JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU

“Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains” This is a statement made by Jean Jacques Rousseau which was later incorporated in the Communist Manifesto by Marx. Rousseau influenced Marx.

Rousseau reminds us of the French Revolution. While Voltaire was the mind of the French revolution Rousseau was its heart. For the French Revolutionaries “Social Contract” written by Rousseau is like a bible. Robespierre the leader of the French Revolution is a great fan of Rousseau. 

Rousseau originated the Romanticist movement of  Europe which influenced intellectuals, writers and artists in Europe. 

Rousseau is so different from the philosophers we know. He did not search for any metaphysical truths. In fact he is not even a philosopher in the strict sense of the term. He is a spokesman of the modern age. He influenced politics, arts, literature, psychology and ethics. He is primarily he is a social and political reformer.

 Voltaire and Rousseau both are the guiding lights of the French revolution, yet they are utterly different in thinking and are like the North and the South poles. While Voltaire was an intellectual that gave primacy to the mind, Rousseau went by his heart and gave primacy to feeling. 

Descartes said “I think, therefore I am” while Rousseau said “I feel-therefore I am”

Rousseau was French but was born at Geneva in 1712. His father used to make clocks. A few days after Rousseau was born his mother died. His father never bothered about Rousseau and did not educate him.

 From his 10^th year onwards Rousseau did many odd jobs. When he was working for an engraver, his boss used to call him lazy, dumb and a thief and used to beat him up badly. Rousseau then actually started stealing, made friends with bad company and used to roam aimlessly.

One day he escaped from his home and went to Turin in Italy. There one rich woman named Madame De Warens gave him shelter, became his mistress and made him a Catholic. She made Rousseau learn grammar and music. He stayed with her for sometime but then ran away. He then worked as an engraver and music teacher for sometime but could not earn enough money to fill his stomach. So he came back to Madame De Warens again. He stayed with her from 1733 to 1740. With her association he also learnt manners and culture. After sometime she got fed up with him and left him. 

He went to Paris and then joined as a secretary to the French ambassador in Venice. His temperament was very fickle and he used to fight with everyone. In the process, he fought with the ambassador himself. His anger on his boss turned into a deep anger on the government, rich people, landlords and the contemporary societal structure. 

He used to write something but those did not get him any fame. He had introductions and friendships with intellectuals. Diderot was the editor of French Encyclopedia and an extremely famous writer and one of the philosophers and intellectuals who influenced the French Revolution. He was a friend of Rousseau. 

The year was 1749; Rousseau was on way to the prison to visit Diderot who was jailed there on account of writing against the government. On the way he purchased a newspaper which carried an advertisement given by one academy. The ad stated that it would reward anyone who wrote the best essay on whether Arts & Science have improved human life. That was a turning point in Rousseau’s life. 

He started thinking about it and feelings flooded him in multitudes. Rousseau writes about his state then thus:

 “My mind was lit up with 1000 bright lamps. Feelings in innumerable groups permeated in my mind. I felt an indescribable mental disturbance. My state has become like that of a drunkard who is intoxicated and was not able to control himself” 

Unable to control himself, he sat down beneath a tree on the side of the road. When he thought about the state of man his feelings of exasperation came in droves. He felt tragic and he felt submerged with immense feeling and excitement.   

Slowly his excitement cooled down. He wondered as to why he was sitting beneath the tree. He found that the front side of his coat was filled with his tears. Unknowingly he has cried for all that time.

He put all his feelings into the essay and sent it to the academy and won the first prize. With this he became famous and entire France knew him. 

But Rousseau had that fickle mentality, so fame and money did not give him any solace. All the time he was yearning for something, and was full of restlessness and unhappiness.

 With his fame he got friendships with the elite of Paris. At the same time he fell in love with a servant girl at the hotel where he stayed. She was illiterate and on top of that she was ugly looking. No one could understand why he loved her and had 5 children by her. Rousseau felt that if he raised those children they would grow to become terrible like him, so as and when they were born he joined them off in an orphanage.

 We can see there is psychologically wrong with Rousseau, yet despite his lack of education he was brilliant, which was perhaps the reason why he got all that fame.  

In 1752 a musical play written by Rousseau was exhibited in front of the French king and it was appreciated by everyone. Impressed by Rousseau, Louis XV offered him a pension, but Rousseau was not interested and he did not even go to the king’s court to collect it. This despite the fact that he was in dire need of money then.   

 In 1755 the academy which gave the first place to Rousseau in the earlier essay competition, held another contest but this time Rousseau missed the prize. But that essay “A Discourse of the Origins of Inequality” gave him great fame.   

 Rousseau had the fame but he is not one to encash it, so poverty followed him but despite his idiosyncrasies it appears that Rousseau had a good following among the rich women of France. One such was Madame De Epine who gave shelter to Rousseau and his lover. As usual Rousseau had a fight with the Madame and had to leave. At the same time he picked up a quarrel with Diderot who was a great admirer of his. So he left Paris and lived in a cottage in the middle of a forest.

