Rousseau and the Romantics

Does the heading sound like some nerdy indie band name? I don't know. I would look it up to see if it exists but I'm too scared of what I might find. Some other time maybe.

Indie tosspot vs gothic cathedral;
the same thought processes at work.

In any case, Jean-Jacques Rousseau would probably have no problem sporting the meticulously crafted amalgamation of old and new that is the choice clothing of lots of young'ns today. He headed the whole Romantic movement which contains, among other things, a desire for the aesthetics of the past. It explains why in the 18th century there is a sudden revival of the Gothic architecture associated with the Middle Ages - it's all down to a bunch of people looking at old stuff and deciding that it looks cool, an ethos which has been very much carried on to the present day and seems to be the basis for all executive decisons made in fashion.



Despite the fixation on old architecture, youth in people was highly prized; age was the mark of a person who was already too entrenched in their ways to embrace the new thinking of Romanticism. As well as an obsession with the dramatic, mysterious, dark and strange, Romantics embraced the beauty of nature and the idea of 'sensibility' - that is, acting in passion rather than acting after cold consideration. All of this seems to explain the connotations of calling somebody 'romantic' today- it is generally lumped in with the idea of romantic love, which by its very nature is passionate and illogical. It is easy to make the mistake that Romanticism only values emotions which are positive - rage, jealously and contempt are still valued as long as they are strong. Romanticism is egocentric, and an appeal to the expression of human nature.

The whole movement was a reaction against Empiricism, which was steadily gaining popularity ever since the Enlightenment i.e. The Age of Reason. It is in many ways the opposite of Empiricism - non-human facts are derived from human emotion as opposed to reason and observation. That's one hell of an inductive logical leap, but that would be of no interest to a Romantic. They also rejected the idea of capitalism and industrialisation, as it is in direct opposition to the sentiments of Rousseau - how could you run a business if the concept of owned land did not exist? His essay exploring the question: "Have the arts and sciences conferred benefits on mankind?" hints at an attack on captialism; he says that science and arts are the "worst enemies of morals, and, by creating wants, are the sources of slavery."

Suave.

Rousseau was apparently a bit of an eccentric. He loved to just walk around, and believed that you could get a honest sense of the truth and beauty of the world simply by venturing out there and seeing it all for yourself. He tried to live as truly as he could according to his maxims about sensibility. He was impulsive. He had a partner who he never married, who was 'ugly and ignorant' (A bit harsh, Bertrand?) and who he claimed not to love, but stuck with all the same. He was homeless a number of times. He seemed to have a knack for convincing lovely lady aristocrats into giving him a place to stay whenever he found himself wandering the streets. I think Bertrand Russell was trying to suggest that Rousseau, despite being remarkably strange, was a bit of a lad - so it's really not surprising that his work could be so influential during and especially after his lifetime.


Romanticism and the work of Rousseau fanned the flames of the French Revolution. Some of his work was transferred almost verbatim into the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This stated that:

• Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.
• Law is the expression of the general will. Every citizen has a right to participate personally.

William Wordsworth, an English poet, was incredibly excited about the Revolution (as most of his peers were) and said that the Revolution "seems to be Rousseau's idea of the natural man thrown into reality."

Rousseau was like John Locke in that he believed in a 'state of nature' - a time before society when men were 'free', but accepts that we could never return to this state. Unlike John Locke, he completely rejected the idea of property, and said that when the first man claimed that a bit of land was his, that the others around him should have ignored him. He thought that the majority of human suffering stems from ths point in history. He rejected the idea of the 'right of the strongest,' and argued that physical force doesn't necessarily instil a sense of duty in others - essentially, he is saying that people will never respect a bully. He even argued that familial ties are only really held up until the point where the child is not dependant on the parent - beyond that it is simply convention; rejecting the idea that a father should have power over his children. He is highlighting the unnaturalness of answering to any other person but yourself.


Rousseau loved the idea of equality. He accepted that some people had natural advantages over one another - intelligence, health, age - and that this could not be helped; but found advantages governed by convention (i.e. being born into a wealthy family) to be abhorrent and completely unnatural.
However, Rousseau dismissed the idea of rights. He argued that for a society to be free of laws and restraints, it is necessary for its citizens to surrender their rights or else the appointed sovereign will be unable to act in the best interests of the whole community. I'm sure that Rousseau's further reasoning would also include the fact that because people are fundamentally good-natured, these rights and consequences for alienating them are redundant anyway.

Rousseau was adamant that "man is naturally good and only by institutions is he made bad", and not an evil sinner destined for damnation as the Church had claimed since the dawn of time. He held that our natural feelings were virtious, and it is reason that urges us to act selfishly. That's a nice thought, but I've got to disagree with him there. While I'll freely admit that the idea of 'orignal sin' is hateful and ridiculous, the reality is that most people are morally questionable at the best of times and I think its fair to say that children are amoral (but not immoral.) Without clear instruction in how to behave, most people would not develop a conscience beyond that of whatever they had in childhood. The phrase that somebody has been "dragged up" is to imply that a parent did not play a postive role in a child's upbringing, and so that person acts in an immoral way as a consequence. Where does that leave Rousseau's ideas about the general interest, and the idea that society corrupts and restrains us?

Jeremy Bentham: got it wrong

I think that the society that we have exists solely out of necessity; if we didn't have it, we'd all go crazy and eat each other. A person may have the intrinsic instinct that cannibalism isn't great, or not to go around stealing from old ladies, but not everyone is the same. Some people just aren't that nice. Even when considering Rousseau's 'nurture' theory of people being driven to crime and vice by their immediate surroundings, this completely invalidates his theory of people acting in "the general interest." Rousseau's vision of utopia throws up exactly the same problems that Utilitarianism does; the greatest good for the greatest number can really screw the minority. While the 'general interest' is not equal to 'the greatest good', all it takes is the sovereign (the collective community, those of informed and selfless agency) to acknowledge that something will be 'useful' to the community to enact it. If the collective in the community think that slavery and rape is 'useful', then you're going to have a few very unhappy slaves. But its all okay, because it's in the general interest; it represents, in Russell's words, the "largest satisfaction of self-interest available to the community". It doesn't work. Rosseau was far too optimistic about people, which is heart-warmingly endearing but entirely impractical.

His optimism about the human race was drawn from the 'noble savages' observed in Tahiti - even though they lived in relative poverty, they were happy and friendly. Rousseau was in awe of the truth and beauty he found in nature, and believed that because these people lacked a society recognisable by Western standards that they were freer than any of us, and therefore capable of leading happier lives than our own. "Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." The social trappings of everything around us - desire to compete with each other for wealth, respect and property - makes us into bad people, according to Rousseau.

From all of this, I've drawn the conclusion that Rousseau was basically just a massive, tree-hugging hippy. He believed that if only we could be free from each other, and free to adhere to our own natural virtues, then we would all live happy, beautiful lives. Wouldn't it be nice?