It would be difficult to designate any particular
"talents" which Rousseau possessed, other than those of a great thinker and philosopher.
He was by nature very suspicious to the point of being paranoid; and believed his
friends were plotting against him. He abandoned his family to live with a common law
wife.
As a thinker, he was without equal. It was Rousseau
who stated that reason and civilization were destructive forces, not advances.
He believed that human beings were fundamentally good; but all this was lost with the
advent of civilization. It was he who developed the concept of the "noble
savage."
He also advocated something he called the "general
will," a concept that he did not clearly define.
Two famous
statements by Rousseau define his philosophy: (1
Everything is good as it comes from the hands of
the Author of virtue; but everything degenerates in the hands of
man.
Also: "men are born
free; yet everywhere they are in chains."
Rousseau's
writings were influential in the French Revolution. Sadly, many dictators used his
arguments about the "general will" to justify their rule, claiming that they ruled by
the general will.
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