okay I'm starting to see why that random "which philosopher should you read" quiz i took a decade ago said Rosseau. i only read his stuff when I'm really bored so i haven't finished it still

Any TL;DR on why you think Rosseau is the philosopher that fits you best? The only thing I know of Rosseau is the "Social Contract Theory" and this TV Tropes article:
https://tvtropes.org/...

So:
- social contract theory
- humans are inherently good

it was a random quiz someone linked over a decade ago i dont actually absorb much of what I'm reading it's too much a product of its time and I'm not smart enough to recontextualize

The TV Tropes article has this to say tho:

> Jean-Jacques Rousseau did not philosophize that humans in their natural state were actually "good", but rather humans who are without a social contract have no morality/concept of good and evil and as such, will act in their own self-interest but cannot do so maliciously—

> that is to say, that people are naturally innocent in the same way children are commonly understood to be.

what even is this huhu

Mark (CG) : I think you might be better off reading the summaries first, so that you have an idea of what to watch out for when reading the original works.

Faramond : I'm feeling worse reading this than reading "wages of destruction" which was a book by an economist debunking the myth of Hitler being good for the German economy

that was a hard read because it's drowning in statistics and economic realities, but at least i can see the point from "farm outputs were down because they turned farmers into soldiers" to "ih my god Hitler made it so they HAD to go to war and loot other countries otherwise they'd be bankrupt as fuck"

Mark (CG) : Thought so~
I think philosophical treatises are some of the hardest reading out there. And it's telling that I haven't seen Rosseau being on the list of "hardest philsophers to read". (I think Hegel takes this throne.)

It also doesn't help that these philosophers are engaged in some kind of dialogue that exists across space and time. And thus, like the MCU, there's a lot of required reading before even attempting to read a particularly modern (or post-modern) philosopher.