Abstract
Today, the problem of alienation should be recognized as the most fundamental existential problem of the current period. The problem has presented itself in different domains from philosophy and literature to painting and movies. This topic gained its first theoretical formulations only at the beginning of the 19th century in Germany. But it is interesting to know that at the level of political philosophy and before raising the issue of alienation, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in an extremely delicate matter and in a dispute with other thinkers of the mainstream of political philosophy (Hobbes, Locke and others), discussed alienation in the form of “the Will” had paid otherwise. The matter might still be the location of major debate between those who regard political legitimacy to be derived from “power” and those who view the origin of this legitimacy to be the will of the people (realists and democrats).
It is enough to have a look at the news headlines in the Middle East region to see that at the same time as the belief in democracy is spreading among different sections of the people, how much authoritarian governments are trying to justify this approach that when a group is in power, then it has some kind of relative legitimacy. This is because Rousseau (and on a more general level, Marx) present arguments that such justification is not “reasonable” and hence therefore it cannot defend itself for a long time (of course, every rationalism believes that “everything that is rational will come true one day) “). Of course, dialectical thinking must always be attentive, lest “rationality” itself becomes a weapon for power and separates itself from its social origins.
