Rousseau Influence

 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 influenced many great thinkers throughout history.  Indeed his ideas have had a prevalent and profound influence in our culture.  Although Rousseau was the least academic of modern philosophers, in many ways was the most influential.  His thought marked the end of the Age of Reason.  He propelled political and ethical thinking into new channels.  Many scholars credit his brilliant writing as inspiration for the leaders of the American and French Revolutions.  Amazingly, this watchmaker’s son, with no formal education at any level, arrived at profound insights that continue to challenge and inspire generations in a whole range of fields that might normally seem unconnected.  In this paper I shall discuss his legacy in three fields; in political thought, in psychology, and in the philosophy of education.

Rousseau’s first great work was a Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality Among Men, written in 1749 as an entry in a prize competition.  Ironically enough he did not win because the judges said his submission was too long.  Also, Rousseau was not purely content to provide the more mainstream and acceptable answers of his day.   Most during this era held the view that God created us to be unequal, or perhaps that nature did.  Both of these prevailing views confirmed the rightness of social hierarchy and privilege that were the standard of the day.  Rousseau did acknowledge the truth that inequality is inseparable from human society and culture, however, what distinguished him was he wanted to know why.

Rousseau formulated his on conclusion and one that was to be foundational to most of what he wrote.  To Rousseau the answer was grounded in the idea that man is naturally good, but society has made him wicked.  In Rousseau’s view man is not corrupted by original sin as the churches taught, or driven by instinct to dominate each other as Thomas Hobbes taught.  Rousseau supposed that if we are indeed selfish, competitive, and possessive, it is because we have been conditioned to be so.

Rousseau envisioned original man in a utopian state of existence where there was no desire to exploit and enslave one another.  In Rousseau’s vision of pre-civilized man there was no need for exploitation due to our lifestyles as hunter-gatherers because we could be essentially self-sufficient.  The discovery of metallurgy, agriculture, and other human advances created civilization.  The advantages of these discoveries could only be fully realized in structured societies in which the many are controlled by the few.  Consequently bureaucracies, legal systems, and organized religions develop that instilled in people to accept their lot in life.  Rousseau expressed this idea in the Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of the Inequality Among Mankind: “Equality disappeared, property was introduced, labor became necessary, and the vast forests changed to smiling fields that had to be watered with sweat of men, where slavery and poverty were to soon seen to germinate and grow along with the crops.” (Rousseau, A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind) This was a powerful insight for a man living in the social conditions of Rousseau’s time.  Basically what Rousseau was saying is that inequality is ethically wrong, and yet it is inevitable. 

Rousseau pondered the question that if hierarchy and inequality will always be with us, what can be done to alleviate their burden?  This same question led Rousseau, ten years later to write The Social Contract, which is one of the landmarks in the history of political thought.  Previous theorists thought of the social contract as an obligation in which a people gave their allegiance to a monarchy or in which a people allowed a government to exercise specific powers for them, otherwise on their behalf.  In either case this was an event in the past, by which successive generations must be bound.   Rousseau realizing this and building on the insights of his Discourse on Inequality, proclaimed the following dilemma: “man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.” (Rousseau, The Social Contract, Book I, 1.) 

Rousseau’s postulated that a well-designed culture needed to be committed to a shared ideal.  The social contract in this regard and in Rousseau’s thought is an ever living belief in community with each individual fully part of the whole.  Under this frame work each individual is as an equal member or participant.  Rousseau actually used the term “sovereign” which was normally reserved for or referred to the monarchy.  However, Rousseau used this word specifically to refer to the citizenry, those who choose willingly to allot the decision making power and authority to a king or other leader.

The founders of the United States were well-read and educated men that were influenced by many great political philosopher, educationist, and writers.   Rousseau’s works was some of the most inspirational literature read by these provident men.  His influence on the core values of the United States can be found throughout the writings of the early founders.  Read the following words of the Declaration of Independence with the Social Compact in mind:

“When, in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind, requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal: that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness:  that, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just power from the consent of the governed:  that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government…” (Constitution of the United States of America and Selected Writings of the Founding Fathers, 108)

