rousseau’s claim that human happiness does not require political government or what we call civilized life.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
See, for example, Inequality, O.C., 3:180: “[T]he thing to do would have been to begin by clearing the ground and setting aside all the old materials, as Lycurgus did in Sparta, in order afterwards to erect a good Building.”
- 2.
Observations of great apes that have been raised as pets, or like adopted human children, may give us a glimpse of what Rousseau believed he saw in human society. See, for example, Anne E. Russon, Orangutans: Wizards of the Rainforest, 104–12; Jane Goodall , Through a Window: My Thirty Years with the Chimpanzees of Gombe, 13.
- 3.
In the Confessions , Rousseau characterizes the Discourse on Inequality as the place where he revealed his principles “with the greatest daring, not to say audacity” (bk. 9, O.C., 1:407). In an unfinished draft of a response to criticism of the Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts , written before he began work on the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau said that he believed he had discovered great things and set them forth with a “somewhat dangerous frankness,” but that he had also often “been at great pains to try to condense into a Sentence, into a line, into one word tossed off as if by chance, the result of a long series of reflections” ( Preface to a Second Letter to Bordes , O.C., 3:103, 106).
- 4.
Recently discovered evidence indicates that small human populations can regress toward the “crudeness of the first ages” when they become isolated from contact with their neighbors. See, for example, Joseph Henrich, “Demography and Cultural Evolution: How Adaptive Cultural Processes Can Produce Maladaptive Losses—The Tasmanian Case.”
- 5.
See Chapter 3.
- 6.
Rousseau’s source is an abridged version of Peter Kolb’s study of the native peoples of southern Africa, which is considered one of the greatest ethnographies of the eighteenth century. Kolb used the term “Hottentot” for all these peoples, which would have included groups closely related to the Bushmen discussed later in this chapter.
- 7.
Franklin to Richard Jackson (5 May 1753), Writings of Benjamin Franklin , 3:136–37. James Madison and Alexis de Tocqueville reported similar phenomena. See “Address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle” (12 May 1818), Papers of James Madison (Retirement Series), 1:260–85, 261; Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. 1, pt. 2, chap. 10, note 18.
- 8.
Claude Lévi-Strauss , “Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Fondateur des Sciences de l’Homme,” 239–48.
- 9.
Victor Gourevitch argues that the known starting point is not the “pure state of nature” (speechless animals living largely solitary lives), but the stage at which primitive peoples encountered by traveling Europeans had arrived. The pure state of nature, he thinks, is a “statement of [Rousseau’s] principles conjectured into existence, bodied forth, and given a local habitation and a name” (“Rousseau’s Pure State of Nature,” 59). Richard L. Velkley similarly contends that the limiting case described by Rousseau represents an impossibility (Being after Rousseau, 162n14). I believe, on the contrary, that Rousseau regarded the known starting point as a prelinguistic condition, and did not believe that it is impossible for our distant ancestors to have lived very isolated lives before stable families existed.
- 10.
A detailed discussion of Rousseau’s thoughts on human evolution and the origin of languages is presented in Chapter 3.
- 11.
Rousseau is often highly critical of extravagant claims made on behalf of modern science by some scientists, but I do not believe he ever denies that it has been the source of genuine enlightenment. In his first and quite vociferous critique of science, for example, he says that Francis Bacon is “perhaps the greatest of philosophers,” and he refers to “the Bacons, the Descartes [plural] and the Newtons” as preceptors of the human race ( Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts , O.C., 3:29). Similarly, the Emile contends that there is no true progress of reason in the human species because the acquisition of enlightenment is accompanied by a diminution of vigor of mind (O.C., 4:676, Bloom, 343). For an enlightening study of Rousseau’s serious engagement with the physical science of his time, see Christopher Kelly , “Rousseau’s Chemical Apprenticeship.”
- 12.
Various terms have been used to refer to the ethnic or linguistic group often called “Bushmen,” most or all of which have been regarded as derogatory at one time or another. There are controversies over the most respectful terminology, and there are different ways to represent the sounds used in their languages. I follow Thomas’ usage.
- 13.
Those inclined to regard the quoted sentence as a patent stupidity should consult Aristotle, De Anima 415a22–415b7; Charles Darwin , The Power of Movement in Plants, 571–73; Richard Mabey, The Cabaret of Plants, 328–38.
- 14.
