Nature as ‘pure’ and society as ‘corrupt’: Rousseau’s early writings put the blame for man’s corrupt nature—his selfishness, his self-aggrandizement, his pleasure at the suffering of others—on...

Nature as ‘pure’ and society as ‘corrupt’: Rousseau’s early writings put the blame for man’s corrupt nature—his selfishness, his self-aggrandizement, his pleasure at the suffering of others—on society’s door. In the state of nature, man’s nature did not have the above attributes. Anything that needs society for its development—the arts and sciences, for example, even reason, is criticized by Rousseau in his early work as antithetical to human well being. What do you think of this conception of the downfall of the ‘noble savage’ in Rousseau’s early work?