Are You Ready to Sign Rousseau's Social Contract?

Does freedom actually exist anywhere on Earth? More specifically, is freedom to be found in the civilized world? The idea of absolute freedom is a gorgeous one; it is one that every human being aspires to. But is absolute freedom really possible? Some would argue that complete freedom can be found only in nature; in the savage wilderness. Despite this, wars have been and continue to be fought in the name of liberation and bringing freedom to citizens under the grip of one kind of oppression or another. Typically, however, these people wind up merely trading one kind of oppression for another and never experience the freedom they were promised.

Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote about this very idea when he stated that all men are born free, but live in bondage. The paradox is that civilization cannot exist without that bondage. Rousseau is perhaps most famous for devising a contract by which a price must be paid in order to obtain a level of freedom that is necessarily less than complete; the terms of the contract stipulate that each member of a society must accept certain responsibilities that serve to impose and maintain social order. In the event massive portions of the population disregard those responsibilities the result is either fascism or anarchy.

Rousseau's Social Contract, as it is called, is hardly original. Theories of social order based upon a collective sense of the good for the many were put forth by Plato and Cicero. Many of Christ's teaching in the Bible-stripped of their perversion by the Church-certainly entertain ideas consistent with Rousseau in that the community bears responsibility for maintaining order. In addition, the Social Contract contains many ideas that Marx later espoused.