Why compare an important philosopher to a villain? Well the answer is simpler than it might seem. In the past many comics, books and movies were based on a change proposed to society often portraying the new idea as something bad and the traditional way of doing things as the good that must prevail. Just look to The Wizard Of Oz and how the yellow brick road is supposed to symbolize the safe way of going about things. Any other path in this story would have led to Dorothy’s destruction. The yellow brick road symbolizing the gold standard. In the same way the creators of the Batman comics and Batman begins likely fear what would come if education became more like Rousseau’s idea of education. Both Rousseau and Ra’s Al Ghul from Batman Begins, believe that society is what corrupts man and that people must learn through necessity though Ra’s Al Ghul …show more content…
cannot teach in the way that Rousseau describes. Throughout Rousseau’s writing it is evident that he believes society is what corrupts man.
Rousseau stated “there is no original sin in the heart of man” so how else can he explain immorality that plagues mankind if it is not from a desire to please others (Roussseau 10). If people would stop trying to please everyone else and focused simply on their own needs, then maybe there would be less crime. Rousseau also believes that people are not naturally selfish and the concept of being selfish is taught through society (16). In order to combat this the only way Rousseau knows of is to use negative education for the first 15 years of a man’s life and to leave out morality until he is 15 so that the man can understand reasoning rather than trying to reason with a child who does not understand reasoning and end up in an endless cycle. Rousseau wants the child to learn to live by necessity rather than obedience so that he will never question the tutor’s authority since the tutor is simply there to ensure the child does not die. It is the tutor’s job to speak as little as possible so the child can come to his own
understanding. In Batman Begins there is the antagonist, or “villain,” Ra’s Al Ghul who tries to get the city of Gotham to tear itself apart because he believes the city has become too corrupt to be worth saving. He knows that there are probably a few “good” people still in Gotham, but so many other people are trying to keep those in charge, the corrupt judge and some powerful criminals, happy because they want these people to ensure the safety of those working for them. Ra’s Al Ghul believes that destroying Gotham and all of the corruptness that lies within will lead to the possibility of the world being a better place. Having one less corrupt society to influence the minds of those teaching the next generation. He does not want those corrupt people to teach anyone right from wrong because even they do not know they have simply obeyed those before them. He wants the city to “be allowed to die.” At the beginning of the movie, Bruce Wayne (a.k.a Batman) is in a foreign prison where he meets Ra’s Al Ghul (Batman Begins). There Wayne decides to breakout of the prison and join those living on a mountain. These people are known as the League of Shadows. Bruce is trained by Ra’s Al Ghul in a way where he has to fight back to survive. In a sense Bruce is like Emile and Ra’s Al Ghul is like the tutor as Rousseau describes education should be. Although Rousseau would have preferred if this kind of training/education would have occurred before Bruce had reached adulthood and learned to “reason” in traditional education. This may be one reason why, in the movie, Bruce leaves Ra’s Al Ghul. Though Bruce still seeks to fight injustice using most of his training from Ra’s Al Ghul. The compassion that Ra’s Al Ghul sees in Bruce is what keeps Wayne from following through because Ra’s Al Ghul was not able to teach Bruce before he was taught by society what morality is. This is why the movie portrays Ra’s Al Ghul as a bad guy even though it is not his fault that he cannot teach people at a younger age, the way Rousseau would prefer. Though it may seem foolish to compare a “villain” to a philosopher who had great influence over the period of enlightenment and modern, or progressive, education it is a notion that one can come to thinking rationally. Often people fear change so they try to get others to fear it as well by associating it with something or someone interpreted as bad or evil. Which is what was most likely done in the creating of Batman. People feared that Rousseau would change society. This is why there are so many similarities between Rousseau and Ra’s Al Ghul. But using Rousseau’s ideals for when this form of education should take place also explains why Ra’s Al Ghul failed in teaching his student that morality should come second.
