Editing Noble savage (section)

===Jean-Jacques Rousseau===
[[File:Allan Ramsay - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) by [[Allan Ramsay (artist)|Allan Ramsay]] (1766) ]]
{{wikiquote|Jean-Jacques Rousseau and noble savage}}
Like the Earl of Shaftesbury in the ''Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit'' (1699), [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] likewise believed that Man is innately good, and that urban civilization, characterized by jealousy, envy, and self-consciousness, has made men bad in character. In ''[[Discourse on Inequality|Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men]]'' (1754), Rousseau said that in the primordial [[state of nature]], man was a solitary creature who was not ''méchant'' (bad), but was possessed of an "innate repugnance to see others of his kind suffer."<ref>Lovejoy (1923, 1948) p. 21.</ref>

Moreover, as the ''[[philosophe]]'' of the [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin radicals]] of the French Revolution (1789–1799), ideologues accused Rousseau of claiming that the mythical ''noble savage'' was a real type of man, despite the term not appearing in work written by Rousseau;<ref>Ellingson, Ter. (2001).</ref> in addressing ''The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality'' (1923), the academic Arthur O. Lovejoy said that:

{{blockquote|text=The notion that Rousseau’s ''Discourse on Inequality'' was essentially a glorification of the State of Nature, and that its influence tended to wholly or chiefly to promote “Primitivism” is one of the most persistent historical errors.<ref>Lovejoy, A.O. ''The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality'' (1923) in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 21, No. 2 (Nov. 1923):165–186, Lovejoy's essay was reprinted in ''Essays in the History of Ideas''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, [1948, 1955, and 1960], at [https://www.jstor.org/stable/433742 JSTOR].</ref>}}

In the ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'', Rousseau said that the rise of humanity began a "formidable struggle for existence" between the species man and the other animal species of Nature.<ref>(Lovejoy (1960), p. 23)</ref> That under the pressure of survival emerged ''le caractère spécifique de l'espèce humaine'', the specific quality of character, which distinguishes man from beast, such as [[intelligence]] capable of "almost unlimited development", and the ''faculté de se perfectionner'', the capability of perfecting himself.<ref>Lovejoy (1960), p. 24.</ref>

Having invented tools, discovered fire, and transcended the state of nature, Rousseau said that "it is easy to see. . . . that all our labors are directed upon two objects only, namely, for oneself, the commodities of life, and consideration on the part of others"; thus ''amour propre'' (self-regard) is a "factitious feeling arising, only in society, which leads a man to think more highly of himself than of any other." Therefore, "it is this desire for reputation, honors, and preferment which devours us all . . . this rage to be distinguished, that we own what is best and worst in men — our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors, our conquerors and our philosophers — in short, a vast number of evil things and a small number of good [things]"; that is the aspect of character "which inspires men to all the evils which they inflict upon one another."<ref>Rousseau, ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'' quoted in Lovejoy (1960), p. 27.</ref>

Men become men only in a civil society based upon law, and only a reformed system of education can make men good; the academic Lovejoy explains that:

{{blockquote|text=For Rousseau, man's good lay in departing from his "natural" state — but not too much; "perfectability", up to a certain point, was desirable, though beyond that point an evil. Not its infancy but its ''jeunesse'' [youth] was the best age of the human race. The distinction may seem to us slight enough; but in the mid-eighteenth century it amounted to an abandonment of the stronghold of the [[Primitivism|primitivistic]] position. Nor was this the whole of the difference. As compared with the then-conventional pictures of the savage state, Rousseau's account, even of this third stage, is far less idyllic; and it is so because of his fundamentally unfavorable view of human nature ''quâ'' human. {{omission}} [Rousseau's] savages are quite unlike Dryden's Indians: "Guiltless men, that danced away their time, / Fresh as the groves and happy as their clime" or Mrs. [[Aphra Behn]]'s natives of [[Surinam (Dutch colony)|Surinam]], who represented an absolute idea of the first state of innocence "before men knew how to sin." The men in Rousseau's "nascent society" already had 'bien des querelles et des combats" [many quarrels and fights]; ''l'amour propre'' was already manifest in them {{omission}} and slights or affronts were consequently visited with ''vengeances terribles.''<ref>See Lovejoy (1960), p. 31.</ref>}}

Rousseau proposes reorganizing society with a [[social contract]] that will "draw from the very evil from which we suffer the remedy which shall cure it"; Lovejoy notes that in the ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'', Rousseau:

{{blockquote|text=...declares that there is a dual process going on through history; on the one hand, an indefinite progress in all those powers and achievements which express merely the potency of man's [[intellect]]; on the other hand, an increasing estrangement of men from one another, an intensification of ill-will and mutual fear, culminating in a monstrous epoch of universal conflict and mutual destruction. And the chief cause of the latter process Rousseau, following Hobbes and [Bernard] [[Bernard Mandeville|Mandeville]], found, as we have seen, in that unique passion of the self-conscious animal — pride, self esteem, ''le besoin de se mettre au dessus des autres'' [the need to put oneself above others]. A large survey of history does not belie these generalizations, and the history of the period since Rousseau wrote lends them a melancholy verisimilitude. Precisely the two processes, which he described have {{omission}} been going on upon a scale beyond all precedent: immense progress in man's knowledge and in his powers over nature, and, at the same time, a steady increase of rivalries, distrust, hatred and, at last, "the most horrible state of war" {{omission}} [Moreover, Rousseau] failed to realize fully how strongly ''amour propre'' tended to assume a collective form {{omission}} in pride of [[Race (biology)|race]], of [[nationality]], of [[Social class|class]].<ref>Lovejoy (1960), p. 36.</ref>}}