Rousseau and His Social Philosophy - Essay Example

_________ ID: _____ _______ Is Rousseau best thought of as democratic or totalitarian in his social philosophy Rousseau was among those social philosophers who explored the paradox that radical political theorists, remain unable to raise to democratic politics, a duality of social interests and diverse conceptions for a modern man in the form of 'democracy' and 'totalitarian' context. He was such a versatile in his opinion that on one hand he held the opinion to experience democracy, while on the other he felt the urge to be totalitarian. No doubt Rousseau's ideal of a self-sovereign people along with the conception of democratic control over social life, informed the moral and political vision of nineteenth and twentieth century democratic mass movements, as well as non-democratic variants thereof. Although Rousseau have been the first political theorist to outline the form of a democratic social contract, his obsession with social solidarity precluded his conceptualizing the content of modern democratic political life 1. What he believed was a modern democratic policy within which general will involved the establishment of a democratic consensus, among divergent social interests and distinct moral conceptions of the good, on those shared constitutional practices and public goods that reach beyond one's identity with a particular sub community 2. Rousseau was among the very few political philosophers and theorists who gave a touch of taste of totalitarian to a full democratic region. He comprehend that if democracy were to be a stable and viable order, a commitment to its political practices and public goods would have to be an integral part of the will of each of its citizens, regardless of their propertied status. Although Rousseau acknowledged that in a free society the existence of such a shared "general will" should not obliterate individual wills, his attitude toward the role of associational life in a democratic order was profoundly ambivalent. Perhaps because he never witnessed a functioning pluralist democracy and vigorously opposed the status and economic inequalities of a commercial, monarchical society, Rousseau could not envision a democracy in which the political interactions of divergent interests forged a commitment to a common political life 3. In his day, status-based interests were a profound barrier to the creation of an egalitarian, democratic order; thus Rousseau never witnessed free associations playing a central role in the life of a democratic polity. Although Rousseau is theoretically committed to the sovereign authority of the people, he could be thought of as such a political symbol that severely curtailed the arena for democratic politics by denying any role for particular interests groups or sub communities in political deliberation. He believed a democratic society to be partly constituted through popular participation in the election of government and in popular deliberation about the constitutional structure of society, the nature of the basic laws. But it is also shaped by particular interests defending their concerns in both civil society and the political arena. In a vigorous and egalitarian democratic order, a complex dialectic would persist between the activities of secondary associations and their regulation by broader democratic cultural norms and legislative practices. Although the citizens of a democracy must at times achieve a measure of reflective distance from their particular attachments in order to reason about shared institutions and practices, a complete distancing from particular identities will never be fully achieved 4. This mediation between particular and collective identities, and between partial interests and the common good, can only occur politically. There is no Archimedean resolution to this inherent democratic dilemma. For Rousseau the essence of both "natural freedom" and "civil freedom" was the absence of personal dependence on others. In a society characterized by a healthy civic culture, all constantly adhere to the general will, regardless of their specific interests. This refers to a society where democracy along with a complete totalitarianism is followed. Rousseau possessed the view that only in this manner we can expect complete freedom of democratic sovereignty in Western Europe. This civic culture of conflict-free social solidarity is best facilitated by a relatively undifferentiated political economy. Due to these visions he was considered to be more democratic when in favor of public, and a traditional political totalitarian who cannot tolerate any other party indulging in sovereignty affairs. As Rousseau once said, "Man can only liberate himself from the chains of a competitive, particularist civil society by the conscious authorship of a solidaristic, legitimate 'civil freedom' who so gives himself to all gives himself to none. 5" Rousseau's hostility to politics centered on his aversion to the competitive, particular interests of the emerging modern societies of the then eighteenth century. Whereas his defense of equality primarily involved a critique of the injustices of status-based, monarchical regimes, Rousseau also criticized the inclination of the emerging interest groups of commercial society to treat politics as an instrumental means for advancing their interests at the expense of the common good. Such awareness led Rousseau to reject the liberal conception of the social contract as universal adherence to those minimally necessary sovereign laws that enable individuals to pursue their self-interest without violating the essential rights of others to life, liberty, and property. Instead of conceiving the social contract to be those universally accepted laws that maximize the individual's freedom to pursue his or her self-interest, Rousseau envisioned a social contract that would maximize the individual's capacity for autonomous self-government. Conceiving of modern individuals as socially interdependent