How does Rousseau distinguish the natural and the civilized world?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau introduces the savage man in Part One of his Discourse in order to highlight the differences between the natural world of the savage and the civilized world of modern man. Rousseau begins this process by first stripping civilized man down to his bare necessities: “If I strip the being thus constituted of all the supernatural gifts that he may have received, and of all the artificial faculties…if I consider him in a word, as he must have emerged from nature, I see an animal less strong than some, less agile, than others, but taken as a whole the most advantageously organized of all” (81). By stripping man of all his artificial faculties, Rousseau shows that the man that is left is in some ways weaker but that as a whole he is improved. In setting this initial distinction between civilized and savage man, Rousseau is able to then set the stage for the differences in the world of the natural and the modern civilized world.
Rousseau compares the lifestyles of the savage and the civilized man by speaking of health and medicine. Rousseau asks whether modern day medicine place civilized man at an advantage above natural man, “How indeed could that be the case if we bring upon ourselves more diseases than medicine can furnish remedies” (84). Rousseau directly critiques modern day medical practices and asks whether man is any better now than he was in the natural world. He explains that man’s illnesses are mostly self-induced by faculties that did not exist in the natural world. He lists several different things that torment the human soul such as: “The excess of idleness among some and the excess toil among others, the over-elaborate foods of the rich, the bad food of the poor, … excesses of all kinds: these are the fatal proofs that most of our ills are of our own making” (84). The extreme inequality and excesses that exist among man do not exist for man in the state of nature. Therefore, natural man has no need for all of the remedies or physicians that civilized man needs. This comparison of medicine is significant because it gives the reader a clear distinction between the natural and civilized world and shows Rousseau’s critique of the things he observes in his modern day society.
The distinction between the natural and civilized world centers on the excess that characterizes civil man and the bare minimum that it takes the natural man to exist. Rousseau says, “Being naked, homeless and deprived of all those useless things we believe so necessary is no great misfortune for these first men, and above all no great obstacle to their preservation” (86). Rousseau describes a man that has been deprived of all useless things that civilized man holds with great importance, and shows that he still can survive without the things that civilized man considers essential. Rousseau does not say that savage man thrives without any of civilized man’s things but that savage man does not experience any great misfortune because of it. By experiencing no great misfortune or success, Rousseau shows how savage man can live in contentment by living a life of simplicity.
Word Count: 552
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, On the Social Contract ; Discourse on the Origin of Inequality ; Discourse on Political Economy. Introduction by Donald A. Cress. Indianapolis: Penguin Classics, 1983.
Very good response to your quite good question. 4.5/5