"We are born, so to speak, twice over; born into existence, and born into life; born a human being, and born a man"
About this Quote
Rousseau’s “twice born” line is a neat piece of Enlightenment stagecraft: it takes what looks like a biological fact and turns it into an indictment of society. The first birth is mere arrival, the raw animal entrance into “existence.” The second is the real drama - initiation into “life,” meaning the social world that teaches you what to want, what to fear, who you’re allowed to be. He’s not celebrating maturity so much as pointing to how manufactured it is.
The pivot from “human being” to “man” does double duty. In Rousseau’s vocabulary, “man” isn’t just male; it’s the fully socialized subject, the citizen-in-training, the person shaped by education, custom, and inequality. That shift exposes his central suspicion: nature gives you capacity, but culture supplies the script. And scripts come with power relations. To be “born into life” is to be sorted, trained, disciplined - given a name, a class position, a set of habits that will feel like personality.
Context matters: Rousseau is writing in a Europe where schooling, religion, and etiquette weren’t neutral tools but factories for conformity. In Emile, he argues that education should protect the child’s natural freedom before society can warp it. The line works because it compresses his whole project into a simple metaphor: the second birth is inevitable, but it’s also a political battleground. Who midwifes that birth - family, church, state - decides what kind of “man” you become.
The pivot from “human being” to “man” does double duty. In Rousseau’s vocabulary, “man” isn’t just male; it’s the fully socialized subject, the citizen-in-training, the person shaped by education, custom, and inequality. That shift exposes his central suspicion: nature gives you capacity, but culture supplies the script. And scripts come with power relations. To be “born into life” is to be sorted, trained, disciplined - given a name, a class position, a set of habits that will feel like personality.
Context matters: Rousseau is writing in a Europe where schooling, religion, and etiquette weren’t neutral tools but factories for conformity. In Emile, he argues that education should protect the child’s natural freedom before society can warp it. The line works because it compresses his whole project into a simple metaphor: the second birth is inevitable, but it’s also a political battleground. Who midwifes that birth - family, church, state - decides what kind of “man” you become.
Quote Details
| Topic | Meaning of Life |
|---|
More Quotes by Jean-Jacques
Add to List
