Rousseau or the anti-ethics, the foundations of the negation of the individual
by Nicolas
Madelenat di Florio
Society of Literary History of France.
This text is the first in a series on the Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
A Matthew Mentz, because if something needs to survive the madness of men, it is friendship.
A C., with friendly kindness of the author.
In 1762 appeared very likely that the works was most marked in the history of thought in this industry so special that deals with the formation of societies. We need this text to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, author of Social Contract . It is him, here he comes. More than ever, in a society that seeks, it seems necessary to go back to basics, such illustrious sources, and often illustrated, if not corrupt, thought to draw, the cup's history and the analysis, this fountain strange wisdom to which guide our future.
A Rousseau, therefore, we need this text, founder of which became the Republic, and so many currents of thought that it would take more space devoted here to list them all. Number of thinkers, in addition to any modern political boast of descent from Rousseau, high wear colors that we like to imagine as a purity colored extraordinary humanist. I could not, in research that are mine, neglecting to account for what is, in fact and in truth, this book, to develop ideas, theories, nothing overlooked. After all, when the truth is obvious, it is impossible that rises from the parties and factions. Never played it emerged at noon (Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary ). And it is in this spirit of homecoming that I decided to work directly on the edition of 1762, bearing the title From Social Contract . The approach that is mine is in line with the research project instilled within the Centre for Research in Economic Ethics on the philosophical foundations of a humanistic ethic.
But the notion that we must hold here before pushing further our analysis, in other articles, therefore, is equality between people. Rousseau defined as in 1754 the inherent equality between individuals as being corrupted by society and thus considered to be naturally good, that is the thesis presented in discourse on the origins and foundations of inequality among men . But the author of this hypothesis harden over time and move forward in 1762 in the Social Contract that men are perfectly equal and it is the pooling The company, which will push everybody to evolve differently. The modern theory under which Rousseau would see in his conception of equality that equality in law is therefore not credible a round square (Heiddeger, Introduction to metaphysics). The contribution of the philosopher, however, is significant in that it will break with with the Aristotelian approach, which is based on an anthropological imperative in society (the philia Aristotle in the Ethics Nicomachean , is nothing but the imperative for men to cooperate with each other to avoid the domination of the strongest and the destruction or enslavement of the weak).
For Rousseau, men are perfectly equal and society will corrupt them, making them hungry for power and put forward their own person. That, for the author, living in a group that will lead to the emergence of violence "civil". For him there, before the company, a particular state in which each individual takes care to avoid the other is the state of nature. In this garden of hell, the author imagines the men fleeing each other, very carefully, seeming to forget that reproduction can not be ensured due to lack of partners. In sum, the imperative of logic and consistency adds a anthropological imperative distracted by the need to shine and distinguish the author by his zeal in the midst of a changing society.
But what we forget to deal with when trying to present Rousseau as a champion of individual rights, this is the great concept of the social body. Because that is where will play all the strange alchemy of his thoughts. Moreover, equality is perfect, although utopian, something which does not represent great danger. However, it becomes a terrible cleaver when applied to politics and various forms of possible links between beings. By dissolving the individual into a shapeless mass which he is a cog swappable and fully comparable to the other, the philosopher will kill all the features making the person, individual, at the same time, the machine becomes a state on I have all the powers on those who are its hardware upgrade. After all, if each and everyone can be replaced if the social body is all powerful and only guarantor of a collective interest, the party can easily be destroyed for the benefit of all, since he single account.
And it is in the concept of the social body that will frame the infamous ideology future. Deny the individual break into a mold before kneading with other clusters of flesh, perfectibility condemn, condemn any possible evolution. It is also breaking innovation, features, kill the differences, stupefy those who would look up and see farther than others. The social body dear to Rousseau generate the worst barbarism that will ever exist, the socialist-Marxist ideology. The same ideology that brought to power, to deport an arm and poor people refusing to be a sheep led by a blind shepherd.
In this sense, then the thought of Rousseau is corrupting of the individual as the basis of the release (of force) from the yoke of a society that corrupts, it will replace his ball by chains, take a convict and make it a slave. There is not much social progress and we should not have, having to choose between two evils which is the lesser. Because what if timid civilized world has found nothing and the other to oppose the brutal and rebirth Face of barbarism that concessions ? (A. Solzhenitsyn, Speech Stockholm, 1972) Following Rousseau, we turn our gaze together to freedom as promised. For who is better priest who has everything to gain by convincing us? Rousseau was there and those of his pen he would appeal to those who a few months later, the revolution should go, not the song but the drums in the blood, tears, hate and madness, not forgetting that whoever refuses to obey the general will will be forced by any body (social) : what justifies anything else that will force him to be free. (Rousseau, Social Contract The , Chapter VI, the sovereign)
On this abomination of thinking, this denial open and justified our humanity, we must now make the cloth of history and its lessons. Suppose that the man was a strange animal before contact with civilized beings. Suppose it is a wolf to man (Hobbes in the quote in Latin, homo homini lupus is ). But refuse a salvation offered by other slaveholders. Do not leave more of the oars in a galley for the chains of forced laborers in the pay of a lord almighty, Father of our spirits, and captain of our soul. Reject our own barbarity and turn us toward freedom, the very one that has a simple face, that of choosing. Leaving the individual the choice of his life, and ensuring an appropriate regulatory framework and intelligent that the others let them do so, we will be able to quench our thirst, but before any common individual freedom. Only the man could not survive, he needs others. But society can not it either, survive if those who compose it are no longer capable of thinking. Imagining the future is already discovering the truth and touch a certain ideal.
The next article will focus on the origin of power and its use.
0 comments:
Post a Comment