For an overview, see Richard G. Klein , The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins. Thomas is not especially concerned with the precise details of biological evolution. She makes at least one technical error, when she assumes that human beings are descended from chimpanzees . Chimpanzees do appear to be our closest living relatives, but we are not descended from them (ibid., 94–96, 728). The closest common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans may have been physically similar to modern chimpanzees (though no fossils have been found), but nothing is known about the social life of this extinct species.
- 15.
See, for example, Spencer Wells , The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey, 56–57.
- 16.
Rousseau anticipated that science might eventually enable us to trace our lineage back to other species, or at least to animals with radically different physical structures. He was apparently the first to suggest that humans may have developed from ape origins. See Robert Wokler, “Perfectible Apes in Decadent Cultures: Rousseau’s Anthropology Revisited.”
- 17.
Most known hunter-gatherer societies feature relative egalitarianism, land tenure based on common property, a mobile way of life, and a practice of small groups dispersing at certain seasons and coming together in larger groups at other times (Cambridge Encyclopedia of Hunters and Gatherers, 4).
- 18.
This is not to say that their culture did not change in significant ways over time, even before this people encountered invaders such as Bantus and Europeans. Such change must have occurred, and it is unlikely that science will ever be able to establish the exact extent to which the Ju/wasi or any other group of Bushmen who survived into historical times are “living fossils.”
- 19.
The Bushmen speak one of several extremely unusual click languages. Outside the area where the Bushmen are found, the only other place where this type of language has been found is in east Africa, and skeletal material consistent with Bushman-like people has been found in paleolithic sites in Somalia and Ethiopia (Wells , Journey of Man, 56–57).
- 20.
Thomas observed polygyny, which was considered unremarkable though relatively uncommon. She was told that polyandry was permitted though rarely practiced, but she never observed it directly. She was also told that polygyny seems to work best when the wives are sisters (Old Way, 179–80).
- 21.
Music and dance—the only communal pleasures that Rousseau mentions in his description of the happiest epoch—are an extremely significant element in the lives of the Ju/wasi. See Lorna Marshall , The !Kung of Nyae Nyae, 363–81; Lorna J. Marshall, Nyae Nyae !Kung: Beliefs and Rites, 63–90, 195–200.
- 22.
The one case of stealing reported by Thomas involved a man who took honey from a beehive that another man had found. This was such an extraordinary event that the original discoverer of the hive killed the thief. This is the only act of vengeance that Thomas reports, and it may not have been understood in quite that way by the killer.
- 23.
See, for example, O.C., 3:147 (noting the social consequences of the mother’s physical need to nurse).
- 24.
As Susan Meld Shell points out, it is difficult to imagine how the sharing of huts that constituted the “first revolution” could have occurred except through the agency of women (“Émile: Nature and the Education of Sophie,” 280).
- 25.
For an introduction to a large and controversial anthropological literature, see John F. Peters, Life Among the Yanomami .
- 26.
See Kenneth Good, Into the Heart: One Man’s Pursuit of Love and Knowledge among the Yanomami ; “American plans jungle trip to win back wife,” Sunday Times Plus, 30 March 1997, http://sundaytimes.lk/970330/plus8.html; Patrick Tierney, Darkness in El Dorado, 250–56.
- 27.
Cf. Inequality, O.C., 3:187–88, where Rousseau contends that government and laws are always an inadequate substitute for sound mœurs (i.e., customs or habits that have some kind of ethical or moral quality or effects).
- 28.
Leo Strauss interprets “perfectibility ” to mean an almost infinite malleability that is without a natural limit on our power to make what we wish of the human race (Natural Right and History, 271). What Rousseau wrote may have contributed to such an understanding of human nature among later thinkers. I believe, however, that Strauss seriously misinterpreted Rousseau on this point. For a careful critique of Strauss ’ claim, see Victor Gourevitch , “On Strauss on Rousseau,” 147–67.
- 29.
Elsewhere, Rousseau criticizes mechanical explanations of the behavior of animals (Essay, chap. 15, O.C., 5:417). He also suggests how and why we might sometimes view other people as mechanical beings ( Reveries , eighth walk, O.C., 1:1077). Perhaps we have the ability to “see” animals, and even other people, as nothing but ingenious machines, whereas we cannot see ourselves that way. Our own lack of freedom to see ourselves as nothing but ingenious machines cannot by itself establish that we are not just ingenious machines. Similarly, our ability or freedom to view animals or other people as nothing but ingenious machines cannot by itself establish that they are not “free agents.” Cf. Emile, O.C., 4:553, Bloom, 256 (referring to “the incomprehensible idea of the action of our soul on our body”).