Rousseau, however, believed, “the general will by definition is always right and always works to the community’s advantage. True freedom consists of obedience to laws that coincide with the general will.”(72) So in this aspect Rousseau almost goes to the far extreme dictatorship as the way to make a happy society which he shows in saying he, “..rejects entirely the Lockean principle that citizens possess rights independently of and against the state.”(72)
Jean Jacques Rousseau in On Education writes about how to properly raise and educate a child. Rousseau's opinion is based on his own upbringing and lack of formal education at a young age. Rousseau depicts humanity as naturally good and becomes evil because humans tamper with nature, their greatest deficiency, but also possess the ability to transform into self-reliant individuals. Because of the context of the time, it can be seen that Rousseau was influenced by the idea of self-preservation, individual freedom, and the Enlightenment, which concerned the operation of reason, and the idea of human progress. Rousseau was unaware of psychology and the study of human development. This paper will argue that Rousseau theorizes that humanity is naturally good by birth, but can become evil through tampering and interfering with nature.
Rousseau’s vision however, assumed that people would not have, nor entertain, evil thoughts of one another. Therefore, it allowed a lot of unbridled freedom with the hopeful notion that people, when given the opportunity, would make virtuous choices for the betterment of society (Hergenhahn & Henley, 2014). As history has taught us, referring to Cain and Abel as a prime example, humans are apt to make immoral
He believes that human nature is a very good things but at the same time it has been sorted by society. Rousseau felt that if we would behave more authentically we wouldn 't be living in such a corrupt world but he believes that culture and civilization has been the cause to the destruction of humanity, and that is why we are born fake. Rousseau 's thoughts about a man is solitary but not harmful to others. This being said, men are like animals, searching for ways or survive and satisfy themsevles. This is the reason why a man is not an enemy of a man, because there is a collaboration of surviving together; they depend on each other to struggle and overcome the natural conditions. For Rousseau, he points out that it is to be understood how much less different a man to man has to be in the State of nature and how much inequality must rise in humans through the inequality of social institutions(CITE 32). This part in Rousseau 's writing, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, shows his point of view on the rising inequality in the society between humans and social
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a great philosopher who lived in the Enlightenment. He was a very influential philosopher and “Thinker” he has written many books including The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Rousseau’s theory was in essence that humans were created naturally pure and innocent but over time and new technologies become more evil. He had thought that in the very first light of man he was completely innocent, a being who had no intention to harm anyone else. However as time progressed and the growing capacity for man increased and the
The political philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx examined the role that the state played and its relationship to its citizen’s participation and access to the political economy during different struggles and tumultuous times. Rousseau was a believer of the concept of social contract with limits established by the good will and community participation of citizens while government receives its powers given to it. Karl Marx believed that power was to be taken by the people through the elimination of the upper class bourgeois’ personal property and capital. While both philosophers created a different approach to establishing the governing principles of their beliefs they do share a similar concept of eliminating ownership of capital and distributions from the government. Studying the different approaches will let us show the similarities of principles that eliminate abuse of power and concentration of wealth by few, and allow access for all. To further evaluate these similarities, we must first understand the primary principles of each of the philosophers’ concepts.
However, their opinions as to what exactly constitutes man’s natural state greatly differ, and may even be described as opposites. Hobbes believed that man is selfish and violent by nature, and therefore only acts kind to others for personal reasons. On the other hand, Rousseau believed that man is naturally good and only seems to act unkind because of the influence of outside influences. These ideas greatly influenced their ideas of the morality of man, and what exactly constitutes right and just
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was known for his thoughts that humans are basically good and fair in their natural state but were often corrupted by the shared concepts and joint activities like property, agriculture, science, and commerce (Schmalleger, 2012). He felt that the social contract started when civilized people agreed to establish governments and systems of education that would correct the problems and inequalities that were brought on by civilization (Schmalleger, 2012). Rousseau believed in the formation of a social contract where the government system would fight off the corruption that was brought out. He felt that human rights should be applied to laws (Schmalleger,
...r than its basic needs. In addition, modern man is characterized by self-love or amour-propre. This love for his self and personal property turns man into an individual who thinks of himself in comparison with others. Arguably, therefore, modern man essentially forgot who he is as a human being. Further, humans have moved from aidez-moi, where we begin to look for man's help or subsistence, to aimez-moi, take me or help. Rousseau explores how because natural man has no moral relationships or obligations or social inequality, natural man's situation is better not only for him but society as compared to modern man. For that reason, we can return to the natural, more content state by simply lowering the bar of society in terms of expectations and morality.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher that helped develop concepts such as general will, and improved on the early norms on child-raising. Born in Geneva, he was a “citizen” of the city. “Citizens” were the two hundred members of the Grand Council of Geneva, which made most of the political decisions in state. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an important part of the Enlightenment. He led an interesting life, as told by his three memoirs, had a solid philosophy, did not believe in reason, and left a lasting legacy that still affects us today.