beings who desire self-rule, Rousseau argued that the only just social order was one in which each and every citizen had an equal voice in making the basic laws 6. Rousseau upheld the opinion of modern citizens to be truly free, and this could be possible only if they lived under such conditions of civil freedom. Thus he possessed the idea of freedom in both 'democracy' and 'totalitarian'. Yet, while astutely criticizing economic and status inequality for eroding the equal worth of a citizen's voice, Rousseau, fearing the centrifugal dynamics of an emerging pluralist, marketed society, devalued the importance of associational life and group rights as the primary means by which individuals develop their particular identity. When Rousseau is viewed as totalitarian, it does not mean that he advocated totalitarian subservience to an omnipotent state but rather the creation of a democratic state in which citizens actively concurred in if not originated the basic constitutional norms of their existence. Thus, not only have participatory democratic theorists drawn on Rousseau's conception of democratic individuality, but the democratic revolutions of the late-eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the subsequent labor and socialist movements explicitly acknowledged him as inspiration to be followed. The relationship between mass social movements and intellectual currents is a complex one. But if democratic social movements are, in part, intellectually indebted to Rousseau, so, at least indirectly, were the self-proclaimed radical regimes that contended that political conflict no longer existed in their virtuous societies. In the name of that assertion, dissent was repressed by a party or state that claimed to instantiate true human interests 7. Contrary to the practices of totalitarian regimes, every individual in the Rousseauian polity retains the right to opt out of the social contract and to enter voluntary exile. And each individual must openly and consciously contract into civil society. The major political activity of Rousseau's citizenry appears to be a periodic reaffirmation of their loyalty to the regime. Unlike Plato's criticisms of social pluralism, Rousseau's healthy mores and civil religion aim primarily to bolster the conventional political regime rather than to improve individual moral character 8. "Marx must be accounted one of the two or three minds that have had the most powerful influence on western thought since the advent of Christianity" We have already seen Marx with a versatile attitude towards philosophy, journalism, economy, history, and moral. There is a new aspect of Marx, which we would discuss here, his unique 'eschatology', which is often criticized and it should be. Because it has led many to think in negate with the opinions of 'Christianity'. Marx theology, where on one hand has led towards increasing his followers, on the other it has acquired certain comments be said that on this subject he had no expertise. Infact he was among those very few who had no particular interest in religion. He wrote no systematic analysis of the religious dimension of human consciousness and provided no extended theoretical justifications for his negative stance toward religion. In all his writings, explicit statements on religion amount to little more than a handful 9. Marx was among those few who believe that religion need not be taken seriously because it is already dead, finished, headed for the exit on the stage of human history. Nevertheless, he did say something and thereby planted the seed that his followers nurtured into exuberant foliage. Indeed, the analyzing, commenting, interpreting, and elaborating have been almost limitless; ultimately, in the late Soviet Union his followers became an academic specialty in their own right, known as "Marxist religiology". It was only due to this theology that Marx, was considered responsible for introducing powerful influence on western thought, it is referred to as the 'Marxist critique', the name he earned because of his unique theology. What Marx had to say on religion can be sorted out and made sense of under four headings: atheism, historical materialism, alienation, and ideology. Different observers have taken Marx influence in different ways. Some have seen a direct or indirect link between Marx's Jewish ancestry, some think its because of his heritage and his prophetic stance. Others see Marx's prophetic stance mediated through the influence of his early Christian upbringing. Still others call attention to Marx's Western intellectual heritage, which, of necessity, included the prophetic tradition. Moreover, some critics see only some prophetic ingredients in Marx, while others see falsely messianic or apocalyptic or foolishly utopian elements in Marx's outlook. Finally, some are those who appreciate, to deny Marx either a religiously prophetic mantle or a secular prophetic mantle 10. Mazlish acknowledges the influence of Marx on Western thought, while affirming the Christian influence. According to Mazlish "Marx was very much a religious thinker, even though his thought takes the form of a secular religion, and, even more to the point . . . it was his Christian upbringing that supplied him with his world view, rather than his Jewish background. The Jewish heritage was important, but more for psychological than for intellectual reasons. 