Introducing Rousseau E-Book

Dave Robinson

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Serie: Graphic Guides
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 109

Beschreibung

Illustrated guide to the crucial French philosopher who denied bring a philosopher at all. 'I am like no one else in the whole world ...' Thus begins Jean-Jacques Rousseau's defiant Confessions - an autobiography of astounding psychological insight. Musician, poet, novelist and botanist, but above all, a philosopher who firmly denied being one, Rousseau was the first to ask: "What is the value of civilization?" His answer - that civilization corrupts natural goodness and increases social inequalities - shocked his Enlightenment contemporaries and still challenges us today. Did Rousseau inspire the French Revolution? Can Romanticism, psychoanalysis and Existentialism all be traced back to him? Introducing Rousseau presents a maverick thinker whose ideas revolutionized our understanding of childhood, education, government, language and much else. Dave Robinson's clear and concise account of Rousseau's ideas, engagingly dramatized by Oscar Zarate's illustrations, guides the reader through Rousseau's turbulent life of lost innocence, persecution and paranoia.

Leseprobe

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-178578-010-3

Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd

The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights

Originating editor: Richard Appignanesi

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

I Myself, the Unique…

Childhood in General

Restricted Freedom

Early Adventures

Madame de Warens

The Traveller

Rousseau’s Psychology

Les Charmettes

The End of the Affair

Trying His Luck in Paris

Thérèse and the Children

The “Philosophes” and the Enlightenment

The Risks of Philosophizing

Rousseau’s Vision

Civilization and Modern Man

The First Discourse

The Falsehood of Civilization

What Good Are Luxury and the Arts?

Inconsistencies and Criticisms

Fame at Last

Rousseau’s Theory of Language

Derrida’s Deconstruction of Rousseau

Another Competition

What Is Human Nature?

Rousseau’s Version

The State of Nature

Laws of Nature

Nature and Natural

Natural Humans

Noble Savages and Orang-utans

Rousseau’s State of Nature

Natural Men and Hobbes

Natural Men and Grotius

Modern Men

Modern Society

Contracts and Property

The Chains of Property

Choosing Another Path

The Reaction of the Philosophes

Rousseau’s Refuge

The First Romantic

Sophie, a Real-Life Julie

La Nouvelle Héloïse

A Romantic Bestseller

The Moral Letters

Letter to D’Alembert

A Spartan View of Theatre

Rousseau’s Views on Art and Music

Émile, an Educational Novel

A Psychology of Childhood

Emile’s Education

Émile and Ethics

Sophie and the “Fair Sex”

A Successful Experiment?

Progressive Educationalists

Persecution for “Natural Religion”

Rousseau the Mystic

The Social Contract

Societies and Rules

Asking Awkward Questions

Obligations, Self-Interest and Contracts

Hobbes’ and Locke’s Views on the “Contract”

Problems with the Contract

The Meaning of Sovereignty

Voluntary Association

Rousseau’s View of Laws

Freedom and Obedience

What Is the “Contract”?

Organic Process

What is The General Will?

Collective Identity

Citizens of a Single Community

Obedience to Freedom

The Will of All

People as Sovereign

Forced to Be Free

Misguided Behaviour

The Sovereign Body and Government

Government By Aristocrats

The Legislator

Civil Religion: Deism

Against Christianity

Rousseau the Realist

The Test Case of Corsica

The Test Case of Poland

Criticisms of Rousseau’s Political Theories

“The General Will” Under Scrutiny

A Nebulous Concept

The General Will and the Law

A Romantic View of Communal Life

The Collectivist State

Public or Private Freedom?

What Makes Good Citizens?

Patriots or Hypocrites?

The Persecution of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau Attacks Geneva

Temporary Safety

On the Run

Visitors

Exile to England

Another Quarrel

Return of the Exile

Back in Paris

The Confessions

Beginning…

The Need for Confession

Nothing But the Truth

Like a Novel

Psychological Insight

The Meaning of Confessions

Confessions and the “System”

Rousseau’s Dialogues

“Who Is Not Against Me?”

Reason, Imagination and Romanticism

Reveries of a Solitary Walker

The Last Natural Man in Contemplation

The End

Rousseau the Many

The French Revolution

The Reign of Terror

Other Followers of Rousseau

Postmodernism and Rousseau

Perfect Citizens

Utopia or Dystopia?

The Totalitarian State

Romanticism

Rousseau, the Reluctant Romantic

The Role of the Artist

Rousseau’s Primitivism

Ecological Prophecy

The Costs of Civilization

Did Rousseau Have A “System”?

A System of Optimism

Paradoxes and Conclusion

Further Reading

Acknowledgements

Index

I Myself, the Unique…

Jean-Jacques Rousseau changed forever the ways in which we think of ourselves, both as individuals and as members of society. He warned us of the dangers of our modern civilized world and anticipated its imminent collapse. In spite of all this, he remained an optimistic writer and a man who always knew that he was absolutely unique.

