Rousseau and the Romantics

Rousseau

A brief biography:

He was born in 1712 in Geneva and lived most of his life on the breadline, travelling from plave to place. He had many associations with elderly female aristocrats but was as good as married to a servant who was not generally considered attractive and was illiterate with no education to speak of. She has been described as adulterous and ugly and no-one could understand why Rousseau stayed with her. They had 5 children together, but Rousseau took each of them to an orphanage. One of his first pieces of writing was on how children should be educated (seems rather ironic). Rousseau was by no means rational, rather he was led by his emotions and was very passionate, believing in sentiment rather than practicality or rationality. He dissagreed with Hobbes and Locke on many subjects and had several arguements with Voltaire, especially when he moved to the same city. Rousseau's ideas were extremely influential in the French revolution (as will be shown later). He himself was very influenced by the Greeks and in particular their idea of the "citizen". As the story of Socrates, told by Plato, shows, we are all part of a society and if we take and accept the benefits we therefore have to accept the pitfalls ie, as Socrates was sentenced to death by his society, he must accept it as he had benefitted from the same society.

Basic Principles:

Before looking at the Social Contract, for which Rousseau is most famous, his basic principles must be touched on. Rousseau, like Hobbes and Locke, spoke about a "state of nature", however his view of this was very different to either Hobbes' chaos or Locke's natural laws. Rousseau saw the "state of nature" as going further back, to when we were born free and animalistic, before any kind of society or government came along to distort us and limit our freedom. However, he recognised that society is a necessary evil. Rousseau said that at some point, before society, we entered a contract which meant that government and society arose.

A quick summary of Hobbes' state of nature for comparison:

The natural state is animalistic, destructive and chaotic, so the people came together to put a stop to it by electing a leader with god-like power who had 2 things that he must do and as long as he did these two things, he could do anything else he wanted. These to things were to 1) protect the individuals and 2) protect the country. The most able person was chosen by the people to carry this out, with nothing to do with God. The people handed over all of their rights by entering the contract. Hobbes also said that we are rational beings and through our brains we discover natural rights that are within us and cannot be either given away or taken from us.

A quick summary of Locke's state of nature for comparison:

The natural state is one of goodness, however problems inevitably occur and so an overall power is needed to defend the rights and property of the individual. Locke's primary concern was therefore with property of the individual rather than the collective. This view was very influential in the US constitution.

Rousseau also dissagreed with Locke on the focus of society. Locke saw the focus as the individual and their rights and possessions, with the view that to own things was your right, however Rousseau argued that "the earth belongs to us all. The earth belongs to no-one". This means that the community owns things, not the individual. He beleived that although those on the breadline in, for example, england, were better off in material comforts than, say North American Indians who were seen as savages, the savages were closer to the state of nature and therefore more highly valued.

Rousseau saw society as the problem because it brought with it self-seteem, meaning that we started to see ourselves from the point of view of others which is detrimental to our wellbeing. He saw this as the cause of most inequality. Therefore, the progress of civilisation is responsible for all of our miseries, but Rousseau accepts that we cannot returen to a state of nature. He said "taking men as they are and laws as they might be" which is a clear attack on Hobbes and Locke and very reminiscent of Machiavelli's Prince. He is saying that we have to be realistic and look at how men are in reality, including all their failings, fears and drawbacks.

Therefore, the problem that Rousseau outlined was to: "find a form of association, which defends and protects with all 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". This is combining the approaches of Hobbes, Locke and himself and as a result sounds great, but is very unpractical! The solution that he came up with is the Social Contract. At this point it needs to be remembered that Rousseau was writing from France where Loius the 14th was ruling and the divine right of the unrelenting Catholic Church was smothering the views and lives of the ordinary people and they therefore had no voice and no power. Therefore Rousseau's alternative seems fantastic and is therefore very persuasive.

