Voluntary barbarians: Rousseau and anarchist anthropology

Abstract

In the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau suggests a political counter-history that runs parallel to the great narrative of the fall, a non- or minimally entropic history, in which a kind of savage politics appears, practiced by peoples who choose to maintain their way of life, expressing a political conscious desire of not converting themselves to policed societies. Thus, if certain peoples did not have a State, it was not because of incapacity, retardation or cultural inferiority, but simply because they had neither the need nor the desire for it. Contrary to what one might imagine, this is not simply a question of pure primitives instinctively and obstinately rejecting the civilizational universe, but of voluntary barbarians with their constant and conscious political commitment to prevention, avoidance and non-assimilation.