- 30.
Caution must be exercised in interpreting explanations given by the Ju/wasi. Asked where the stars went in the daytime, one man said, “They stay where they are. We just can’t see them in the daytime because the sun is too bright.” The same man later said that stars were ant-lions who in the evening went up to the sky and returned to their sandy traps at dawn (Old Way, 245). If one heard only the second story, it would be easy to get a distorted impression of the speaker’s understanding of the world.
- 31.
Inequality, O.C., 3:164. As Rousseau’s use of this term suggests, man in the pure state of nature was not yet truly human.
- 32.
Late in life, Rousseau suggested that his peculiar nature made him uniquely capable of this discovery (Dialogues, third dialogue, O.C., 1:936, “the Frenchman” is speaking).
- 33.
In the Essay on the Origin of Languages, Rousseau says that only the passion for self-preservation is stronger and more primary than the passion for doing nothing, but he also refers to “natural restlessness” and he says that primitive people are subject to boredom (O.C., 5:376, 401n, 402, 406). Similarly, in the Emile, he says: “To live is not to breathe, it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, of our senses, of our faculties, of all the parts of ourselves that give us the sentiment of our existence” (O.C., 4:253, Bloom, 42; see also ibid., 429, Bloom, 167).
- 34.
Rousseau reports having had experiences somewhat similar to Thomas’. In one account, he finds himself briefly feeling that “[m]y dog himself was my friend, not my slave, we always had the same will but he never obeyed me” ( Letters to Malesherbes , lett. 3, O.C., 1:1141).
- 35.
The Social Life of Dogs, 123–28.
- 36.
Modern scientists have found, through observation and experiments, evidence of empathy in a wide range of mammals. Not just primates, elephants, canines, and cetaceans, but even such ancient and lowly animals as mice and rats. See, for example, Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce, Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals, 101–105; D.J. Langford, et al., “Social Modulation of Pain as Evidence for Empathy in Mice”; Inbal Ben-Ami Bartal, et al., “Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats”; Nobuya Sato, et al., “Rats Demonstrate Helping Behavior Toward a Soaked Conspecific.” For some very striking examples among a species of great ape, see Frans de Waal and Frans Lanting, Bonobo : The Forgotten Ape, 156–59.
- 37.
A blandly disapproving reference to the use of feminine wiles by civilized women occurs shortly thereafter in the text (O.C., 3:158). Outside the body of the Discourse, we find a condemnation of abortion and infanticide by civilized women in Note IX, and a vivid statement about the virtue of Spartan women in the Epistle Dedicatory (ibid., 119, 204).
- 38.
The importance of this extension is suggested by Rousseau’s comment elsewhere that natural pity would remain eternally inactive without imagination to set it in motion (Essay, chap. 9, O.C., 5:395). It may also be significant that Rousseau characterizes conjugal and paternal love, but not maternal love, as the sweetest sentiments that we know (Inequality, O.C., 3:168). Compare the discussion of xaro friendships above.
- 39.
Charles Darwin suggests a similar account of human sociality, while allowing for the possibility that natural selection may have produced more refined social instincts than the primitive form of pity described by Rousseau (Descent of Man, 1:71–83, 95–96).
- 40.
See, for example, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, The Harmless People, 52.
- 41.
The Ju/wasi exhibit the same acceptance of their own physical suffering that they display toward that of other animals. For a striking example involving a young girl who stoically endured several painful and dangerous hours caught in a metal trap that a member of the Marshall party had set in the desert, see Old Way, 216–17.
- 42.
A related phenomenon can be found among scientists who have done field work with great apes. Not infrequently they find that they cannot separate their desire to understand the animals from a desire to protect those they have come to know. Prominent examples include Jane Goodall , Dian Fossey , and Biruté Galdikas , and it is probably no mere accident that this group consists entirely of females.
- 43.
See, for example, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, “Reply to Melvin Konner.”
- 44.
See, for example, Aristotle, De Anima 402a11–403b19, 432a22–432b3; Inequality, O.C., 3:122–24, 141–42.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2016 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Lund, N. (2016). Philosophic Anthropology in the Discourse on Inequality . In: Rousseau’s Rejuvenation of Political Philosophy. Recovering Political Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41390-7_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41390-7_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-41389-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-41390-7
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)