The classic comic book character Batman, played by Christian Bale in the motion picture has an astonishingly complex character that is illustrated well with Aristotle’s perspective. Batman has two distinct characters, the one under the mask, Bruce Wayne and the one covered by the mask, Batman. Both have different sets of virtues that the other does not necessarily have. To explain these virtues, I will attempt to do an analysis of Batman based on Aristotle’s virtue. Then I will determine if he has a good life and whether others should mimic it.
The former, a product of the human empathy and responsible for the preference of seeing no harm come to other living creatures so long at the latter is maintained. Together these maxims form the basis of the savage man’s natural state and, by extension, his tenancy of gentleness towards his fellow man (121). The civilised man, in contrast, comes to be as a result of “perfectibility”. Perfectibility, according to Rousseau is an innate human attribute to want to learn and better oneself, particularly to overcome obstacles in one’s environment. Rousseau’s description of perfectibility implies that the conditions of one’s environment have a direct influence over their character and that one can therefore deduce that regardless of man’s natural gentleness, he can develop the capacity to be cruel if so prompted by elements in his environment. Such a prompt comes as man looks to collaborate with others out of mutual self-interest. Rousseau notes that, “their connections become more intimate and extensive … there arose on one side vanity and contempt, on the other envy and shame … Men no sooner began to set a value upon each other, and know what esteem was, than each laid claim to it … It
Both Hobbes and Rousseau have different even opposing views on the topic of the natural state of man. These views play a major role on their beliefs and reasoning for why man needs society and government. These beliefs can be easily summarized with Hobbes believing in an inherent selfishness and competition in man, whereas Rousseau’s views on things is far more positive, believing that man is far happier in his natural state, and the root of his corruption is the result of his entrance into society. Rousseau’s theory is based on a state prior to the formation of society and any form of government. Thomas Hobbes, the founding father of political philosophy and who was in great opposition to the natural state of man, emphasizes that all people are selfish and evil; the lack of governmental structure is what results in a state of chaos, only to be resolved by an authority figure. Hobbes’s initial argument of natural state, in human nature, proves how society is in a constant state of destruction, mentally and physically, if not under controlled or command. Although Hobbes’s opinion was morally correct, Rousseau believes that all people are born in a state of emptiness, somewhat of a blank state and it is life experiences that determine their nature, society being a major driving force for people’s ill-will and lack of moral sensibilities. Hobbes, overall, is proven correct because all people need to be directed in order for society to properly function.
Rousseau came to the conclusion that the best way to examine the inequality in society is to examine the beginning of mankind itself. He tried to imagine the early state of man assuming there was ever actually a state where man existed only with the nature, in a solitary, and primitive lifestyle. He did not however revert as far back to the idea of the Neanderthal man to examine the ideas man held and where they came from. Instead, he looked at a state where man looked, and seemed to have the same physical abilities as he does today. Rousseau also concedes that a time where the ideas of government, ownership, justice, and injustice did not exist may not have ever existed. If what many religions tell us is true, then, in mans beginning, he was from the start, handed down laws from god which would influence his thinking and decisions. Through this, the only way such a period could come about would have to be through some catastrophic event, which would not only be impossible to explain, but consequently, impossible to prove. Therefore, imagining this state could prove not only embarrassing, but would be a contradiction to the Holy Scriptures.
...gainst the state and the general will. Rousseau contends that, “every offender who attacks the social right becomes through his crimes a rebel and traitor to his homeland” (Rousseau 65). Once this offense has been undertaken, the criminal is longer a member of society and is now viewed as an enemy. The state’s preservation is at odds with the preservation of the offender and therefore the offender must be put to death. Also, Rousseau feels that the danger of members trying to enjoy the benefits of civil society without performing their required duties is a serious threat to civil society. Such actions must be constrained by all other citizens and offenders to this agreement must be “forced to be free” (Rousseau 55). This is a rather paradoxical argument as the idea of forcing someone to be free hardly works in most people’s definition of freedom. What is essential to remember here is that Rousseau believes that the true form of freedom can only come about once an individual enters civil society and accept the terms of the social contract. Therefore by forcing someone to adhere to society’s order, you are really granting them with civil freedom, the most important freedom of all.