The French political scientist, historian, and politician Alexis de Tocqueville visited America in 1831-32.   Although America at this time was still just a fledging country he found the first successful example of a stable, effective modern democracy.  Owing to the reality that his own county was riffed with continual and frequent revolutions, Tocqueville wanted to understand what made the United States a successful stable democracy.  This led Tocqueville to write his observation in his work Democracy in America.  Tocqueville interviewed many Americans, from the notable to the common, and he came up with a phrase that has become famous: les habitudes du coeur, “habits of the heart.” (In Search of Tocqueville's Democracy in America)   Tocqueville, a great admirer of Rousseau, borrowed this idea from the The Social Contract.  According to Rousseau, “the most important law of all is not engraved on marble or brass, but in the hearts of the citizens….It preserves a people in the spirit of their foundation, and it imperceptibly substitutes the force of habit for that of authority.  I am speaking of mores and customs, and above all of opinion, a subject which is unknown to our political theorists, but on which the success of all other laws depends.” (Rousseau, The Social Contract)  Rousseau’s contribution in political philosophy point us to the disparity in what should be and what we have to accept.  Furthermore, his writing in this field encourages our conviction in sharing, labor, convictions, and joining as a society. 

However, the realm of political philosophy was far from the only domain in which he investigated his foundational idea about the ways in which socialization distorts our nature.  Pondering his own peculiar life story in his middle ages he wrote Confessions.  This is considered the first great modern autobiography and is bountiful in concepts and notions for understanding ourselves, as well as each other.  When he wrote Confessions the term “autobiography” had not yet been coined.  The usual term was memoirs and writers seldom gave more than a page or two to their twenty years.  Instead it was customary to hasten to the events they expected readers wanted to know about.  In contrast, Rousseau’s autobiography gave two hundred pages just to his first twenty years.

Rousseau borrowed his title from St. Augustine, but this is where the similarities end.  Augustine sought to teach how each of us enters into life as a prisoner of sin.  According to St. Augustine, even babies are not immune to the sins of envy and hatred.  Augustine goes on to further elaborate on how he grew into a new man due to his religious conversion.  Dissimilarity, Rousseau wanted to show how children come into the world trusting and loving, and how he personally was socialized into betraying his own true nature.  The great original insight in the Confessions is that certain crucial experiences, often apparently trivial from anyone else’s perspective, have a profound role in shaping individual personality.  Rousseau also believed that the most significant incidents are the ones that haunt a person’s memory but are hard to make sense of and for that very reason they are the most telling or crucial.

Following this line of thinking, which would ultimately influence Freudian psychology, Rousseau described an occasion in boyhood when a female guardian was spanking him and he discovered that it gave him sexual pleasure.  When the Confessions were published after Rousseau’s death, critics regarded this episode in the autobiography as embarrassing and irrelevant.  However, what the critics missed is that Rousseau was attempting to understand something different, something central to his own personality.  He was probing, confronting, and, self-analyzing his own masochism in a very astute fashion.  He came to the revelation that what he wanted from women was the thrill of being reproved without actual physical contact, an erotic charge all the more intense for being taboo and withheld.  Rousseau reveals this hedonistic proclivity in the following from Confessions: “To be at the knees of an imperious mistress,” he says, “to obey her orders, to have to beg her pardon, have been for me the sweetest delights.” (Rousseau, Confessions) 

This inclination, compounded with a tendency to venerate women he desired and then to feel unworthy of them, hampered most of his relationships.  He often became powerfully infatuated with women he desired and was well aware of his shortcoming in this regard.  What he came to understand about himself is that he tended to project onto women the qualities he wanted them to have, resulting in his passion being focused more on fantasy than reality. 

One other episode in Confessions should be mentioned, since it connects strikingly with the discourse on inequality.  Rousseau had argued there that social life creates emotions that “natural man” would not have known, in particular envy of others for surpassing us in various ways, and shame at being looked down on by them.  As a sixteen year old servant, he stole a decorative ribbon from his deceased mistress.  The ribbon was missed, the servants’ quarters were searched, and it was found in his room.  Brought before the entire household for interrogation, he panicked and declared that it was Marion who had given it to him.  She couldn’t prove that she hadn’t, and they were both discharged.  Forty years after the incident 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.  Rousseau recounts how he was tormented by guilt, suspecting that Marion could never get a good job again.  But it was shame, he stated, that inhibited him from telling the truth.  “The public shaming of being seen to be a thief was more intolerable than the concealed guilt of betraying an innocent person.” (Rousseau, Book II)

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.

