Rousseau and Revolution

 

I may have said this before at some point, either in this blog or in its precursor. But it is worth a repeat, and I'm too lazy to  check anyway. 

Lots of books have been written trying to make sense of Rousseau’s various writings on the subject of whether Rousseau may be said to have helped set off the French revolution. The three most important original texts are, the DISCOURSE ON INEQUALITY, THE DISCOURSE ON THE ARTS AND SCIENCES, and the SOCIAL CONTRACT. There are minor works that one would have to include in any comprehensive survey, such as Rousseau’s LETTER ON SPECTACLES.

Speaking in very broad-brush terms, I will say that if Rousseau had any impact on the course of the revolution it was to delay it. Because the over-all impact of Rousseau’s writings was counter-Enlightenment. What follows is the TL;DR version.

The real justification for the French revolution came from the enlightenment figures, Diderot, D’Alembert, Voltaire, Holbach. Their message was “ you, the people of France and other countries, are as qualified to run a country as those who by accident of birth have been placed above you. You just need to be educated — we’re working on an Encyclopedia to help you with that. And you need to understand that reason — human reason, YOUR reason in collaboration with each other — can re-arrange society for the common good, for the benefit of everyone except a few obstructionists who will have to be swept aside.”

To the extent that the scribblings of intellectual types maty be said to have set off a revolution, it was THEIOR scribblings, not Rousseau's.

This encyclopedists in effect encouraged the people who heard it (the literate middle class) to embrace radical change, and to embrace the image of themselves as free Athenians, capable of and insistent upon self-rule.

That was THEIR message. Not Rousseau’s. His message was rather, “hold your horses. This education, the arts and sciences that it is meant to convey — that isn’t the solution to your problem. It may in fact be the problem. And the Athenians? they were decadent dwellers upon couches. The Spartans should be your model.”

The revolution took place anyway, but Rousseau was if anything standing in its path shouting “Stop!!” Or maybe he was standing by the side of the road muttering “you’ll be sorry.”