I AM UNLIKE ANYONE I HAVE EVER MET … LIKE NO ONE IN THE WHOLE WORLD …

Childhood in General

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born on 28 June 1712 in Geneva. His mother died of puerperal fever shortly after his birth. His father, Isaac, was an unstable and very quarrelsome watchmaker who kept getting into trouble with the authorities. He had been to Constantinople for six years as watchmaker to the Sultan’s harem.

FINALLY I HAD TO FLEE GENEVA TO ESCAPE A PRISON SENTENCE FOR WOUNDING AN OPPONENT IN A DUEL. I BECAME A VIRTUAL ORPHAN, LOOKED AFTER BY MY UNCLE BERNARD.

Rousseau also had an elder brother, François, who ran away to Germany and was never heard of again.

Isaac encouraged his son to read the classics, especially Plutarch’s Lives, and to be a patriotic citizen of Geneva, a small Calvinist republic surrounded by large Catholic states. Rousseau was mostly self-educated, which meant that he was not always very widely read or self-critical.

I ADMIRED THE CITY-STATE OF SPARTA AS PLUTARCH DESCRIBED IT, BECAUSE SPARTANS WERE COURAGEOUS IN WAR AND HAD FIRM EGALITARIAN AND COLLECTIVIST VIEWS.

But Rousseau’s relationship with his own city-state was more ambivalent.

Restricted Freedom

Geneva was strictly Protestant and ruled over by 1,500 of its most important citizens. (The whole population was about 20,000.)

ITS LEGISLATIVE BODY, THE GENERAL COUNCIL, COMPRISES ALL THE ELIGIBLE CITIZENS. ITS AUTHORITARIAN GOVERNMENT, THE PETIT COUNCIL, MAKES ALL THE DAY-TO-DAY DECISIONS ABOUT THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE LIVES OF GENEVANS. AS AN INDEPENDENTLY MINDED YOUNGSTER, I SOON RESENTED ANY RESTRICTIONS PLACED ON MY OWN PERSONAL FREEDOM.

Rousseau eventually fled the city for more liberally minded company. Nevertheless, even though he spent most of his life as an exile, he usually referred to himself as “a citizen of Geneva”.

Early Adventures

Rousseau was boarded with a local pastor in Bossey, a village near Geneva, where he was unjustly beaten for stealing a comb. He was also chastized by the pastor’s sister, an experience he rather enjoyed. When he was fourteen, he was apprenticed to an engraver, Abel Ducommun.

HE FREQUENTLY WHIPPED ME FOR READING LIBRARY BOOKS WHEN I SHOULD HAVE BEEN LEARNING HOW TO ENGRAVE.

On 14 March 1728, Rousseau returned late from a walk to find himself locked out of the city, so he decided to escape. He was quickly "rescued" by the priest at nearby Confignon, who then sent him to Madame de Warens, a woman famous for converting runaway Protestant youths to the Catholic faith.

Madame de Warens

Mme de Warens was probably the most important influence on Rousseau’s life. She was beautiful, clever, eccentric and a rather dubious character who had run away from her husband to Savoy. She lived on a pension from the King of Sardinia who employed her as a spy. She had a house in Annecy and was an intrepid entrepreneur, although few of her many schemes actually made any money.

I HAD MYSELF CONVERTED FROM THE PROTESTANTI FAITH TO ROMAN CATHOLICISM. SHE QUICKLY SENT ME TO TURIN TO DO THE SAME.

While in Italy, Rousseau supported himself by becoming a rather haughty and unreliable servant to different aristocratic families. He already rather fancied himself as an intellectual and resented being treated as an inferior. In June 1729, he left Turin and returned to Annecy and the maternal bosom of Mme de Warens. It was a reciprocal arrangement.

SHE WAS CHILDLESS AND I WAS MORE OR LESS AN ORPHAN LOOKING FOR A MOTHER – SO I CALLED HER “MAMAN”. And I CALLED HIM “PETIT”.

She sent him to the Annecy seminary to become a priest, but he soon left to study music instead, at the cathedral.

The Traveller

Rousseau then spent several months travelling – to Lyons, Fribourg, Lausanne, Vevey, Neuchatel and elsewhere, having miscellaneous adventures in the company of various eccentric and dubious companions, all of whom he later described in his Confessions. He spent much of his early adolescent life on the road, travelling from town to town and fortunately seems to have been a charismatic young man, because he rarely found himself going hungry or having to sleeping rough.

IN LAUSANNE, I GAVE MYSELF THE NAME “VAUSSORE DE VILLENEUVE, THE COMPOSER” AND TRAVELLED AROUND GIVING MUSIC LESSONS. THEN I ACTED AS THE TRANSLATOR FOR A RELIGIOUS CONMAN WHO CALLED HIMSELF “THE ARCHIMANDRITE ATHANASIUS PAULUS”.

He went to Paris for a brief time, but was soon back on the road again, and finally returned to the arms of Mme de Warens who, by now, had moved to Chambéry. For a short time Rousseau worked as a clerk, then taught music to the local young ladies – one of whom tried to seduce him.

TO MY SURPRISE AND DISQUIET, MME DE WARENS CONSEQUENTLY DECIDED THAT I SHOULD BE PROTECTED FROM FURTHER AMOROUS ADVANCES … … BY BECOMING HER LOVER.

