Human nature and politics in the political thought of J.-J. Rousseau

In the state of nature man leads a relatively peaceful life because freedom and equality are inherent to his nature. However he has no relationship with his fellow man. However Rousseau concedes him the quality to improve himself: perfectibility. It is by virtue of this perfectibility that man progressively passes from animality to humanity i.e. from dispersion to group life or socio-political life. Perfectibility thus ensures the adequacy between the state of nature and the political state and denotes that the natural order is mutable. Thus humanity is played out in life in society. However society carries within itself the seeds of conflict. All evils are social realities and not natural because society is not natural. But is this situation immutable? Rousseau's answer is no! Because on the basis of a rational social contract intelligible to the ante-political human prerogatives the man can change the social order. From this point of view Rousseau's political thought is not obsolete; on the contrary it offers us conceptual tools capable of emancipating society from any arbitrary political order.