As previously mention, Rousseau believed that usual modes of education only encouraged children to mimic material they weren’t yet ready to comprehend.  Furthermore, he believed that these usual modes of education had the ulterior motive of molding people into conventional, obedient members of society.  Due to his belief in the uniqueness of the individual, he urged educators to draw out the special talents of the individual thus helping children to think for themselves instead reproducing memorized information.  His groundbreaking work was called Emile, a story in which a wise tutor leads the boy Emile through a series of experiences that build a foundation for lifelong learning and growth.

Rousseau’s Emile was not without some flaws concerning educational theory and philosophy.  The prolonged personal relationship of child and tutor is more like a hypothesis or a broad concept than a procedure that could be put into practice in the real world.  Furthermore, Rousseau promotes a backward view of women’s roles that kept him from imagining that a girl might have the same upbringing as a boy.  However, Emile is full of insights into how we think and learn, and it gave inspiration to many readers.  A number of notable figures were in fact influenced and Rousseau’s legacy to posterity has been profound.

In the field of education Rousseau’s insights have continued to resonate.  Most of the renowned philosophers such as Voltaire, Diderot, and Hume had been brilliant students in school, and despite how different they might believe themselves to be, they were formed by a shared intellectual background.  Rousseau never attended a single day of school, and after being taught as a child to read and write, he was primarily self-taught thereafter.  One advantage this style of learning afforded him was that it required him to struggle with books in his own manner and by doing so come to his own assessment of them.  By the time he wrote The Social Contract, he was deeply read in political theory.  However, he transferred to his studies a lifetime of personal reflection on the way society works.

In many ways Rousseau’s legacy lives on.  He grew up in the hardworking Calvinist Geneva and the outcome was that he soon realized he was capable of tireless effort in self-appointed tasks but was strongly opposed to undertakings assigned by others.  He felt it was essential to protect our being from the workaholic demands of modern life.  Rousseau made a modest living by copying music, a humble task that could easily be replicated by a machine today.  However, he truly appreciated this kind of work because it had to be done with care but he especially liked it because it could be done at a pace he set.  Speaking of himself in the third person, he explained, “He does his task when and how he likes; he doesn’t have to account to anyone for his day, his time, his work, or his leisure.  He has no need to arrange anything, plan anything, or worry about anything, he doesn’t have to expend his mind, he is himself and lives for himself all day, every day.”(Rousseau, Confessions)

The Swiss born Jean-Jacques Rousseau is possible the most interesting intellectual figure from the Enlightenment era.  Rousseau views on the realities of social inequality expressed the Social Contract had a tremendous influence on the architects on the greatest democracy in history, the United States.  Many would assert that Rousseau’s self-disclosing eccentric and deviant sexual propensity influenced much of Freudian Psychology.  Moreover, Rousseau had much to say concerning the development of beneficial attributes in human beings.  One can observe from his works what influenced much of Rousseau’s views on education and child development.    Rousseau believed that human beings are fundamentally good by nature but could be corrupted by complex past events in their lives.  This belief lead Rousseau to many of his basic theories.  He used Confessions to share with the public general lessons in how formative childhood experiences affect the adult one grows into.  This work also supported his main conjecture concerning child development and how children process things differently than adults.  Incredibly, this watchmaker’s son, with no formal education at any level, arrived at some profound insights that continue to challenge and inspire generations in a variety of fields to include; political thought, psychology, and the philosophy of education.

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Rousseau, Jean Jacques. A Discourse Upon The Origin And The Foundation Of The Inequality Among Mankind. Project Gutenberg EBook.

"THE SOCIAL CONTRACT." Rousseau: Social Contract. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. <http://www.constitution.org/jjr/socon.htm>.

Constitution of the United States of America and Selected Writings of the Founding Fathers. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2012. Print. New York: Barnes and Noble, 2012. Print.

"Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Father of the French Revolution."  Summary of a lecture by Grace Denison.  University of Maine at Farmington, November 2, 2005.  <http://hua.umf.maine.edu/Reading_Revolutions/Rousseau.html>.

"In Search of Tocqueville's Democracy in America." In Search of Tocqueville's Democracy in America. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. <http://www.tocqueville.org/>.

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

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.