Rapproche ces contrastes, aime la nature, méprise l'opinion, et connais l'homme. - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.

So here I am, all alone on this earth, with no brother, neighbour, or friend, and no company but my own. The most sociable and loving of human beings has by common consent been banished by the rest of society. In the refinement of their hatred they have continued to seek the cruellest forms of torture for my sensitive soul, and they have brutally severed all the ties which bound me to them. I would have loved my fellow men in spite of themselves. Only by ceasing to be men have they succeeded in losing my affection for them. So now they are strangers, persons unknown who mean nothing to me since that is what they wanted. But what about me, cut off from them and from everything else, what am I? This is what remains for me to find out now.

But unity divides. Unity excludes. Unity polarizes. The corollary of the nation’s unity is the elimination of any individuals or groups that disrupt that unity. People who do not concur with the nation’s interests and goals, who persist in voicing their own private interests, who threaten the nation’s unanimity are considered enemies to be banished or punished. Thus, the Rousseauian yearning for cohesion, solidarity, and oneness imposes the psychology of the purge.