In their various writings, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx both agree on the many sources of inequality in society, citing the diving nature of things like wealth, property, and hierarchical government. However, they have different solutions when speaking about how to solve these issues of inequality and freedom. Marx seeks a sort of all encompassing and immediate change that is broadly appealing, but does not often work. Rousseau, on the other hand, presents broad changes in governance that can be applied in the real world scenarios to do good and cause positive differences in people’s quality of life while also improving society as a whole. When Rousseau says, “man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” in The Social Contract, …show more content…
Attempted revolutions have a terrifying tendency to destroy societies and lead to extreme acts of violence. For example, Roland Joffé’s The Killing Fields follows the story of an American reporter (Sydney Schanberg) and his interpreter (Dith Pran) who are in Cambodia during the country’s civil war and their subsequent paths during the reign of the militant communist group, the Khmer Rouge. Watching Pran’s story in particular highlights the harrowing experiences that many Cambodians went through during the regime change. Even considering the horrific conditions under which Pran lived while working as a laborer and prisoner, he must be considered one of the lucky ones because he did not die. During the Khmer Rouge’s time in power nearly two million Cambodians were killed in a massive genocide of religious and ethnic minorities meant to “purify” the population. The violence and upheaval that the Khmer Rouge caused in their effort to create an equal and communistic society proves that any sort of uprising like Marx imagined would cause entirely too much harm to be palatable on any sort of large …show more content…
Though many may be disillusioned due to the amount of time that it takes for change to truly take root, the slower method is worth it in the long term because it makes the changes more stable. In other words, because Rousseau does not seek the sort of revolution that Marx wants, as history shows that once a revolution has occurred, it becomes that much easier for another group to find a reason to revolt. The world that Marx presents will be constantly watching for the next revolution to occur; there will always be fear of the next great transformation. However, changes that are made in the society like Rousseau pictures, where laws are created and altered by the general will cannot move as quickly or violent and as such the society cannot be as easily destroyed or altered. All of these conclusions reach for a common ending message: a society without stability and peace cannot function at its