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DarkHunter Since: Jan, 2001
2014-09-14 21:29:21

Don't think of the trope as saying people are fundamentally good, but rather that people are fundamentally not evil.

The trope page actually says that Rousseau held that people are born a blank slate (amoral), inclined to act in their own self-interest but not maliciously. In other words, you might rephrase it not as "People are born good", but "People are born innocent". Generally, when an innocent person does wrong, it's because they did not know it was wrong, hence it can be held as not evil on their part.

The trope describes a story wherein evil is never an in-born trait. No matter what, every living thing starts out not-evil. They may become evil later in their life, but they didn't start that way.

Edited by DarkHunter
ArsThaumaturgis Since: Nov, 2011
2014-09-15 08:23:53

But the trope page does state that it's about a setting in which people are fundamentally good, or at least inclined towards it: the first sentence indicates that it applies to a setting in which "everyone is born as a moral Blank Slate ... with a natural inclination to goodness" (emphasis mine), then goes on to say that Rousseau "did not philosophize that humans in their natural state were actually "good"". The intervening paragraphs further describe people has having some degree of good in them (as in stating that "... some spark of goodness will tend to remain ...").

The paragraph that describes Rousseau's philosophy seems at the moment to be included in order to clarify that Rousseau's philosophy wasn't actually in line with what the trope describes.

I do agree that Rousseau's philosophy could be described as "people are born amoral/innocent", but that doesn't seem to be what the trope describes.

Perhaps I should take this to the Trope Repair Shop?

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