The problem with the discourse on inequality amongst men:
There is a glaring fault of logic in Rousseau’s Second Discourse. I will illustrate it using an analogy, then explain why they are comparative.
A Discourse on the reasons Jason Lieblang became a professor:
Jason began his life the son of a bread maker in the midst of the prairies in Canada. He had 3 siblings, triplets, all 10 years older than himself. When he was 14, he read his first book. He was immediately hooked, and from then on couldn’t stop reading. Book after book was ingested by Jason, from English literature to graphic novels, he devoured all. He dropped out of school and became a bread maker with his father and mother, but regretted it before long. He had no education, a love of books, and a professional relationship with yeast. When Jason turned 20, having made just enough money to buy a train ticket to Vancouver, he left home and came to the west coast. Befriending the head of the university in a chance encounter at a second hand sport store, Jason was offered a position teaching German (which he had never studied). He took the job, and managed to keep a lesson ahead of students by taking online classes, eventually, and relatively quickly, taught himself the language in turn. From here, Jason was himself a professor.
Ok, now: why this is the same as the discourse on inequality. THE PREMISES ARE INVENTED. Every reason, every inferential move, every fact is false. I don’t know the first thing about Jason’s childhood, nor do I know why he wanted to become a professor, and I particularly have no clue about his education. Doesn’t this remind us of Rousseau? In the same way that Jason was a “bread maker”, original/natural man was a peaceful being, in human form, who never conflicted with the others in his species. Hold on? Why and when and how did he come up with this? We might forgive him due to it being the 18th century when it was written, but then, I’m not a nice guy, so I won’t forgive him! If you’re righting a discourse on inequality and are determining when and where it arises from, you can’t begin the chronology with a lie! My whole argument, even if in the end correct (Jason does indeed become a professor), was predicated on invented facts which will be disproven, in the same way we know the state of nature as described by Rousseau just didn’t look the way he describes. There was brutality, unhappiness, relationships, and families from the beginning of the human society. It seems logical to assume property existed in some way; in the sense that if I set up camp somewhere, I will defend it, and it is my property- at least while I’m living there- and will fight anyone who challenges that right.
His argument is wrong because his starting point is wrong. EVEN IF he is right about property being the foundation for inequality, his ARGUMENT to get there is entirely faulty and has to be rejected.
Nature is not kind, Jason did not make bread.