Reflection

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher in the 1700's. He posited that a person born in a vacuum --- with no social contact that is--- is a moral blank slate with a bent toward goodness.  Only outside influence or something like brain damage would give them an inclination towards evil.  If you had never had any contact of a social nature with other people you would rather help an old lady with her groceries than cut her throat and take them.  This can be seen as the difference between the man and the boy in The Road.  The man is a product of the old world, having just as much social interaction as you or I.  He is hostile to everyone except the boy, threatening them with his pistol.  The boy was born after the end; he only ever had his very loving, if protective, father for interaction.  He is very giving and tries to help everyone he meets or thinks he meets.  The difference could be chalked up to the imbalance of social interaction.  The other characters are all hostile and cannibalistic; save one old man who is heavily implied to have at least been a cannibal, if not a murderer.  The boy, the only non cooked child in the book, is also the only one that seems to genuinely care for his fellow man.  The difference also could be seen as that the boy didn’t live through the atrocities directly after the disaster that ended the world.  The chaos that came after could have so thoroughly psychologically affected the survivors that they simply don’t see what is wrong with their actions.