Fares Abbara
Prof. Dania Adra
English 203
Life from Two Perspectives
in Different Times 
The world we live in has evolved over the years and with it
civilizations have evolved as well. Without any doubt our world has become a
more civilized place bounded by numerous rules that deprived us of many
advantages but gave us as much in return. They say a picture is worth a
thousand words, and in the picture above we see what many would call a victim
of the ‘modern’ and ‘civilized’ world, a small kid who was deprived from many
of his rights as a human being, yet despite all the cruelty of life he draws a
wide smile on his face as his picture is taken. Despite the fact that our world
has become a more advanced and civilized place many people have suffered badly
as the same rules that protected some people destroyed others.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in his book “The social contract”
discusses how man was born a free soul yet he is still weighed down by chains
of the people above him who are in turn controlled by people who are even
higher in ranking than them. Although rules were created to protect us, our
leaders –or false idols as I like to call them- have twisted the rules in order
to protect them, so With men as they are and with laws as they could be, can
there be in the civil order any sure and legitimate rule of administration?
(Rousseau 114) In the light of these rules Rousseau continues by talking about the
passage from the state of nature to the civil state and how it remarkably changed
man (Rousseau 114), the change remarkable change in the eyes of Rousseau is
otherwise the opposite, yes people did develop the sense of right and wrong as
he suggested, but even when we knew the difference our instincts did not fade
and greed took over many of us.
Time has changed since Rousseau write this book and the way
in which he saw life after the civil state had emerged is nothing like what we
are living in today. I believe as many others do, that every child has the
right to live a complete life where they go to school and interact with their
friends and when the night comes they have a roof over their heads…..a bed to
sleep on, even parents to read them a bed time story, but unfortunately that
wasn’t the case with my little friend in the picture above and many other
children, women and men. “The voice of duty has taken over from physical impulses
and sense of what is right has taken over from appetite.” (Rousseau 115) If by
the sense of what is right you mean orphaning children, widowing wives, and
killing men for personal gains then the human race has done it right, not only
in Lebanon or the middle east but also everywhere from the far east to the far
west. My voice is nothing but a reminder like the other millions of voices out
there in the world and my picture is a time capsule in Rousseau’s book that shows
us what life has truly become.
Work cited
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, « The Social Contract », Shifting
narratives: a reader for academic writing, Ed. Sinno Z., Bioghlu-Karkawani L.,
Fleszar D., Jarkas N., Moughabghab E., Nish J.M., Rantisi R., Ward A., Beirut :
Educart (Middle East), 2015.Print.
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