"The citizen is always active and in a sweat, always agitated, and unceasingly tormenting himself in order to seek still more laborious occupations. He works until he dies; he even runs to his death in order to be in a position to live, or renounces life in order to acquire immortality." (Pg 80) Are religion and the pursuit of wealth really the suicidal cocktail that Rousseau describes? Would the direction of his writings have changed if he dropped this pessimistic outlook on the Modern age?
"The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say this is mine, and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society." Do you agree that the genesis of the concept of ownership is the root of society? What other reasons explain the origin of civilized society?
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