ROUSSEAU
Rousseau’s main creative force pre-enlightenment was Christianity, however it had disappeared in the enlightenment, which knocked Christianity from elements of society. The vacuum this left was filled with a “god of the gaps” – a belief in the divinity of nature and romanticism. Rousseau believed mountains were something to marvel at, there is a famous image of him stood on mountains in Switzerland and the image is of him, as an individual stood on the mountain alone, contemplating something great so it seems. He was a key philosopher in the idea of Romanticism, and explained it in a political way.
He believed that listening to waves was a very intense experience, and by doing this eradicated all the pain of the past and anxiety for the future. All that he was left with was the sense of being and this transformed his ideas. The interaction with nature made him believe everything before this was a lie, but that you could find beauty and truth in nature. Romanticism as a new cult of sensibility was a political time bomb, and incredibly controversial. Before this, people had been very pro-science and pro-reason, and it clashed with Romanticism.
Rousseau thought nature was the answer to everything, not reason, and this belief in beauty in nature also applied to mankind. He believed that nature and innocence was beauty, and that civilization had corrupted man. He did not approve of the civilization of the 18th century, and believed in a golden age when the natural man was virtuous, at some point in the past. Humans had become puppets and the noble savage, with no civilization, was purely human, and beautiful.
“No one has used such intelligence to persuade us to be stupid. After reading your book one feels as if one should walk on all fours.” One of many critics of Rousseau; Voltaire did not agree with Rousseau’s dismissal of all the progress humans had made in civilization.
We moved on to Tahiti, and the paradise the primitive people lived in there. With no civilization, humans were closer to an animalistic state, and this is what Rousseau wanted. Compared to Hobbes who he believed animalistic instincts were dangerous, John Locke was quite similar to Rousseau, and thought people were generally good in a state of nature, but believed limited governments were needed to control arguments over property.
ROMANTICISM
It totally contrasts the scientific exact measurements and understanding machine, and it was a reaction against the enlightenment, as Rousseau believed in the supremacy of emotions. With regard to the first ever person to decide he owned his own land, he believed it led to civilization; hence it led to misery and ownership, and passionately believed someone should have stopped them.
“Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains” – Rousseau
He was adamant that humans must return to nature and the goodness of a primitive man was unbeatable, because that is the state in which we are born.
Brian then went on to talk about the significance of ‘the statue’, the idea that civilization has corrupted us and has left us alienated. Rousseau saw civilization as a machine that extinguished passion and heart. The image of ‘the statue’ presents the idea that when it is first put up, it is clean and pure and beautiful, then over time it is worn down and covered in decay; a metaphor for civilization. He believed mankind were trapped by self-esteem, and that the constant competition destroyed self-confidence in humans.
THE SOCIAL CONTRACT
This again links back to both Hobbes and Locke; Hobbes believed that the idea of a social contract was bad, and that one person was needed in charge to keep everybody in order. However Locke had a more liberal point of view. True, he believed in government, but that they should deal with disputes and not interfere personally. He believed that the law should have nothing to do with people not doing anything, you should be free, but there is a limit to the freedom.
“Taking men as they are, and laws as they might be... “
The problem: “Find a form of association, which defends and protects with all the common force, the person and goods of each associate and by means of which each one while uniting with all obeys only himself and remains as free as before”
® Rousseau admits there is no way back to nature, and like a pet released into the wild, it would not survive.
® Taking men as they are – A Machiavellian idea
GENERAL WILL
Rousseau had the idea of a new Utopia, and a new form of government, which would create laws everyone agreed with and everybody would follow, and it would result in no loss of freedom. His idea was that if we all contribute to the shaping of the general will, by obeying the laws that everybody agrees on, essentially we only obey ourselves, therefore the consensus is no loss of freedom. The example Brian used was if there was a new law, that everybody should eat toast for breakfast, and everybody liked toast, then it would not be like obeying a law, you would just be obeying yourself, whereas if you did not like toast, and instead preferred cereal, then there would be a loss of freedom there.