11" Other observers, exploring the relationship between Marxism and Christianity, have largely bypassed the question of the origins of Marx's alleged prophetic ideas and, instead, have focused on the ideas themselves. Howard L. Parsons, one of the devotees has argued explicitly on behalf of "The Prophetic Mission of Karl Marx." He maintains that Marx fits the designation as prophet insofar as a prophet is a radical realist, perceives an ultimate order of goodness, criticizes and judges the existing social order, is committed to action and demands that others commit themselves to action 12. Two things in the Western thought are considered great to be appreciated. The modified democratic way of life, cosmology, culture, or religion represented by contemporary Leftist trends in the West and those systems introduced by the 'orthodox' Marxist position; here we can but indicate some of the main lines an analysis of these differences should take. But first it must be said that both the Marxist and the non-Marxist Left can legitimately claim common origin in the Enlightenment, and that both are in important ways opposed to traditional Christianity. Both reject the doctrine of original sin in favor of a basically optimistic view of human nature, both exclude the supernatural, both focus on the ideal of a happy life on this earth for everyone, both reject the ideal of a stratified society with permanent inequalities of status and great inequalities of income. It is only fair to note that today it is possible for a non-Marxist Leftist to accept some measure of traditional Christian pessimism, and indeed to consider himself a Christian; Marxism, a much more rigid creed, can hardly make any open compromise with Christianity or any theistic religion, but must remain firmly positivist and materialist 13. Marx's social science is powerfully illuminating, but nonetheless limited and seriously flawed in important respects. There can be no doubt, however, that Marx goes far beyond most nineteenth century secular, prophetic critics not only in revealing the gap that existed between the proletariat's existential condition and human freedom and development, but also in throwing bright light on how this condition had come to be, why exploitation continued under bourgeois capitalism, and what might be done to overcome this gap . Moreover, his radical criticism is powerful and appealing precisely because his ethical values guide his empirical research and because his empirical theory is consciously related to revolutionary action. The religious essence of Marxism is superficially obscured by Marx's rejection of the traditional religions. This took the form of a repudiation of 'religion' as such and an espousal of 'atheism'. Marx's atheism, however, meant only a negation of the transmundane God of traditional Western religion. It did not mean the denial of a supreme being. Indeed, as shown by his words, denial of the transmundane God was merely a negative way of asserting that man should be regarded as the Supreme Being or object of ultimate concern. In this sense his atheism was a positive religious proposition. It rules out consideration of Marxism as a religious system of thought only if, with Marx, we equate the traditional religions with religion as such 14. According to Marx philosophy of man, he insists upon actualizing himself qua man, becoming what he essentially is, instead of losing himself in the religious dream of self-actualization. The fantasy-life of religion is a pseudo-self-realization. Man does not become himself; he merely dreams about it. It is the fantastic realization of the human being, since the human being possesses no true reality. Marx's critique of religion is his critique of Christianity. Not only was Christianity the religion he knew best; he also assumed, as did most Western thinkers in the nineteenth century, that Christianity was the 'highest,' the most developed of the world's religions. Thus, when Marx speaks of 'religion' he has Christianity in mind unless he specifies otherwise. The other more 'primitive' religions are largely beneath criticism in the sense that a critique of the 'highest' automatically includes all the rest. Marx emerged as a powerful, illuminating, fearless, if limited and flawed, critic who was at least partially in the tradition of a secular prophetic politics. By focusing on universal human emancipation and related values, on the condition of the proletariat, on the dominant economic system of his day, on the relationship between foundation and superstructure, Marx is able to underscore in concept and in rich detail the gap between his ideals and goals and the existing reality 15. And because he is able, to his own satisfaction, to explain the reasons for the gap and to point toward a remedy that would close the gap, he goes beyond moral protest to social scientific diagnosis and remedy. To his credit he forces social scientists to think more radically about the necessary and sufficient conditions of freedom, integration, humanity, and community. Work Cited Brinton Crane, 1963. "Ideas and Men: The Story of Western Thought": Prentice-Hall: Englewood Cliffs, NJ. Bruce Mazlish, 1984. "The Meaning of Karl Marx". New York: Oxford Univ. Press, pp. 37-38. Howard L. Parsons, 1968. "The prophetic mission of Karl Marx," in Herbert Aptheker (ed.), "Marxism and Christianity" New York: Humanities Press, Ch. VII, esp. pp. 145-55. Jacob Talmon, 1952. "The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy". New York: Praeger. Janz R. Denis, 1998. "World Christianity and Marxism": Oxford University Press: New York. Joshua Cohen's "Reflections on Rousseau: Autonomy and Democracy," Philosophy and Public Affairs 15:3 (Summer 1986): 275-97 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, 1982. "On Religion" in "Atlanta: Scholars Press with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels", Collected Works, 47 vols. Richard Ashcraft, 1986. "Revolutionary Politics and Locke's" in "Two Treatises of Government" Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986 Riemer Neil, 1987. "Karl Marx and Prophetic Politics": Praeger Publishers. Place of Publication: New York. Rousseau, "The Social Contract", Book 1, sect. 6. Rousseau, "The Social Contract", Book 2, sect. 3. Schwartz M. Joseph, 1995. "The Permanence of the Political: A Democratic Critique of the Radical Impulse to Transcend Politics": Princeton University Press: Princeton, NJ. Timothy O'Hagan, 1999. "Rousseau" Publisher: Routledge: London Publication. Tucker C. Robert, 1971. "Philosophy and Myth in Karl Marx": Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, England. Read More