"People are born free but are everywhere in chains."
The quote above is from Genevan philosopher, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He is really influential in two aspects, one in The Social Contract and secondly, he was considered the founder of romanticism. Essentially Rousseau was anti-establishment and thought society would cause nothing but a negative effect upon a human's life. He believed that the regulated systems with laws, governments and elitist groups were wrong and the 'Newtonian world' wasn't a true of full expression of what it meant to be to be a human being. It's often said Rousseau was quintessentially anti-enlightenment - he was a noble savage.
After researching Rousseau, it becomes clear he saw the society as the enemy, the main thing that corrupted a man's true nature. He felt as if he was removed from society was he was still pure and true to his human instinct and hadn't yet been indoctrinated into society's way of living and didn't really care how society viewed him. He acted on the way he thought was best and stood true to his instincts and believed others should do this also in order to be a 'truer' human being. This was a different way of looking at things and met controversy against philosopher, John Locke, who had the idea that a labouring man in the heart of society would have a nicer life than the king of a primitive tribe - whereas Rousseau thought the opposite. Rousseau felt that the further away a man was from the society, the better that man would be.
This really sparks the debate of the practical, tangible, Newtonian was of life vs the spiritual, instinctive way of living. Essentially, it became the realists against the spiritualist.
Although these ideas originated in the 1700s, they are far from forgotten. The 1960s saw a rebirth in Rousseau's ideas and people began to live by their own rules and started to live on the outside of society. The song below is John Lennon's song 'Imagine' released in the early 1970s and is a new age adaption of Rousseau's theory.
Despite appearing to be the father of so many movements; the hippie movement, the green movement, communism and so on, Rousseau's ideas and thought weren't necessarily clearly formed. He wasn't trying to make a society or a movement - he was just picking up ideas and throwing them out there. Maybe 'throwing' isn't the right word, but they were just his thoughts about the nature of man kind and the adverse effect and influence of society upon man kinds behaviour. People postulate what he said, when in my opinion, they were just ideas - not laws of life.
Rousseau believed in the supremacy of the strength of the majority and direct democracy, however, due to his early life in Greece, he knew that his ideas would only work in small societies. The larger a society became, the worst it became and soon enough it would be corrupt and run by elitists. After all, Rousseau refuses to believe society was created by people. There wasn't a point where everyone agreed a government would be a good idea - it is just the way that man kind evolved. Rousseau believe that there is a state of nature when people in their primitive form were given free will, free spirit and open expression of their passions and feelings. He felt as if people shouldn't be bound by a governing body but should live as far away from society as possible, only getting together for necessary reasons such as building a house or putting out a large fire, but after the task is complete, he felt the group should completely and immediately dissolve. Rousseau was completely anti-association.
Part of the idea Rousseau was going for was thoughts and cognitive thinking being entire separate from instinct. Men are like other animals. It's only when you put another man's influence amongst others and create a political society then things go wrong. It starts making the human kind possessive, greedy and corrupt.
Many say Rousseau was a great influence of The French Revolution. Although I do agree with this, in my opinion, The French Revolution would have still happened due to the situation the country was in, similar to the rising of the Nazis which I believe would have still occurred without Hitler because of the state of the country after the World War I. France was a totalitarian state and it was run by individuals who believed they were righteous and God had directly blessed them with their power. This basically stripped all power from the common, working man is France and made them completely powerless as those in power believed when they were creating new laws, it was 'the voice of God' and the decision of God. The country was bound to have a revolt, it is just the way of society. Something had to give.
If it wasn't for Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the world would be a very different place. The idea of alienation by society has been picked up throughout the centuries and throughout the different eras. Rousseau was about free will, basic instinct and being as far away from society as possible. His idealism weaves it's way through literature, political thinkings and music. His influence is seen everywhere to this day. Who is to say whether it's right or wrong?
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