Rousseau Confessions Essay

 Andrew Stutts

The Geneva born philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is perhaps one the most fascinating intellectual figures from the 18th century Enlightenment era.  This political philosopher, educationist and essayist wrote Confessions, while meditating upon the saga of his own peculiar life.  Confessions is considered to be the first great modern autobiography and provides an abundant amount of reflection on how we understand each other and ourselves.  In Confessions, Rousseau endeavored to disclose his entire life, detailing all his imperfections, virtues, individual hang-ups, and childhood experiences.  He not only did this as a means of justifying the disposition of his adult self but to also show how children come into the world trusting and loving, and in what way they can be conditioned contrary to their true nature.  This paper will survey Rousseau’s Confessions and examine his human experience from the perspective of pedagogy, to include character development. (Kreis) (Damrosch Vol. 33 No. 4)

Rousseau was progressive in his views on education and child development.  Leo Damrosch remarked in his article Friends of Rousseau that “in the field of education Rousseau’s insights have continued to resonate.”(Damrosch) This is due to his conviction and support for non-conventional approaches to education.  He was firmly against normal paradigms of education which he believed encouraged children to mimic material they weren’t yet ready to comprehend.  Furthermore, he postulated that this scheme of education seemed to, as Damrosch put it, “mold people into conventional, obedient members of society”. (Damrosch)  Rousseau believed in the uniqueness of the individual and beseeched educators to encourage personal aptitudes and propensities, thus, teaching children to think for themselves instead of simply regurgitating information.

Rousseau was an innovator in the field of education because he endeavored to know how children thought and to discover methods to teach children to reason based on this knowledge.  His emphasis on the manner in which children recall past events greatly contributed to the understanding that children do not use their memory or identify with themselves in the same manner as adults.  Based on analytical reflection of his own childhood experiences in Confessions, Rousseau formulated his ideas on how children reason and process information.   Owing to his insightful rumination and the ability to get into the mind of a child, Rousseau contributed greatly to our understanding of child development and education.

In Confessions, Rousseau stressed that some events, even those of a mundane nature, profoundly influence the shaping of one’s personality.  Rousseau supposed that the most noteworthy episodes are the ones that dominate memories of the past.   These recollections may also be the most difficult to understand and the most revealing about oneself. (Johnston)

Therefore, Jean-Jacques Rousseau spends much time in Confessions by describing episodes from his childhood and adolescent years that he carried with him into his adult life.  From these events, it is apparent why Rousseau is considered one of the first academics to apprehend the importance of cognitive development in children based on their view of the world around them.  When Rousseau recounts these events and his less than ethical behavior he does so with the intent of making the reader understand  the manner in which an adult’s and child’s mind divergently function. (Johnston)

Rousseau’s commentates in his autobiographical Confessions in a most interesting fashion.  The reader has both the vantage point from Rousseau’s fully-grown intellectual perspective and how the experience impacted him as a child.  He provides contrasting reflections on his feelings of the events as both an adult and as a child.  This adds multifaceted viewpoints for the reader to digest.  This compound perspective allows the reader to understand how circumstances can be construed in different ways by adults and children.

Moreover, the accounts are purposefully presented in such a fashion that the Rousseau is detached from what transpired and is retelling the episode matter-of-factually.   He employed this tactic for reader to observe the incidents discerningly.  He allows the reader to rationally reach a logical and non-judgmental conclusion. The following is Rousseau description of one those defining events during his childhood that shaped his life:

“One day, while I was studying in a chamber contiguous to the kitchen, the maid set some of Miss Lambercier's combs to dry by the fire, and on coming to fetch them some time after, was surprised to find the teeth of one of them broken off. Who could be suspected of this mischief? No one but myself had entered the room: I was questioned, but denied having any knowledge of it. Mr. and Miss Lambercier consult, exhort, threaten, but all to no purpose; I obstinately persist in the denial; and, though this was the first time I had been detected in a confirmed falsehood, appearances were so strong that they overthrew all my protestations. This affair was thought serious; the mischief, the lie, the obstinacy, were considered equally deserving of punishment, which was not now to be administered by Miss Lambercier…

As this severity could not draw from me the expected acknowledgment, which obstinacy brought on several repetitions, and reduced me to a deplorable situation, yet I was immovable, and resolutely determined to suffer death rather than submit.  Force, at length, was obliged to yield to the diabolical infatuation of a child, for no better name was bestowed on my constancy, and I came out of this dreadful trial, torn, it is true, but triumphant.” (Rousseau Book 1)(Johnston)

In the above narrative Rousseau provides the reader a very objective description of the occurrence.  He does not implicitly say he is guilty or not guilty of the shameful deed, although, he provides enough information for one to draw the probable conclusion that he is guilty. The reader is taken in by all the circumstantial evidence.  Furthermore, the reader draws the same conclusion as the adults in the episode thereby simultaneously judging and condemning Rousseau.   However, the reader soon discovers that Rousseau was righteous and not diabolical in his denial of the crime because he was, in fact, innocent.  Rousseau attests to his innocence in the following passage, “Fifty years have expired since this adventure—the fear of punishment is no more. Well, then, I aver, in the face of Heaven, I was absolutely innocent: and, so far from breaking, or even touching the comb, never came near the fire. It will be asked, how did this mischief happen? I can form no conception of it, I only know my own innocence.” (Rousseau Book 1)(Johnston).

