Rousseau, French Revolution and Romanticism

I have found that this topic helps me understand Hobbes from the great contrast between Rousseau and him.

State of nature

The way in which Rousseau differs from Hobbes is through how he sees our state of nature. Where Hobbes believes that we are innately violent, “red in tooth and claw”, Rousseau says that man is “a noble savage”. What Rousseau means is that naturally we will co-operate and self-love is what drives us to do so.

For example, in ‘Mad Max’, Max helps a group of civilised people, only fights when he has to, and does not steal. He is a great example of a Romantic hero, as he is very much self-liberated in the sense that he lives by his own rules and only creates contracts when it would benefit himself and others.

THE SOCIAL CONTRACT, general will and morality

The main way in which Rousseau is different from Hobbes is how he outlines his social contract.

Rather than giving up our freedoms to obey a leader, we must obey ourselves and give power to someone who is equal to ourselves. Sovereignty should be both a citizen and a subject, and they should know the common good of man.

This notion of equality then leads on to the idea of the ‘general will‘. The leader would need to enforce the general will of the public to ensure that good is being done. If someone were to go against the general will of the society/civilisation, then they would be going against their own will. Everyone who enters this social contract must be ‘forced to be free’. We must not mix up freedom with liberty – if we are forced to be free, then we are being told to have rights. It is not, however, the absence of coercion, which is essentially what liberty is. Therefore, although you surrender liberty, you gain freedom.

The general will is more effective than the will of all as it allows the general want of society to prevail, rather than individual needs, which would lead us nowhere. For example, the general will would be to follow the highway code and rules of the road, such as obeying traffic lights. However, an individual may want to disobey and drive through red lights, but this is not entirely moral, and so it is much more logical to follow the general will.

Morality itself is another important point. Morals are simply obligations, and we should follow inherent good. We should act on reason rather than physical impulse, which is a very anti-Plato concept. As said above, we must act in a way that would enable ‘amor-prop’ – self-love, and connection.

What may be deducted from this type of morality is how to ‘feel in moderation’. For example, if we see a poor family, then we may be moved. However, we cannot strive to change the situation as a whole – we must be cold to a certain extent by using our reason. We should refrain from trying to right all wrongs, but appreciate what is right and wrong.

GOVERNMENT AND ARISTOCRACY

Rousseau believed that Aristocracy was the best form of government. This consists of basically whoever you vote for then gets the government in – this is what the UK has.

There are, however, types of Aristocracy:

• Elective – This is the best type. Those who are best suited are placed in charge.
• Natural – “a committee of experts” – elders or noble persons in charge with no election.
• Hereditary – This is the worst type. This is where certain families govern – they may not be suitable at all for the position of leading.

There is also Democracy and Monarchy. Democracy (direct, not what we know today) is best for very small states – Rousseau imagines a small town gathering in the town hall. The state would be small enough to walk across in one day as it would require all members to be present to deliberate on issues.

Monarchy, however, is both good and bad. Elective monarchy is good for the reasons of elective aristocracy, and hereditary monarchy would result in individuals being above the general will – the state would eventually be rub by “a child, an imbecile or a monster”.

CRITICISM

One criticism would be how Rousseau’s ideals link very much with nationalism due to the notion of general will (the government’s acts are the general will of the nation) and the totalitarianism of how we must be ‘forced to be free’. Who draws the line? Or rather, who guards the guardians?

Romanticism & the french revolution

Romanticism and the French Revolution come hand-in-hand and they both arose at the same time.

The French Revolution is considered the age of Enlightenment, where the conventional thinking of France was challenged and changed. For example, Newton’s scientific method challenged the natural laws that were absolute at the time. The way of thinking was therefore changed – they didn’t discard of religion altogether, but they were influenced by scientific reasoning.

Wordsworth is often quoted in terms of Newton and his thinking:

‘…Newton, with his prism and silent face,
The marble index of a mind forever
Voyaging through strange seas of thought alone.’

Newton therefore helped the coming of the French Revolution as the absolute religious explanations for things also justified the absolute monarchy, and so the foundations of their thinking shook and the monarchy fell.

This then introduced Romanticism. The Romantics were very much influenced by nature, and tried to do everything in accordance with nature – they attempted to create a nature-based religion, change the names of the months to what it is like weather-wise, and much of the arts was to do with nature and raw emotion. There would be no hiding of what is natural to us as humans, as they did prior to the revolution.

Famous Romantics include Lord Byron, Keats, Shelley, and Beethoven. All of these artists had a hand to play in the evolution of the Romantic era. This can be explained further in this documentary on the Romantics: