“With so few sources of illnesses, man in the state of Nature has, then, little need for remedies, and even less for Doctors; in this respect, too, the human species is no worse off than all the others, and one can easily find out from Hunters whether they come across many unhealthy animals in their treks” (Discourse on Inequality)
There’s been a recent viral outbreak in Wuhan that has been all over global news as of late. Society has forced everyone away from the state of nature, where they would naturally spread out. In nature, people are foremost concerned with basic and personal needs and not worried too much about what others are doing. In order for everyone to have adequate resources from the natural world, people wouldn’t tend to be very close together and steal from each other, but would instead move on to different areas that contain more resources. Without society, there would never exist such high population densities that we see in our largest cities, and this allows for rapid expansion of diseases. The fact that the people of Wuhan have been forced to rely on the artificial government for meeting many people’s basic needs as opposed to providing for oneself and living off of nature has led to civil unrest because the government has been unable to deliver supplies to many. People naturally realize the many disadvantages of society and the lack of capability government has in meeting basic needs during states of emergency. People place power in government in return for meeting basic needs of the people, but many times society fails to reciprocate and needs aren’t met. (Also, sorry this is late.)
I do have to disagree with the last part of the section where you argued that people place power in the government yet the society fails to reciprocate. This disagreement comes from the fact that government and the society can not simply be drew together. Government does not represent the society and therefore simply can not carry every job that the society itself requires. The topic about whether the government fulfills its job in the virus outbreak is going to be long but I do want to point out, as I indeed don’t have enough knowledge base nor the energy to establish one to comment or debate about such topic, that solely blaming the government for the chaos of the society is indeed a mistake and it is a total misinterpretation of the enlightenment liberalism.
I mean, I think there is something to the fact that living in society leads to diseases–urbanization and the like create new and intimate environments, and are often quite unsanitary. This provides a good breeding ground for new diseases to evolve and spread more rapidly than possible in a state of nature. Further, as societies tend towards stricter food safety standards, what kinds of preservatives and ingredients can be included in products, etc., our immune systems certainly become “nurtured” to some extent, making us “weaker” than we may otherwise be if our food wasn’t monitored with such strictness. That being said, all data indicates that overall health, life expectancy, etc. are the highest they’ve ever been–this is due to, in large part, the medical innovation and technological advancement that comes with societal and cultural growth. There are points to be made on both sides, and I think it’s quite rash of Rousseau to assume society only leads to worse health outcomes because of new diseases.
Although it is true that the government is not doing enough to support its people in their time of need. I think it’s more important for us to acknowledge what the government does provide for the people. Having a society allows people from all over the places to come together and share opinions and ideas. One such example is the University that we are attending right now.
If we are in our natural state we would have small community of people working together to provide for each other. If such community were to be infected with the virus it would be able to provide for the people because the population is much smaller. But it would not have the unified knowledge to research and innovate medicines to save the people.
I think the positives of living in a society far outweigh the cons. If someone were to live isolated in nature, they would have no easy access to utilities and services such as hospitals and markets. Additionally, there are far more diseases in the wildnerness such as the vast diseases that mosquitoes carry and not having access to a hospital would be fatal. It is also near impossible for a government to fulfill every single need a society needs. In terms of coronavirus, I am sure the Chinese government is doing everything in its power to contain the situation but given the rapid spread of the disease, it is quite difficult.