Learning to Be Social

When my children were little, I found myself immersed in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile. Part treatise on education and part novel, Emile calls out the artificiality of social expectations, which can lead to suffering, anxiety, and physical ailments. Rousseau advocates instead for a system of education that can free human beings from the chains of public opinion while fostering virtuous interactions with others. For Rousseau, the arbitrary rules and conventions  imposed by society and well-meaning parents only stifle a child’s capacity to learn.