Who was Rousseau?
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was an 18th century philosopher from Geneva. He moved to France when he was 30, and collaborated with Denis Diderot on his encyclopedia. Rousseau’s views on society, progress, and politics fueled the Enlightenment movement, and was inspiration for the French Revolution. Rousseau’s ideas of human nature also shaped the romantic movement.
The “Noble Savage”
According to Rousseau, man is naturally virtuous. Rousseau believed that the establishment of civilizations corrupted man’s good nature. The invention of social hierarchies and industrial developments have led us away from our natural state, and have deprived us of our morality. Rousseau’s idea of the “noble savage” referred to the purer, more primitive human in an egalitarian society. He claimed that inequality got in the way of man’s natural virtue.
The “General Will”
For Rousseau, an appropriate form of society that does not deprive people of their goodness would be a society based on natural virtue. And since man is naturally good, Rousseau believed that, ideally, there would exist universal ideas of what virtue looked like. These universal virtuous ideas would form what he called the “general will,” which was what society should be governed by. Then, anything that disagreed with the “general will” was not only an unpopular opinion, it was sinful.
Influence on the French Revolution
Rousseau’s notion of the “general will” was an ideal situation. In reality, it is impossible for everyone to have the exact same ideas of what virtue looked like, and the formation of factions within a state was inevitable. The people of 18th century France, inspired by Rousseau’s ideas, tried to form a society governed by virtue, but that ultimately turned into a reign of terror. If those who disagreed with the “general will” were sinful, they had to be executed by guillotine. In addition to abolishing absolute monarchy, the revolution also turned France away from religion. Instead of a god, the radical republic worshipped “virtue” and “reason.”
Rousseau Quotes
“The law is the expression of the general will. All citizens have the right to contribute personally, or through their representatives, to its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.”
“People in their natural state are basically good. But this natural innocence, however, is corrupted by the evils of society.”
“Man was born free, and he is everywhere in chains. Those who think themselves the masters of others are indeed greater slaves than they.”