The Social Contract

Rousseau's idea of the General Will meant that he thought that there must be a direct democracy rather than a representational democracy. All the associates in the contract contribute to shaping the general will and are basically obeying themselves and their natural will, but everyone does this together. Rousseau wanted everyone to be active citizens and said that "For it to be driven by appetite alone is slavery and obedience to the law one as prescribed for oneself is freedom". Therefore our state of nature is naturally compassionate, so we do not want to see others in bad situations or discomfort, therefore we all come to a general agreement as we all have common ideas. This general agreement would become law. (This is vaguely reminiscent of Leibnitz's philosophy that we are all separate entities that do not interact but follow similar but unique paths.) Rousseau believed that there would be no conflict of ideas (in contrast to Hobbes) and that the general will would become law. He said that we should keep the power to ourselves rather than giving it to third parties. This vision also contrasted greatly with the liberals such as Locke, who thought that there should be a clear division between the public life of adhering to laws and the private life in which we are free to do anything we want. In response to this idea, Rousseau said that you are always free as you agreed on the general will and therefore there is no difference between the public and private lives.

However, this kind of thinking brought about a lot of danger in the form of the possibility of a new kind of dictatorship because the law becomes so fundamentally important to society. The danger is that it could become a tyranny as Rousseau said that if anyone refused to obey the general will, they would be forced to do so and therefore "forced to be free" (which would competely defeat the point). Another problem with this is that it would have to be decided by the majority of associates, or citizens, as there will never be complete agreement. Therefore freedom exists only in service; our freedom starts where the law begins.

The French Revolution

At the time of the French Revolution, Rousseau was no longer alive, however his ideas lived on and were very influential on the revolution. This can especially be seen on the piece of legislation introduced, "The declaration of the rights of men":

"Men are born and remain free and equal in life"
"The principle of all sovereignty resides essentiall in the nation" (the sovereignty comes directly from the people).

The similarity can be found in Rousseau's statement that "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains"

The basic idea of this legislation and Rousseau's thought is that the law is the expression of the general will and every citizen has the right to participate personally, or through his representative, in its foundation. Therefore the law is an expression of the people's concencus.

He also very much influenced the views of the time on civil religion and its emergence as one religion for the whole nation. This was based on the idea that God created the world and then left us to get on with things and was therefore not influential in everyday life. This approach saw God as a "supreme being" but not as generally active in the world. The idea of this "civil church" was to get away from all the different factions of religion and to take the power from established religion such as the Catholic church so that it was more equal.

The French revolution was based on Rousseau's encouragement of freedom and a wild and chaotic abandonment of the senses. This was reinforced by the guillotine which brought the classes together in punishment and turned the revolution into a massacre, known as the "great terror". This was a direct result of Rousseau as he had encouraged them to let their passions run free. This lead to the beheading of the King of France and it is important to know that one of Rousseau's disciples was head of "the committee for public safety" which dealt with the guiollotine.

Another important viewpoint of Rousseau was that he was against science and "enlightenment", arguing that it distorts us and alienates us from our true self and the "state of nature". Therefore he thought that focus on the mind was wrong .

Romanticism

Rousseau is seen as the founding father of romanticism which celebrates the idea of the uniqueness of the individual and the goodness of the primitive man or "noble savage". Also celebrated is the rural over the urban and the aesthetic over the utilitarian standards. For example, comedies of manners were popular during the romantic period as they showed the need to give in to animal emotions and be "true" and "natural". Therefore manners were not a true representation of what it is to be human. The Romantic movement was a reaction against enlightenment (again showing Rousseau's influence) and believed in the supremacy of emotions. Therefore, Romantics were often as far removed from society as possible so that it would not corrupt them. Another example of Romanticism is the gothic style, and the story of Fankenstein. Pathetic phallacy also shows romantic ideas as nature and emotions are irrevocably linked and the primitive passions of emotions are shown to be easily transferable.

However, there was a troubling side in the form of Romantic nationalism. Romanticism was characterised by a revival of ancient myths and countries by artists to distinguish indigenous cultures, looking into the past to try to bring diverse countries together. This creates national feeling using the national past, which is shown as having a purpose and driving towards something. This is dangerous as it can easily be distorted to things such as racism and can be seen as what led to the first World War. These ideas can be found reflected in much German thought, which Rousseau was highly influential in, such as Hegel who said that we can only be free when we give ourselves over to the general will. Also important about the Romanticism era is that women and their role in society start to be thought about, if only a little, whereas previously, no-one had considered this.

Popular Culture references for romanticism include:

music: dark, emotional, flowing and unstructured
literature: Frankenstein (satire on Locke as the monster is completely defined by others and is not natural so is destroyed)
John Lennon's "imagine"
"easy rider" film
"born to be wild" film
"mad mas ace of spades" film (shows a Hobbesian view)
time = a social agreement rather than a natural state