The Hottentot’s Chain: Pride and Return to Equality in Rousseau’s Second Discourse
2025-11-03
Contrary to a longstanding scholarly view that Rousseau’s Second Discourse , or Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men (1755), is a merely critical text, I argue that this work provides readers with a positive model for exit from corrupt, unequal political society. In the engraved frontispiece illustration, the central figure is an indigenous Hottentot raised by Europeans. He ultimately exits from European civilized society, liberating himself and recovering equality. Yet he retains two European items, a cutlass and a necklace. In correspondence, Rousseau praised this illustration for aligning with his theoretical vision. Yet scholars haven’t fully investigated its significance. Taking into account, for the first time, an overlooked detail—the Hottentot’s so-called “necklace” is actually a constraining chain—I offer a new reading that highlights liberation from inequality. I explain the caption and historically contextualize Rousseau’s Hottentot compared to Rousseau’s European sources. The frontispiece story illustrates both the psychological basis for pernicious political inequality and civil society’s inferiority to “sauvage” life. Further, my reading exposes a novel theoretical aspect of the Discourse : Rousseau’s constructive insight on how civilized eighteenth-century readers should respond to his critique of civilization. Rejecting unequal political arrangements and “returning” to sauvage freedom is a difficult but real option that courageous individuals might freely choose and take pride in. What I call Rousseau’s emancipatory authorship engages readers’ pride or amour-propre and challenges them to seek freedom and equality, or at least gain critical awareness of the pernicious political conditions around them.