Jean Jacques Rousseau and Theodor Adorno in the Development of Social Thought - Essay Example

Jean Jacques Rousseau and Theodor Adorno in the development of social thought In the development of social thought a crucial issue of man’s position in the society has always appeared. On the one hand, people are born in the surroundings of others; and so, sociologists tend to emphasize on prevalence of social influence on them. In fact, their works are based on evaluating social groups, social networks, social roles and other formations inside the whole society. On another hand, each person is a personality, and it is impossible to neglect one’s individual will that can change the whole societies. And so, each system approach that appears in sociology is often criticized by including individuality into their theoretical frame. However, some thinkers assumed that it is possible to combine totality and personality in one theory. In this context, Jean Jacques Rousseau proposed a concept of general will, meaning that each person acted independently but together with others while establishing a state. In addition, Theodor Adorno stated that without saving one’s ability to resist society can be destroyed by its own totality. And so, in a given paper theoretical frameworks of both sociologists are presented and their scientific authority is analyzed. To start with, Jan Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) is well-known by his theory of social contract as the basis of the rational state. In fact, as liberalism representative, he stressed on individual rights and freedoms during one’s existence in a state. In particular, Rousseau is one of primary contributors of "the literature of freedom", as he encouraged men to resist and overthrow the rule of tyrants (Bruce, 1976, p. 247). Moreover, he saw morality as given to average people by nature not by the state (Bruce, 1976, p. 256), which actually takes all the royal and religious authorities away. Due to this fact, he has called as the last of rationalists and the first of idealists nowadays (Matthew, 1982, p. 1). That is the reason why it is hard to find a perfect political model in his writings; however, fundamental background of proper society is widely presented (Woolner, 2008-2009, p. 308). Nevertheless, these revolutionary thoughts inspired his coevals a lot and encouraged them to act politically not to dream about ideal society. In particular, the French Revolution appeared the next year after his death and highly supported his ideals of freedom of man, brotherhood between people, and equality within the society. Moreover, each further revolution elsewhere in the world generated as people’s will to have more rights under governmental pressure. Hence, Jan Jacques Rousseau is a really influential figure for his time. In fact, even in contemporary world his ideas are still viable. Consequently, even though members of present societies did not sign any papers with statesmen sitting at the round table, people in the developed countries realize that politicians are responsible for their well-being and if necessary convince them to behave accordingly. In fact, mentioned in the beginning of this paper dichotomy between natural rights and life in artificial formation of the society can be summarized in the starting passage for Rousseau’s book Social Contract (1913) as "man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains" (p. 5). And so, people are unavoidably born in the community, but each minute of their existence they should remember to stay who they are. In fact, this line is held by Rousseau in all social spheres which he investigated. In this context, language is playing an important social role as an articulation of persons individual needs (Matthew, 1982, p. 7). This approach was novel for his time, because it rejected common assumption of religious origin of language (Matthew, 1982, p. 33). Moreover, in Rousseau’s theory of combining individuality and society art and political society are also included (Matthew, 1982, p. 30). In the same manner, money as artificial creation is needed in order to guarantee person’s natural equality in the society (Alvarez and Hurtado-Prieto, 200-, p. 8). And so, proper social basis is needed in order to maintain all these parts. Hence, the social contract is the best solution of the problem of keeping individuality in the society (Woolner, 2008-2009, p. 308). As Rousseau characterized it, “each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are same to all; and, this being so, no one has any interest in making them burdensome to others” (Rousseau, 1913, p. 15). In other words, it is an act of preservation of personal independency while choosing life under pressure. Moreover, such an act is of fundamental importance, so everyone feels responsibility of its maintenance. However, an important social institution has to be established in order to keep further generations aware of their social responsibility. And so, an issue of proper education is raised in Rousseau’s works. Here, he distinguished two different types of bringing up. In particular, bringing up a man means keeping his freedom given by nature; on the contrary, bringing up a citizen is to substitute his nature in order to make him appropriate to the community he lives in (Canivez, 2004, p. 396). As Rousseau stated, “good social institutions are those that best know how to denature man, to take his absolute existence from him in order to give him a relative one and transport them into the common unity” (Rousseau, 1979, p.39-40). However, history shows that such an action was the most successfully taken by totalitarian regimes. That is the reason why his theory was providently supplemented with an individual component. In particular, the collective totality by its nature is deeply interrelated one, consisting of sympathizing members who always think how it is to be in other person’s shoes (Canivez, 2004, p. 399). Moreover, education should develop physical and mental traits given by nature and influence them respectively (Bruce, 1976, p. 251). For instance, he was a protagonist of ice-cold water bathing as an example of such a harmonization with nature (Rousseau, Emilie, p. 27). And so, majority of workers and farmers were encouraged by Rousseau to be put into the social concept of people. In fact, he related them with minority of nobles on the background of commonsense and of love to humanity (Canivez, 2004, p. 403). Moreover, his system of educating Emile was primarily based on unpleasant experiences that are happening to a child naturally (Bruce, 1976, p. 253). His logic of combining social totality with individual sympathy is also reflected in his idea of positive control, which means a positive reaction and kind encouraging while forcing to unusual things such as waking up early or running (Bruce, 1976, p. 255). These ideas were highly important in the development of sociology, psychology, and pedagogy. In particular, they were developed in the 20th century by Theodor Adorno. Summarizing Rousseau’s ideas, the pioneering concept of social contract as the basis of each society is principal in his works. By stressing on freedom given to everyone by nature, thinker succeeded in theoretical consolidation of society and individuality based on general will of independent