Rousseau and the "stupid savage"

 
Wengrow / Graeber 73: "Rousseau has been accused of many crimes. He is innocent of most of them. If there is really a toxic element in his legacy, it is this: not his promulgation of the image of the 'noble savage,' which he didn't really do, but his promulgation of what we might call the 'myth of the stupid savage'"
 
72: "he strips his 'savages' of any imaginative powers of their own; their happiness is entirely derived from their inability to imagine things otherwise, or to project themselves into the future in any way at all. They are thus also utterly lacking in philosophy."
> from David Graeber and David Wengrow's Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (2021)

> tagged with #tribalism, #philosophy

> created July 23, 2024 at 7:28:09 PM


> part of unfinished everything


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unfinished everything is an original work / ongoing project (1997-present) by jeremy p. bushnell

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