Rousseau’s Psychology

Rousseau was an unusual young man, the victim of many irreconcilable psychological tensions and sexual anxieties. He had an overwhelming need for a mother figure to give him a sense of security and welcomed the idea of female domination: “Oh to be at the feet of an imperious mistress, to obey her commands and ask her forgiveness …” All of this made his eventual relationship with Mme de Warens very disturbing.

I FELT AS IF I HAD BEEN GUILTY OF INCEST …

From an early age he seems to have had a taste for sexual masochism.

IN TURIN, I WAS NEARLY CAUGHT FOR EXPOSING MY BACKSIDE TO SOME YOUNG GIRLS.

Throughout his life he worshipped young aristocratic women and had naive, chaste fantasies about them, mostly based on his early reading of sentimental romances.

Les Charmettes

Mme de Warens eventually rented a small house, Les Charmettes, where Rousseau spent several idyllic years determinedly educating himself and leading the simple life.

I ROSE WITH THE SUN AND I WAS HAPPY; I SAW MAMAN AND I WAS HAPPY … … I LEFT HER AND I WAS HAPPY; I ROAMED THE WOODS, THE HILLS, I WANDERED IN THE VALLEYS … … I READ, IDLED, WORKED IN THE GARDEN; I PICKED THE FRUIT… I HELPED IN THE HOUSE AND EVERYWHERE HAPPINESS FOLLOWED ME.

It was probably at this time that the self-educated young scholar read political philosophers like Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94), Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), and the English philosophers Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704).

The End of the Affair

Rousseau persuaded himself that he had some kind of heart disease and went off to Montpelier to be cured. On the journey there he had another sexual adventure. He was seduced by a fellow traveller, Mme de Larnage. But, on his return, he found that the idyll of Les Charmettes was over.

ANOTHER YOUNG MAN HAD TAKEN MY PLACE! I WENT ON TO LYONS WHERE I BECAME A TUTOR.

By this time he was also writing songs, and had completed a short opera called Narcisse. He lacked the patience for young students, so his teaching job was not a great success.

Trying His Luck in Paris

After a short and unhappy return to Chambéry, Rousseau finally went to Paris to see if his unique system of musical notation could make his fortune. He presented it to the Académie des Sciences but, unfortunately, they were unimpressed.

IT RELIES ON NUMBERS AND DOTS, WHICH MAKES IT SHORTER AND NEATER THAN THE MORE USUAL OVAL SHAPES ON STAVES. BUT IT’S MUCH HARDER TO READ AND NOT THAT ORIGINAL.

Nevertheless, his time wasn’t wasted. Rousseau was an efficient “networker”. In Paris he soon made influential friends like the philosophers Etienne de Condillac (1715-80), and the famous Denis Diderot (1713-84).

He also met Mme Dupin, a famous society hostess, and eventually accepted the position of secretary to the French ambassador in Venice.

HE DIDN’T GET ON WITH THE AMBASSADOR WHO TREATED HIM AS A SERVANT RATHER THAN AS A COLLEAGUE.

In Venice, he went to the Italian opera and made a disastrously embarrassing visit to a courtesan – Zulietta – who advised him to “leave the girls alone and study mathematics instead”. He finally quarrelled with the ambassador and so returned to France.

Thérèse and the Children

In Paris, Rousseau stayed at the Hôtel Saint-Quentin. While there he seduced one of the servants, an illiterate country girl called Thérèse Levasseur from Orleans who became his life-long companion. She bore him five children. Rousseau sent every one of them to the foundling hospital. Bizarrely, he seems to have believed that this was in their own interest.

I HAVE VERY LITTLE MONEY AND BELIEVE THAT MY OWN LIFE WILL BE SHORT. THE ORPHANAGE WILL RAISE MY CHILDREN TO BE GOOD CITIZENS AND TRAIN THEM IN ONE OF THE MANUAL TRADES.

Although he invented several other ingenious and unconvincing excuses for his unnatural behaviour, Rousseau eventually admitted that he could never forgive himself for abandoning them, a feeling that his readers usually share.

The “Philosophes” and the Enlightenment

The intellectual friends that Rousseau met in Paris were known as the “Philosophes”, although they were more like social critics than true philosophers. They were reformers who wanted to improve existing society, rather than activists with a revolutionary programme. They were all key members of what is called the French “Enlightenment” – a cultural phenomenon that was well established by the middle of the eighteenth century.

SOME PHILOSOPHES WERE ATHEISTS AND MATERIALISTS WHO BELIEVED THAT RATIONALISM AND SCIENCE WOULD EVENTUALLY REPLACE ALL RELIGIOUS SUPERSTITION.

Others, like Rousseau, were Deists or lapsed Catholics. Voltaire (1694-1778) was a Royalist, Montesquieu (1689-1755), a parliamentarian, and others were Republicans. What they all shared was a scientific world view and an optimism about the future.

The Risks of Philosophizing

The Philosophes welcomed technological progress and the accompanying spread of commerce and industry across Europe. They insisted that human beings should use reason both to understand the world, and to modernize government and the law. They were against all forms of oppression and censorship, and believed in freedom of thought and expression. Many of the ideas popularized by the