“For it to be driven by appetite alone is slavery and obedience to the law one has prescribed for oneself is freedom”
Direct democracy meant no one person in charge and no representation.
There is a contrast with the liberal point of view though, between the public and private sphere. Rousseau saw the idea that you couldn’t do something in public that you would happily do privately as a loss of freedom. He believed that public and private was the same thing and people should be free within the law.
However the dangers of general will was that it is a new kind of dictatorship, exploiting the tyranny of law, for instance anyone who refused to obey the general will would be “forced to free”. The freedom exists only in service, and our freedom starts where the law begins.
LEGACY OF ROUSSEAU / DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN
The main right for a man is that he is born equal and free and should remain this way in rights. The expression of general would mean that every citizen would have the right to participate personally, of through a representative, in it’s foundation.
The French Revolution in 1789 was one of the biggest events ‘ever’ – we were assured this is no exaggeration. Before the revolution, France was bankrupt, and they just did not have enough money to survive as a country. The King, who was chosen by the ‘Divine Right of Kings’, so apparently chosen by God, could not run the country. It was split into three estates, the first being the Aristocracy, the second being the clergy, and the third was the commoners. The first and second estates were capitalists, and the third were the socialists, who revolted. We also found out that even to this day the Press are often referred to as the fourth estate. The beginning of the revolution was pedantic and slow moving, with the commoners breaking off to assemble their own constitution – the National Assembly. They were heavily influenced by Rousseau, and saw a ‘New Dawn’, where the aristocracy was finished with and they were all about passion and the change of old regimes.
“Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven” – Wordsworth. To be young was to be at your most free. Wordsworth also believed the revolution was bringing Rousseau’s ideas of the ‘natural man’ to life and to action. Wordsworth was there during the revolution as one of the radicals, through all the mayhem, murder and dramatics, which they saw as amazing and blissful. The Revolution changed everything, there were new calendar months, the year numbers started again at zero, and they brought about a ten day week, it was a new world.
It was in the September massacres where things got especially nasty; there was a power vacuum, as nobody knew who was in charge. The rest of Europe wanted to stop the revolution, and there was a general abandonment of reason.
REIGN OF TERROR - named by the government itself
In 1792 it looked like Paris was to be attacked by Prussia, and so Paris citizens at this time were then armed, and in 1793 the King was guillotined, seen as an egalitarian way of execution. Marie Antoinette was also guillotined, as it was seen to show no preferential treatment when it came to death. However the rest of Europe did not agree with or like the revolutionaries killing royalty.
And so the Reign of Terror was announced, as they were deliberately using violence. Robespierre, an influential character in the Revolution, believed this terror was virtuous, and the word of a so-called virtuous person was enough proof to convict someone of being against the revolution, a reason to kill him or her. He saw the terror as a purge, and the only evidence needed was a person of ‘virtue’ to call them counter-revolutionary. The government did not believe in rational thinking.
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
She loved philosophy, and much of her writing was in response to Rousseau, who she found intoxicating and annoying. Working as a governess, her prospects were small and she didn’t expect much. She believed that the education given to women at that time was superficial and shallow. In a way she created education for women, however at first believed she had no voice. Some of her ideas came from Locke, and his idea that if you fully educate someone, it will produce rational, respectable citizens. She saw education as they key to women’s freedom, and was won over by Locke’s idea of the blank slate because she found it liberating. It insinuated that men and women were born equal. She agreed with Rousseau’s egalitarian nature and his hatred of sophistication, and took his ideas of freedom to not just apply to men, but to women too. His description of women angered her, but he also intrigued her. She went to see the French Revolution because it was a huge change of an old regime, and made her think that equality for men and women was a possibility. The world was changing and she wanted to be part of it.
She believed that men and women are both human beings, and should remain non-sexual until they are in love and only then can they assume a gender identity. Her beliefs in equality applied to a professional setting also, and the idea that gender is not important unless developed in a relationship through sexuality. Her idea was to limit areas where men and women were restricted, and believed we could change our destiny by what was put into our minds – education. With the best education, gender would no longer be important.
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