Rousseau and the Dawn of the French Romantic Age
"Just as little as Rousseau's contract social, which brings the subjects independent of nature into relationship and connection by contract, is based on such naturalism." Marx, On the Critique of Political Economy
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a philosopher, writer, and musician of the 18th century and broadly considered one of the fathers of the Romantic age. Born in Geneva in 1712, he was largely self-taught and developed a passion for literature, music, and philosophy from a young age. His life was marked by personal struggles and political controversy and he had to move several times to flee persecution, but his ideas and works would go on to have a profound impact on philosophic history. His infamous phrase “Man is born free, but everywhere is in chains” still rings today throughout society, although Rousseau is not as widely read as Nietzsche or Dostoevsky, who have a significant following to this day.He was the first to use the dichotomy of Proletariat and bourgeoisie , and one of the first advocates of Democracy. While he is known today as primarily a philosopher, he was a successful playwright- his novel Julie ou la Nouveile Heloise of 1761 was one of the biggest novels of the 18th century. Rousseau's most famous work, "The Social Contract," outlines his political philosophy, which centers on the idea that society should be based on the general will of its citizens. He argues that the state exists to serve the common good, and that individuals should be willing to sacrifice their personal interests for the good of the community, writing:
Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole.
Rousseau lived in the shadow of Voltaire, and Diderot lived in the shadow of Rousseau.Rousseau founded his theories on Sociology and International Relations on a belief in the inherent goodness of human beings, a concept that he refers to as the "noble savage." This concept was criticized by many as naive and unrealistic even in his day, and his views on education were seen by some as impractical, especially by Voltaire, who published a letter arguing this. The new field of Psychology demolished this view entirely, as both Freud and Jung completely opposed Rousseauian optimism. His personal life was also marked by darkness, including his abandonment of his children and his rocky relationships with friends and acquaintances. Schopenhauer likewise believed that the Will, the inherent nature of man, was irrational, unknowable and immoral, so he opposed Rousseau’s views as well. He writes in The World as Will and Representation Part II:
Rousseau's entire philosophy is that he substitutes for the Christian doctrine of original sin and the original depravity of the human race an original goodness and unlimited perfectibility of the same, which would have gone astray only through civilization and its consequences, and now bases his optimism and humanism on it.
Rousseau believed that humans are blank slates, and that society corrupts them. Rousseau believed that society should be structured in a way that allows individuals to express their natural goodness and creativity, rather than suppressing it, and institutional changes are all that is needed to build a healthy society. The bloodbath that followed the implementation of these utopian ideas of social equity across the 19th and 20th century would definitively disprove this optimism of the human spirit, as would the field of Psychology.
Rousseau's views on education were also influential. He believed that education should be focused on the development of the individual, rather than on the acquisition of knowledge and skills. In his words, "The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives." He argued that children should be encouraged to explore their interests and develop their natural abilities, rather than being forced to conform to societal norms and expectations- this is still a struggle in today’s education systems.
Rousseau and Perpetual Peace
Rousseau lived through the Enlightenment, which emphasized reason and scientific inquiry over all else, as well as the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. Rousseau's works, particularly "The Social Contract," were influential in shaping the political ideologies of these events, and his ideas on education and individualism helped to lay the groundwork for the Romantic movement that would emerge in the late 18th century. Rousseau's belief in the importance of individual freedom and creativity would inspire Romanticism, a cultural movement that emerged in the late 18th century and emphasized emotion, imagination, and individualism. In the words of historian Isaiah Berlin, "The Romantic movement was largely a reaction against the Enlightenment...Romanticism was born in protest against the tyranny of reason, of the state, of society over the individual."
Rousseau was critical of the political and philosophical thought of Hobbes and Locke. For him, political systems based on economic interdependence and self-interest lead to inequality, selfishness and ultimately bourgeois society (a term he was one of the first to use). He wanted neither a return to to Aristotle, the old republicanism or to Christian morality (however, all of his basic moral axioms are Christian in origin). His entire theory of perception is deeply Platonic. His emphasis on the general will and the common good would become important concepts in political philosophy, and helped build the foundation of the liberal international order where state sovereignty is subservient to the sovereignty of the people.
Kant’s critically important manuscript 1795 On Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Draft is heavily influenced by Rousseau’s social theory. Abbé de Saint-Pierre’s three-volume work "Mémoires pour rendre la paix perpétuelle en Europe" was presented to Kant in the excerpt Rousseau made from it in 1761 and enriched with his own ideas and inspired him to write his peace treatise. Here Kant directly applies his Teleological Moral Philosophy he established across his life directly to the field of politics and International Relations. However, Kant did not hold to the absolute inherent goodness of man, and argued a submission to an absolute, immutable rational axioms of morality is necessary to building a just society. To Kant, world peace is not a philanthropic or sentimental topic, but the inevitable result of the Categorical Imperative, that is, pure a priori reason that is intrinsically Teleological. In the Definitive Article he writes: "The law of nations shall be founded on a federalism of free states… By the malice of human nature... which reveals itself unmistakably in the free relation of nations…”
Due to this broken and inherently evil, inherited nature of man, peace is not natural and must be built through adherence to rational maxim on the individual, national and international levels. These binding international laws have built the foundation of anti-Machiavellian Liberal Internationalism. On Perpetual Peace is one of the foundational philosophic works the international world order, and the charter of the United Nations, was built upon.
