# Rousseau's Republic
## September 21st, 2020
- Dr. Kirkman is pretty happy with how Tech's COVID response has been going
- "Maybe it's because we're all nerds who like being in our rooms; I know one of my colleagues once described himself as an 'indoorsman'. as opposed to an outdoorsman"
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- Alright, today we're launching into "republican democracy" by starting to read Rousseau's *The Social Contract*
- "I hope you notice right away that Rousseau is much more of a writer than Locke; he gives personal asides, adds these literary flourishes - Rousseau feels like more of a personal writer than Locke, and you get more of a sense of him"
- Let's talk about Rousseau a bit, because he's kind of an odd duck with a very strange career
- Rousseau was born in Geneva, which at the time was a Protestant city-state (similar to Luxembourg or something today), as a son of a watchmaker
- Working as an apprentice to his brother, he observed very strict rules in a very strict city; Geneva would actually lock the gates at sundown each day, and one day Rousseau got locked out and, fearing punishment, pretty much ran away to Turin in Italy (which at the time was a collection of city-states as well), converting to Catholicism (probably out of convenience)
- "The idea of a nation-state was pretty rare in those days, and didn't really come about until the 19th century"
- Rousseau then stole something while working as a servant and framed someone for it, and in later years he felt immense guilt over it and blamed it on his fear of the master of the house, who he felt had scary amounts of power over him
- So, Rousseau kept working, met a noblewoman in Switzerland who took a liking to him, they became lovers, and Rousseau began to read scholarly works and educating himself there
- Then, because Rousseau didn't have money for a carriage, he WALKED to Paris and happened to meet the Encyclopedists (Diderot, etc.)
- "We think encyclopedias are boring today, but the goal of writing down EVERYTHING we knew was hugely audacious at the time"
- Rousseau then got in trouble with the *Sorbonne* for some of his speeches, which was both a university *and* an enforcer of the Catholic church at the time
- While dealing with that mess and meeting Diderot, Rousseau happened to see an essay contest that asked "Has art and science improved humanity?" Rousseau counter-culturally wrote that it *hadn't* and technology actually makes us lazy and depraved, and the academy holding this contest chose his essay for 1st place out of hundreds of entries
- This immediately catapulted Rousseau, a runaway son of a watchmaker, into prominence among French intellectuals, and Rousseau would become a HUGELY influential figure in the Enlightenment (and was arguably one of the first philosophers of the Counter-Enlightenment, and an inspiration for Romanticism and American transcendentalism)
- All along, Rousseau, living in a France that believed in the divine right of kings and
- When Rousseau published *The Social Contract*, Book 4 of it actually INFURIATED the French authorities, and he had to flee France again
- Rousseau could've gotten help from Voltaire (a famous French intellectual), EXCEPT he had earlier pissed Voltaire off and Voltaire apparently refused to help him
- "Rousseau also wrote a book on educating children called *Emile*, which is odd because, well, Rousseau never raised any children...although, weirdly and sadly, he fathered several children and sent them all to the orphanage"
- Voltaire also jabbed Rousseau over this, calling it "the 35 boldest pages against religion surrounded by complete nonsense"
- "...I'm talking a little too much about the background here, but I'm fascinated by Rousseau because he's such a weird, interesting, controversial figure. He dressed all the time in Armenian robes because of a urinary tract problem, he had paranoid tendencies about people having power over him...yeah"
- "Let me spoil the entire Book I for you: Rousseau thinks the way to escape the arbitrary power of a tyrant is to be under the non-arbitrary power of a collective society where you are part of its voice"
- So, a few things students noticed:
- Locke's works feel more like a series of logical notes/bullet-points, Rousseau feels more like a novelist
- Rousseau's kind of snarky; he makes sarcastic comments and jibes at people and ideas
- "Now, reading Locke, it might've been the first work of philosophy you ever read; since you didn't have anything to compare his assumptions to, it might've been easy to go along with Locke. Here, with Rousseau, we'll see some commonalities with Locke and some BIG differences. Sometimes those differences are stated explicitly, other times they come out in little asides and near-throwaway sentences"
- So, here's a challenge for you, working together:
- First, find passages in Book I where Rousseau seems to agree with Locke; what do they agree on, and can you cite your evidence?
- Chapter 5.3, majority rules
- Should only obey legitimate power, not tyrants/etc. (Chapter 3)
- Both appeal to some state of nature/concept of social contract, and start by thinking about individuals
- "Again, modern philosophy starts with the isolated ego, with Descartes' doubt an example"
- Rousseau, although it isn't clear here, thinks the state of nature was NEVER a real time, but that it was theoretically the time of greatest human happiness, and he does try to base it somewhat on then-current anthropology
- Both agree on family as base societal unit (although disagree about its exact role), 2.3
- "Now, I want to note that Locke draws a stronger contrast between paternal power and political power; Rousseau, too, says that "
- Both agree on a labor theory of property, that cultivation is somehow important (I.9,3)
- Then, what differences do they have?
- Right to punish is NOT there for Rousseau; "state of war" can't be between individuals (I.4, 8, "in their primitive independence their relationship with one another is not sufficiently stable to constitute a state of peace or war")
- More collectivist vision of the society (6.9), seems to think that society produces a much more significant change in people (8.1)
- This is HUGE - "Locke's commonwealth is NOT the same as Rousseau's republic"
- In the commonwealth, the goal is to leave people alone and only do what's necessary to maintain the "common" well-being of the people; "if you want to be cynical, it's like a giant protection-racket"
- In Rousseau's republic (which becomes clearer later on), society is literally a "res publica," a "public thing"; government is supposed to be a tangible emulation/reification of the public will; "here, people give up their private wills and put them ALL into the public sphere"
- This "general will" being its own, public thing, is a huge thing for Rousseau, and a big point of contrast with Locke
- More pessimistic view of the state of nature, people forced to move (6.1)
- Rousseau does NOT think property/possession (in the sense of owning external things) is a fundamental right until enshrined in societies (9.2); it doesn't exist in the state of nature
- "Rousseau believes people are by nature good, but as people get more sophisticated and want power, they start to scheme and plan and fight; to get away from this rule by force, you have to give up your individual power to the law ON THE CONDITION that you're involved in making those laws"
- Rousseau has been simultaneously accused of fascism and socialism and anarchy; partially that's because Rousseau is literary and can speak in these pithy, quotable-but-not-very-clear sentences, and so things like "forced to be free" can be misquoted (when he was probably just saying people had a duty to be citizens and follow the law)
- Rousseau's idea of freedom, finally, is very different from Locke's; ask an American what freedom is and they'll say "well, doing what you want, duh!" - but Rousseau says "if you're just doing what you want, you're a slave to your appetites; to be free, you have to think about the good and then follow the laws you make for yourself"
- Rousseau, then, sees the public will making a whole law for the SOCIETY as an extension of this freedom
- Alright, we'll carry on next time!