Many times throughout Confessions, Rousseau brings the reader to the realization of the differences in the manner in which adults and children communicate, and most importantly how they view the world and understand various situations.  Rousseau contemplates many times the feelings he had as a child and attempts to reconcile those feelings of the past.    The following passage highlights how differently a child processes tension and in it he also implores the reader to empathize with the child who feels at the mercy of adults:

“Let any one figure to himself a character whose leading traits were docility and timidity, but haughty, ardent, and invincible, in its passions; a child, hitherto governed by the voice of reason, treated with mildness, equity, and complaisance, who could not even support the idea of injustice, experiencing, for the first time, so violent an instance of it, inflicted by those he most loved and respected. What perversion of ideas! What confusion in the heart, the brain, in all my little being, intelligent and moral!—let any one, I say, if possible, imagine all this, for I am incapable of giving the least idea of what passed in my mind at that period.’(Rousseau Book 1)

Rousseau renders the additional supposition that childhood experience can lead one down an unscrupulous path.  This can occur even when there are the best of intentions for the child. This sentiment is best expressed in the following expression from Rousseau’s Confessions; “Good sentiments, ill-directed, frequently lead children into vice.” (Rousseau, Book I)  This expression concluded Rousseau’s recount of his childhood experiences as an apprentice. His family placed him in the care of another adult with the magnanimous intention of teaching him a trade and eventually making him self-sufficient.  However, he experienced physical and mental abuse at the hands of his occupational mentor.  This abusive environment encouraged behavior in Rousseau that he may have not otherwise been inclined toward.  Rousseau makes this point clear in the following abstract from Confessions; “My master's tyranny rendered insupportable that labor I should otherwise have loved, and drove me to vices I naturally despised, such as falsehood, idleness, and theft… Thus I learned to covet, dissemble, lie, and, at length, to steal, a propensity I never felt the least idea of before, though since that time I have never been able entirely to divest myself of it.” (Rousseau, Book I)

Another occurrence in Confessions important to discuss, based on its implications to character development in children, is the instance where the sixteen year old Rousseau stole a ribbon from his deceased mistress.  He recounted his guilt for falsely accusing an innocent girl that never wronged him. In truth, Rousseau had a crush on this girl and stole the ribbon with the intent to give it to her.  Yet, Rousseau implicated this girl in the theft to deflect and cover his crime. During his lamenting and repenting of this nefarious deed, he acknowledges the constructive impact it had on his character.  Rousseau states the following concerning this life altering event in Confessions; “It had one good effect, however, in preserving me through the rest of my life from any criminal action, from the terrible impression that has remained from the only one I ever committed; and I think my aversion for lying proceeds in a great measure from regret at having been guilty of so black a one.” (Rousseau, Book II)  This experience haunted his conscience for forty years and was the catalyst that reformed much of his character for the better.

Although Rousseau makes the inference that one’s childhood experiences shape the adult they grow into, he never shuns accountability for his own actions. This is especially true in regard to the theft of the ribbon and deceptively bearing false witness to an innocent girl.  However, Rousseau infers that emotions unfamiliar to the ‘natural man” and constructed by society influences one to do things they would not normally do.   Rousseau insists it was shame that inhibited him from telling the truth and confessing to the crime.  The public indignation of being branded a thief appeared more insufferable than the thought of carrying the hidden guilt of betraying an innocent person.   This, perhaps, once again demonstrates the difference in how adults and children process events because the regret displayed by Rousseau, while recounting this episode, clearly demonstrates he would chose differently given a second chance as a grown man.

Although Rousseau’s Confessions were published after his death, they have much to say concerning the development of beneficial attributes in human beings.  Furthermore, one can see what influenced much of Rousseau’s views on education and child development.   It is obvious that, in Confessions, there are general lessons in how formative childhood experiences affect the adult one grows into.  Human beings are fundamentally good by nature but can be corrupted by complex past events in their lives. What one can take away from Rousseau’s Confessions is that children process things differently than adults and this should be given the utmost consideration when interacting with them.   Finally, with this in mind, great care should always be given concerning the guidance and development of children.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Damrosch, Leo. "Friends of Rousseau ." Humanities-The Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Jul 2012: Vol. 33 No. 4. Print. <http://www.neh.gov/humanities/2012/julyaugust/feature/friends-rousseau>.

Johnston , Guillemette. "Discovering the Child’s Mind: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Contribution to Education ." THE ROUNDTABLE A Refereed Publication of Scholarly Papers . 3.1 (2010): n. page. Web. 14 Mar. 2013. <http://spse.us/spse/ROUNDTABLE/Vol3No1Spring2010GuillemetteJohnston.html>.

Kreis, Steven. "Jean Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778." The History Guide-Lessons on Twentieth Century Europe. 2009. <http://www.historyguide.org/europe/rousseau.html>.

Larry Wolff, “When I Imagine a Child: The Idea of Childhood and the Philosophy of Memory in the Enlightenment,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 31.4 (Summer 1998), 378-379.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques . The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete. 2012. eBook. <F:\MA Humanities\humn541 Enlightenment & the Modern World\Confessions.htm>.