The United Nations was founded by Woodrow Wilson, who was a Kantian philosopher, and explicitly used Kant's terminology "league of nations". The imperative under the UN and post-WWII International Relations is inherently Kantian. The Kantian Imperative these “Preliminary Articles” was built upon is inherently Anti-Machiavellian. Kant established the principles that would be enshrined at Westphalia: the non-interference in the internal affairs of another state and that "no state debts shall be incurred in relation to external state dealings". This work was designed to be a template for future agreements between states, hence the reason it is written like a legal contract. This basic framework of a social contract focused on the common good is thoroughly Rousseauian.
Hegel, in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, dialogues on the importance of Rousseau:
Now, however, this also came to light, that pure thinking is set up as principle and as content, even though this content again lacked the true form, the consciousness of its proper form; for it was not recognized that this principle was thinking. We see it emerging in the field of the will, of the practical, of the legal, and conceived in such a way that the innermost part of man, the unity of himself with himself, is established as the basis and brought into consciousness, so that man gained an infinite strength in himself. This is what Rousseau then said about the state from one side. He asked about its absolute justification: What is the basis of the state? The right of domination and connection, the relation of order, of governing and being governed, of subordination to domination, he conceives on one side as being historically based on force, coercion, conquest, private property, and so on. α) But he makes free will the principle of this right. And without regard to the positive right of the states he answered to the above question that man has free will, in that freedom is the qualitative of man. "To renounce one's freedom is to renounce that one is a man. Not to be free is to renounce all duties and rights." The slave has neither rights nor duties. β) "The fundamental task is therefore: to find a form of union which, with all the common power, at the same time protects and defends the person and property of each man, and whereby each individual, by joining this union, obeys only himself and remains as free as before. The resolution is given by the "social contract"; it is this union, each one is in it with his will. These principles, thus abstractly presented, must be found correct; but the ambiguity then soon begins. Man is free; this is, of course, the substantial nature of man; and it is not only not abandoned in the state, but is in fact first constituted. The freedom of nature, the disposition of freedom, is not the real one; for the state is only the realization of freedom. (γ) The misunderstanding of the general will, however, begins with the fact that the concept of freedom must not be taken in the sense of the accidental arbitrariness of each, but in the sense of the rational will, of the will in and for itself. The general will is not to be regarded as composed of the expressly individual wills, so that these remain absolute. Where the minority must obey the majority, there is no freedom. But the general will must be the rational one, even if one is not conscious of it. The state is not such an association, which decides the arbitrariness of the individuals. The oblique conception of those principles does not concern us. What concerns us is this, that through it, as content, comes into consciousness that man has freedom in his spirit as the par excellence absolute, that free will is the concept of man. Precisely freedom is thinking itself; he who rejects thinking and speaks of freedom does not know what he is talking about. The unity of thinking with itself is freedom, the free will, - thinking only as wanting, i.e. drive to cancel its subjectivity, relation to Dasein, realization of it, by wanting to equate myself as existing with myself as thinking. The will is free only as thinking. The principle of freedom has risen and has given this infinite strength to the man who grasped himself as infinite. - This gives the transition to the Kantian philosophy, which in theoretical respect was based on this principle. The cognition has gone on its freedom and on a concrete content, on content which it has in its consciousness.
Nietzsche and the Romanticism of the French Revolution
Nietzsche hated Rousseau, but to be fair, he hated everybody. He saw Rousseau as the epitome of weak naiveté, a brutal critique that is so harsh it borders on comedy. In Twilight of the Idols he rants:
People like Rousseau know how to use their weaknesses, gaps, vices, as it were, as fertilizer for their talent... like everything that comes from Rousseau, false, made, bellows, exaggerated. I can't stand this colorful wallpaper style; just as little as the rabble-rousing ambition for generous feelings.
Rousseau, this first modern man, idealist and canaille in one person; who needed the moral "dignity" to endure his own aspect; sick with unbridled vanity and unbridled self-contempt. This freak, too, which has camped itself at the threshold of the new time, wanted "return to nature" - to where, asked again, did Rousseau want to return? - I still hate Rousseau in the revolution: it is the world-historical expression for this duality of idealist and canaille. The bloody farce with which this revolution played itself out, its "immorality", concerns me little…
What I hate is its Rousseauian morality - the so-called "truths" of the revolution, with which it still works and persuades everything shallow and mediocre to itself. The doctrine of equality!... But there is no more poisonous poison: for it seems to be preached by justice itself, while it is the end of justice... "Equal to equals, unequal to unequals - that would be the true speech of justice: and, what follows from it, never make unequal equal." - The fact that the events surrounding this doctrine of equality were so gruesome and bloody gave this "modern idea" par excellence a kind of glory and firelight, so that the Revolution as a spectacle seduced even the noblest spirits. In the end, this is no reason to respect it more.
There are political and social fantasists who fervently and eloquently call for an overthrow of all orders, believing that then the proudest temple house of beautiful humanity will immediately rise of its own accord, as it were. These dangerous dreams still echo the superstition of Rousseau, who believes in a miraculous, original, but as it were buried goodness of human nature and ascribes all the blame for this burial to the institutions of culture, in society, state, education.
Nietzsche was not bothered by genocide, but the echoes and remnants of Judeo-Christian morality of equality- the morals that defend the weak from the strong- this was his problem with the revolution. The French Revolution was misguided because it did not rightfully suppress and enslave the weak to the “super-men” as Nietzsche wanted. Rousseau’s philosophy of social change is what formed the foundation of the violence against the ruling class, and anyone who criticized the revolution, as Nietzsche mentions. His idea of national pride, natural rights and fraternity of all people formed the ideological basis of political fanaticism seen across the American Revolution, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution, and set the stage for Marxism and the bloodshed of the 20th century.
