Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Rousseau’s romantic ideologies were largely based around the divinity and purity of nature. He was fascinated by all things natural, from the sound of waves, the grandeur of mountains and the beauty of animals. He believed nature alleviated anxieties and engendered a ‘sense of being’.  The innocence and wholesomeness he bestowed upon nature, he extended to man.  This likening was based upon the notion of the natural or primitive man; a man uncorrupted by civilisation and unalienated by fashion or social standards. This also inspired Rousseau’s controversial condemnation of scientific progression, intimating that it detracts from our human connection with the natural world. 

He expanded upon the thoughts of preceding philosophers when he discussed the ‘state of nature’; a hypothetical idea of humanity before any governance, where man was primitive and one with nature. Rousseau acknowledges this may never have existed, also that it would be implausible to regress to such a state. He asserts that in the ‘state of nature’, men were virtuous and untainted. He wrote ‘man is born free, but forever in chains’. Here he insinuates our passion, emotions and self-esteem are suppressed and extinguished by corporation and civilisation. 

This regressive ideology was criticized by some academics, such as Voltaire, an Enlightenment scholar, he wrote of Rousseau, ‘No one has used such intelligence to persuade us to be stupid. After reading your book one feels as if one should walk on all fours’.

Alongside John Locke and Thomas Hobbes, Rousseau was a figurehead of contractarianism, outlining a theoretical model, detailing the extent of governmental powers, as well as the rights of civilians and their relationship with the administration. Rousseau’s ambitious utopia, detailed in the ‘General Will’, was based around the ideal of direct democracy. It is a unanimously agreed set of rules amongst the people. The ‘General Will’ is democratic in that if civilians unanimously disagree it cannot be enforced by a monarch or superior power; in turn Rousseau believed this was representative of freedom.

Parallels can be drawn with John Locke’s Social Contract. He, like Rousseau, asserted that the hegemony should lie with the people. He wrote the purpose of the government should be to settle small disagreements and land disputes. Locke’s liberality only extended to the private sphere, unlike Rousseau who didn’t differentiate between the two. Locke’s principals of ‘life, liberty and property’ are largely analogous with Rousseau’s ideologies, but Rousseau opposed the concept of ownership.

Rousseau’s influence on the French Revolution is incalculable. The Storming of the Bastille in 1879 was the manifestation of the breaking of Rousseau’s metaphorical chains. The deplorable economic situation bought about widespread poverty. The ‘Divine Right of Kings’ was still in operation giving the monarchy omnipotence over the common man. The revolt against the oppression of the higher powers demonstrated Rousseau’s ideologies in action or as William Wordsworth put it, the idea of the ‘natural man in practice’.