DISCUSSION: Rousseau

We discussed 2 of Rousseau's books tonight: his 2nd discourse from his 40s and his reveries as an elderly man, seeing the end of his life approaching and bitter about not having his great ideas accepted, about them not having made a difference.  Rousseau is a writer who really puts himself into his writings.  He considered himself a musician and wrote several operas, including "Le Devin du Village".  He liked Italian music, stemming from the period when he spent 2 years in Venice.

Rousseau at 30 was:
self-educated, a musician, had a strong ego but shy and awkward socially; prone to hypochondria.  His sexuality was confused and masochistic.  His prospects were slim to none.  He had just come out of a few years with Mme de Warens who mentored him and educated him.  He became a tutor in Lyons for an important family, then moved to Paris where he found it difficult as a foreigner in Paris.  He was awkward socially; not witty or good with social repartee.  Had trouble in a "salon society".
Then he became secretary to the French ambassador to Venice 1743-44.  By 1749, he was writing music entries for the Encyclopaedia (Encyclopedie ou Dictionnaire des Sciences et les Arts et Lettres).
Rousseau had his big epiphany in 1749 (at age 37).  He was walking to Vincennes where his friend Diderot was in prison there - near Père Lachaise cemetery. He reads a copy of the paper and reads a winning Dijon essay and he is filled with ideas and revelations that then form the basis for his discourses (sciences, inequality and education).
Rousseau's central ideas are: Man is naturally good and social institutions are corrupting.

He drops out, leaves Paris in 1756 and retires to a rural home on Mme de Epinay's estate.  His friends don't understand this and never forgive him for renouncing the Parisian intellectual world.  This is what led to the estrangements that tormented him later (though he was also wounded by the outcry against some of his later work by greater society).  He had a big clash with Voltaire over the Lisbon earthquake.  Voltaire wrote a poem about 'how could God do this?' and Rousseau wrote an essay saying 'why would you build a city in an earthquake zone?'
Then his books were burned in Paris and Geneva and he is forced to flee France, ends up in Switzerland, in a small town (as he was banned from Geneva).  The local pastor was against him and his house is stoned.  Ends up on Ile St Pierre for 2 months in 1765 then ends up in England, with Hume.  Lives in Wooten Hall near Manchester and begins to write his Confessions.  Has a falling out with Hume and then flees England.  He is becoming very paranoid.  He ends up back in France and is allowed to stay in Paris if he doesn't speak publicly or publish any writings.  His interest in botany is rekindled.

Rousseau wrote his 2nd Discourse (which is the text we read) in 1755.
Inequality is due to property and laws which lead to: exploitation, corruption, excess.

He was influenced by Bougainville's stories about Tahiti as an ideal natural primitive simple society, a happy society.  Diderot wrote a story about Tahiti.  The discovery of orang-outangs also had an influence, as they were very human-like.

In his 2nd discourse he asks when did we accept an imaginary prosperity at the expense of real happiness?
He proposes 2 principles antecedent to sociability:

• self-preservation
• sympathy

Raises issue of perfectibility:

• cognitive powers
• affective desires
• moral capacities

These make us leave the happy primitive state and become who we are today.

Raises issues of gender:

• equality
• difference
• hierarchy

Women were getting more powerful in western Europe in 18th c.  Several male intellectuals were writing about full equality.  Rousseau felt complementarity was the way to go (not full equality as proposed by some intellectuals such as Hume).  Getting easier for women to inherit property in France - - this then regresses after French revolution. 

He describes a Fall from Golden Age - many causes, contributors:  pride, property, language, committed/conjugal love, etc 

Critiques modernity: 

• Secularism
• nationalism
• individualism
• egalitarianism

Some Themes:

• Identity
• Community
• Happiness
• Appearance and reality
• Justice
• Hierarchy
• Reason and emotion
• Innate values and learned values

He writes about perfectibility, self-improvement and suggests some possible solutions in other works such as education such as Emile; to be happy with a moderate life, with living a good simple virtuous life like Julie; or the perfect city in the Social Contract.  None of these are permanent or final solutions.  One solution would be slow growth but our perfectibility works against this, pushes us forward more quickly.  Our society values Progess. 

An old [disproved] saying that I remember from my university biology classes was brought up tonight:
"ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"  As we think of the stages a person moves through from birth to adulthood and old age, so could we see the development of the human race, societies etc.

Rousseau's works were mainly banned during his lifetime (though there was great interest in some of the ideas such as education and breast-feeding, free schools etc) but by the 1790s his works especially the Social Contract were being referred to by the main movers of the French Revolution.