>Knowledge of Rousseau is the gap in my education which I lament most -- so
>I may be way off here. ... the great service
>Rousseau performed for later radical reformers and revolutionaries was to
>perceive "society" as a work of art rather than a "natural"
>expression of human nature. The development of markets (and the subsequent
>growing triumph of abstract individualism in practice
>if not in theory) was breaking the hold of spontaneous hierarchical and
>analogical thought in Europe ... but formal thought still tended to this
>hierarchical mode. Rousseau's denial that the State was a *natural*
>product theorized this break, and hence prepared the way for the
>revolutionary thinking that reached (at least so far) its culmination in Marx.
Hobbes and Locke also saw the state as an unnatural act, though Locke
posited private property as "natural," which undermines his whole effort
(though it made him extremely popular, even to this day, among bourgeois
thinkers).
>Just as Marx can be described as "Aristotle with an attitude," so he can
>be described as "Rousseau minus individualism." Rousseau's radical
>individualism helped prepare the context for historical materialism (or
>the rejection of metaphysical individualism).
I wouldn't call R an individualist. Hobbes and Locke were, but not R. He
has a lot of individualistic notions, for example, the idea of a social
contract, but his view of individuals is as empty vessels that are filled
by society. The only non-societal parts of the human personality for him
are the survival instinct and empathy for others (which he also attributed
to animals). These find different expression in different societies. (His
vision is preminiscent of structuralism or modern sociology, or those
Marxists who reduce "human nature" to merely an ensemble of social
relations.) He sets up an ideal society -- in his SOCIAL CONTRACT -- which
then fills our empty vessels up with ideal characteristics (via censorship,
a civic religion, etc.) This encourages people to vote to reproduce the
ideal society over time. (It's akin to Plato's REPUBLIC, but what Plato
prescribes for the elite Guardians, R wants for all.) A lot of R's ideas
were bandied about (and distorted) during the 1789 French revolution.
Marx might be called a "Rousseau from below" (which rhymes!) Instead of
having the "general will" leaping full-blown out of his skull (as with R),
Marx hoped/predicted that workers would develop -- through struggle with
the bourgeoisie -- their own "social contract," which would allow them to
figure out for themselves what the "general will" was and to put it into
practice. Note also that this is a dynamic, historical process, rather than
R's mythical hope that an all-wise Legislator would come along and design
the perfect society to be imposed on people.
Unlike R, I think that Marx had a notion that goes beyond the "empty
vessel" model, as seen in the 1844 MANUSCRIPTS. His hoped-for proletarian
social contract involves disalienation, a potential within humanity.
>As I say -- I'm way beyond my scholastic limits here, so I won't cling to
>all or much of this.
R is very readable. I recommend THE SOCIAL CONTRACT and also the DISCOURSE
ON THE ORIGINS OF INEQUALITY. Those almost define my knowledge as a (mostly
self-taught) Rousseau expert, though. I haven't read far beyond those.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
