Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was born in Geneva, and eventually ends up in Paris. His mother died 10 later of complications of his birth, and his father was a watchmaker. When his father challenged a man to duel, and the man saw his father as an inferior, he fled to avoid jail and Rousseau was sent to poor relatives. He ends up being taken in by a Madame de Warens who would become his lover. He is a secretary to a diplomat in Venice, where he's repulsed by Zulietta's misshapen nipple, and then in Paris he's attached to Theresa Levasseur. Some make his uneasy relationships and his unpopularity begin in relationships. He sees civilization as corrupting, and wants to bring back in emotions when rationality was being trumpeted. He helped transition from the renaissance to the enlightenment, two huge thought movements of europe. He united people against him, and did not see society as progressing. His going against the prevailing winds made him appreciated in Paris intellectual society. He attracted the attention of the king who wanted to give him a lifetime stipend for his opera, but Rosseau flaked. His opinions about music were controversial, but Rousseau was right, Italian opera buffa was going to be popular because it didn't constrain itself with convention like French music did, and offered a freedom that Mozart would adopt. Rousseau believed in the inherent goodness of humanity, and saw civilization as corrupting, and creating an unnatural inequality. You can listen to his discourse on inequality.

I'm reading Rousseau in 90 Minutes by Paul Strathern and it's pretty saucy.

You can see the antecedents to Concord Transcendentalism. Getting back to nature. You can see the connection to hippy back to the land communes.

Hobbes thought life was brutish and short, and Rousseau thought society corrupted man, so you can put those two on the continuum of getting back to nature or not. Both feel like extreme positions. I'm pretty sure life can suck in many ways, it can be being out in nature, or being in society, and it can be really good in both places.