Voltaire writes "I have received, Monsieur, your new book against the human race; I thank you for it; you will please the men to whom you speak their truths, and you will not correct them. You paint with true colors the horrors of human society, whose ignorance and weakness promise themselves so many sweets. No one has ever used so much spirit to try to make us Beasts. It makes one want to crawl on all fours when one reads your work. However, as it has been over sixty years since I lost the habit, I unfortunately feel that it is impossible for me to take it up again.
And I leave this natural allure to those more worthy of it than you and I. Nor can I embark to go and find the savages of Canada, firstly because the illnesses to which I am condemned make a European doctor necessary, and secondly because war is being waged in that country, and the examples of our nations have made the savages almost as wicked as ourselves. I limit myself to being a peaceful savage in the solitude I have chosen near your homeland, where you should be. I confess with you that the beautiful letters, and sciences have sometimes caused much harm. "
Here's an epistolary exchange between Voltaire and Rousseau. Who's right between the two?
I love Voltaire's farcical wit. I take it the 'noble savage' is the target of Voltaire.
I am firmly in Tennyson's 'Red in tooth and claw' school of thought and reject Rousseau out of hand from an abundance of contrary evidence.
Question though. Aside from a ridiculous extreme end point, does Rousseau offer anything of value, in your view, on freedom etc? I tend to think that as soon as one is too theoretic on people and society it rapidly gets silly.
The view that ones own sense of identity from others opinions intrigues me. I had a seminal moment when I asked myself how many peoples opinion of me counted and I only partly got through one hand.
I've always found the idea of the noble savage to be out of touch with reality. I think Rousseau was trying to speak in a more abstract sense than he is attributed with. People, modern liberals especially, like to assume Rousseau's thoughts speak to an equality in the civilizations the Europeans were colonizing.
I don't think that assumption about Rousseau is accurate.
“I’m gonna write about noble savages living in an enlightened anarchy in Nature... while never leaving France or meeting an indigenous Native American. Oh and I’ll also lump them all together into one big happy family—all the Cherokee, and the Creek, and the Lakota, and the Comanche, and the Shawnee, and the Fox, and the Navajo, and the Apache, and the Lenape, and the Chippewa, and the Iroquois, they are all the same. 👍 🙄
Just like how the French and the Germans are alike. 🙄
I think she's assuming that people will have that background knowledge. The philosophers are talking about an idea Rousseau came up with called "the Noble Savage." The Noble Savage is basically a belief that Western/European society was corrupting people, and that indigenous people were more pure than Europeans because the indigenous people were closer to their natural state.
Rousseau believed that the horrible things Europeans were hearing from trading and colonizing ships were caused by European brutality, and that no "savage" would behave the way was being reported if the Europeans hadn't showed up.
