Rousseau's descriptions of the savage man are a little hard for me to stomach. He idealizes the state of nature, and makes it sound pure, and naive. He makes the state of nature, a state of survival where man is a very basic being, sound like something we should regret not being a part of. The state of nature was a cyclic time where people lived day to day, rather than looking to the future. Progress was not a goal, it was an accident. Is this really something to strive for? This is strange to me in the context of Modernity because progress is such a poignant theme, and it is something that is nonexistent in this ideal state of nature.
Rousseau takes away humanity in his description of the savage man. His hypothetical man does not care about his offspring, the other sex, or anything. He picks and chooses the basic instincts that his savage man adheres to. The instinct to survive is clearly something that Rousseau's savage man possesses, but what about parental instincts, or group instincts. To Rousseau, these are negative accidental products that followed the state of nature, but who is to say if that is really what they are? I guess I just have a hard time buying into everything Rousseau is saying even if it is a hypothetical situation of our past.
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