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Rousseau Claimed People Are Born Free

And thus became the father of modern democracy

Shefali O'Hara
4 min readDec 14, 2022
Photo by visuals on Unsplash

The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau said “Man is born free and everywhere is in chains”.

I wrote another article based on this in which I focused on happiness:

In this article, I will focus on freedom.

Rousseau is an important thinker whose ideas inspired modern democracy. He believed the natural state of mankind was goodness and freedom and society should nurture these qualities.

Most of the people reading this article live in a relatively free society. For those who think we don’t, consider the condition of those who live in places like theocratic Iran, communist North Korea, or communist China.

The lack of freedom under authoritarianism

In China, peoples’ lives are heavily controlled. I often watch videos by China Uncensored which document how the Chinese Communist Party exercises control over the lives of citizens. Western media has documented the country’s…

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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