As much as we may tear Rousseau apart in class, his last (& long) sentence in Part Two rung particularly true to me.

It follows furthermore that that moral inequality, authorized by positive law alone, is contrary to natural right, whenever it is not matched in exact proportion with physical inequality - a distinction which sufficiently determines what we ought to think of that form of inequality which prevails among all civilized peoples; for it is manifestly contrary to the law of nature, however defined, that a child should govern an old man, that an imbecile should lead a wise man, and that a handful of people should gorge themselves with superfluities while the hungry multitude goes in want of necessities.

He observes the contradictions of his own society, yet this makes me think of our own. Beyond the the idea of some having too much while others have none, we now observe that the rich stay thin while the poor grow obese. Older, and more experienced employees are fired and replaced with younger ones. Physical strength only gives an upper hand in low-paying labor jobs.

Aesop embodies an epigram not uncommon in human history; his fame is all the more deserved because he never deserved it... In the earliest human history whatever is authentic is universal: and whatever is universal is anonymous. In such cases there is always some central man who had first the trouble of collecting them, and afterwards the fame of creating them... There must have been something great and human, something of the human future and the human past, in such a man: even if he only used it to rob the past and deceive the future.

-G.K. Chesterton, introduction in a 1912 edition of Aesop's Fables.


I just picked up Aesop's Fables and began reading it a couple of days ago. This introduction reminded me of our discussion about Marx and the impossibility of forgetting the mother tongue.