A quotation from Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

1712 CE – 1778 CE

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains. He meant it as a diagnosis, not a slogan. The cure he proposed transformed political thought forever.

Rousseau was born in Geneva in 1712, the son of a watchmaker, and spent his life oscillating between revelation and persecution. In 1749, walking to visit Diderot in prison, he had a vision on the road to Vincennes: civilization is not progress but corruption. The arts and sciences have not made us better but worse. Natural man was free, healthy, and innocent. Society, property, and inequality have chained him. He published this argument and became famous overnight. The Social Contract and Emile, both published in 1762, were immediately condemned and burned in Paris and Geneva. He spent years as a fugitive. He died in 1778, two months after Voltaire, whom he despised and who despised him back.