The Big Ideas podcast: Rousseau's 'Man is born free'

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's The Social Contract, published in 1762, opens with the following dramatic line: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains". It's a phrase that is quoted frequently by politicians and philosophers alike, but what did Rousseau really mean? Does it hint at the radical nature of his thinking, as Terry Eagleton has argued , or does it show us Rousseau the conservative, profoundly sceptical about the modern world? And is it still relevant to the modern world? In the last episode of The Big Ideas podcast, Benjamen Walker talks to Guardian music critic Guy Dammann , academic Anne Deneys-Tunney and philosopher Paul Audi .