 In this cottage he wrote 2 books which brought him enduring fame. The first was a book on a new education system known as “Emille”. It is amazing that Rousseau who was never educated should write such a book on education and the world should accept it heartily. This alone sets out his brilliance; despite a bad childhood, a bad education, continuous fickle nature and self made poverty still that spark was there in him. The other book of course is the explosive “Social Contract”.   

 Half the time Rousseau was in a half mad neurotic state. He felt that someone is plotting to kill him and everyone is talking about him only. He had a persecution mania.

 His Social Contract was banned by the Government. Orders were out to arrest him and he ran away to Prussia. Frederick the Great of Prussia gave him asylum there but he could not stay put there either.

 David Hume then took him to London and gave him shelter. He had interactions with Burke, Boswell and the Prime Minister Walpole. The English people laid the red carpet for him. King George III offered him pension which was again refused by him.

 Finally he had a fight with Hume who was his great fan. Rousseau as is his wont felt that Hume was trying to get him murdered and ran back to Paris.

 In Paris he was earning money from copying music notes with which he was able to eke out a living somehow. Again someone provided him with shelter and gave him a house to live in. Finally in dire poverty he died of ill health in 1778 at the age of .

 What can one say about such a man? He had nothing initially but later he could have got whatever he wanted but did not will so. He became so famous in entire Europe, yet he died in dire poverty. That is the irony of Rousseau’s life. Perhaps, he was born to suffer and did not like happiness at all. So finally when he died what he got wanted which were unhappiness, poverty and ill health? No one would want those, but that is Voltaire. After saying all that, who can doubt his brilliance that shone through all that strife and turmoil of his life, that spark that lit the way for communism?  

He was not educated but he wrote a book that is the source for revision of the education system all over the world. In French literature his fame is equaled by very few. He wrote great novels, plays, musical plays, essays on political and social issues, autobiography etc. totaling some 47 tomes. 

He never learnt music, yet he worked as a music teacher. He has introduced changes in the musical notation. Diderot made Rousseau write all the matter on music in his French Encyclopedia.

 He gained name as a great intellectual and humanist but at the same time his personality was detested. So Rousseau was actually not one but 2 individuals rolled into one.

Rousseau said that a man should live as his heart says, and he followed that dictum to the last “t”.

 

What did Rousseau’s philosophy say?                                                                        

 As per Rousseau, man has got corrupted because of knowledge and developing an artificial civilization. Rousseau says man was originally very nice but the society and civilization spoilt him. 

In the essay to the Dujan academy which won him the 1^st prize as well as fame all over France, Rousseau demolished the value of sciences and arts as well in life. He said they are the reason for the downfall of man.

 Rousseau visualized a state of nature when the ancient humans lived happily without any botheration. That man ate whatever is available and thereafter just relaxed and enjoyed himself. He was friendly with everyone else. That was the age of truth. 

But that age did not persist for long. When man instead of being a part of nature, tried to control nature, not being happy with whatever he had, then itself his downfall has started. Rousseau felt iron and rice (agriculture) are the main elements that helped the downfall of man. 

With increase in knowledge the higher classes and lower classes in men evolved. Differences like stronger, weaker, rich & poor surfaced. Inequality increased. The stronger oppressed the weak and the rich person oppressed the poor person and made them slaves.   

Civilization made man corrupt. In those societies living away from civilization one does not find jealousy and unfairness. Man is freer in uncivilized societies than in civilized ones. 

In the age of truth when civilization did not touch him, man was a noble savage. He loved freedom, was peace loving and was able to get food without the need to do much work. He led a happy and sedentary life. 

But when civilized he is always running around, always craving for something, doing hard work and making money and adding to it, serving the rich people imagining that in that slavery lies his comfort, not living as per his wishes but living for someone else’s opinions and leads a terrible life.   

Individual property is the root cause of all evils. No individual should have enough money to buy another individual. No individual should be so poor as to sell himself to others. 

The earth does not belong to any single person. If on the same day when a person claimed rights on a piece of land by fencing it, if someone removed them and said this belongs to everyone and not to any particular person then it would have saved mankind from innumerable murders, atrocities and misfortunes that mankind has fallen into. All this Rousseau wrote in his “Social Contract” with great feeling. As per Locke sovereignty lies in the kings, Hobbes says it is in the Parliament comprising of peoples representatives, now Rousseau says it is universal to everyone individually. 

Now Rousseau felt that tyranny is the worst form of government. Worst vermin gather round a king and we can hardly find anything good in them. 

At the same time Rousseau also did not favor absolute democracy. Such a system works only when the country is small. When there are inequalities, lobbies, money power and luxurious living such a democracy does not work. In such a democracy work does not completed and discussions dominate. 

The best form of Government is elected Aristocracy but that should not be hereditary. Rousseau says whenever a government acts against the welfare of the society and tries to suppress people, then they have a right to rebel. Rousseau says revolutions rejuvenate society and human life.