people. Moreover, his observations on functioning of the society were included in his general theory. In fact, he saw language, policy, art and money as visible elements of fundamental idea of social contract. In addition, he paid his attention to education as an opportunity to bring up citizens that know their natural rights and are able to resist social totality. Nevertheless, history shows that revolutions caused not in the last place by Rousseau’s ideas created not only democratic but also totalitarian societies like Nazi Germany. And this place appeared to be the motherland of another important social thinker, Theodor Adorno (1903-1969). He became popular nowadays as a critic of modern societies in terms of cultural industry and totality. Instead of his counterparts (inspired by Hegel’s philosophy), he did not see any polarization between culture and social activity nowadays. In Hegelian vision, art died after it had transformed into the product of history, even though its nature is transcendental (Adorno, 1997, p. 3). In his turn, Adorno was the first one who felt that culture did not vanish but became subservient to social needs after bourgeois revolutions had won. Due to this fact he is classified today as Marxist philosopher. In his opinion, nowadays each person who is trying to transform his argumentation into ideology needs art and uses it as one of rational tools (Adorno, 1997, p. 18). In other words, modern dominance of capitalistic rationality enables convincing people emotionally by using art as a servant to economical (and political) machine. And so, objective higher spirit of culture distances from its reflection in forms of social institutions – as a result, art distances from itself (Stojanov, 2013, p. 2). This process of judging art in economic terms (and so, leaving its real purpose behind) can be easily seen in contemporary world. In fact, nowadays it is evident that influence of TV, sports, and rock music leaves no place to canonical traditions in literature and art (Cartor, 1997, p. 509). Professional sports are ideological–as they do not provide any critical importance, but create an informative message that is free of sense (Stahl, 2010, p. 111). In addition, football is much more popular than theatre, and radio rarely plays classic music as its owners cannot get money from these musicians. In particular, in the world of music such a cultural industry is working in creating business projects of “music industry” and “show business” (Bolaños, 2007, p. 27). And so, current appearance of cultural criticism transforms into pricing and advertising (Stahl, 2010, p. 109), which creates a phenomenon when market replaces culture. This theory also corresponds with contemporary findings on “customer culture”. Here, the authorship of artwork is completely neglected, and in a new type of capitalism identification is associated with coolness and atmosphere of icons (McGuidan, 2009, p. 115). In given conditions, a central place in Adorno’s theory is given to aesthetics. In fact, numerous acts of art commercialization in terms of advertising, entertainment, and simplification show the “totalizing tendency in the cultural industry” (Bolaños, 2007, p. 28). On the contrary, art should be playing completely different role in social relations. In his opinion, “art keeps itself alive through its social force of resistance; unless it reifies itself, it becomes commodity” (Adorno, 1997, p. 226). And so, art itself should not exist absolutely independently from social relations–the main thing is to save aesthetical autonomous form (Stahl, 2010, p. 112). But, in conditions of cultural industry hegemony all previous functions of art are thrown away. In fact, by forcing the form of art to serve society (to create advertising clips or draw politically correct things), it inevitably turns it into mass culture. For instance, activity of contemporary critics reduces art by trying to put it into ideological frame (Stahl, 2010, p. 110). Therefore, while following regulations established by cultural industry authors and critics are limited by necessity of being up-to-date and socially accepted. On the contrary, traditional artwork is always an integration of existing and nonexisting (Adorno, 1997, p. 233). This means that art cannot be created as a simple reflection of actuality; it needs something more in its content. And so, however negative is the reality captured by cultural industry, future designated by artists in their works should be a source of hope for modernity (Bolaños, 2007, p. 30). But, if author creates in order to reflect presence with no reflexing on future, he actually destroys art. Hence, a vital role in overcoming supremacy of cultural industry is played by artists, who should understand all the importance of creating eternal not disposable beauty. As a result, in the prism of his cultural industry theory education is examined as a crucial sphere of hope. Here, philosopher stressed on opportunities to relieve cultural industry pressure. Adorno stated that human evolution is impossible without social interaction in addition to individual subjectivity; nevertheless, he saw cultural industry (Halbbildung) as given by default negative background that people need to smooth over the educational process (Buildung) (Stojanov, 2013, p. 2). In particular, this statement refers to traditional cultural criticism which either took art for granted as a whole or glorified it as something divine (Stahl, 2010, p. 114). Hence, Adorno adhered to this attitude and discovered positive changes in modernity by looking back to the past. And so, he referred to education as a chance to change situation for further generations. Moreover, he saw in proper education the only possible way to keep future safe from Auschwitz (Adorno, 2010, p. 2). In fact, his idea of learning, based on mastering “truly cultural” traditional non-assimilated works (Stojanov, 2013, p. 4), is an option chosen by contemporary educational institutions in order to teach students to think critically. However, the extent to which popular culture has become widespread cannot neglect cultural industry. In fact, mass culture expanded far beyond its cultural frames. In his opinion, the prevailing universal pressure is seen elsewhere as it strives for ruining individuality and smashes together with it after fighting with personal resistance (Adorno, 2010, p. 3). And so, being able to oppose attacks of contemporary authorities by developed critical thinking is the only chance to save oneself in the modern world. However, it is complicated to find in Adorno’s theory the possibility to resist cultural pressure by new generations as they are already born in the frames of cultural industry. Hence, this theory is a starting point for current researches in sociology and aesthetics. In order to sum up Adorno’s theory, the negative attitude towards modernity is clearly visible in his thoughts. Being stagnated by cultural industry, contemporary societies cannot create anything independent and long-term. The striking example of modern art shows that it was transformed by social totality and currently differs significantly in comparison to traditional artworks. In addition, the modern fashion of advertising and simplification distracts people of their real needs by pressing on them. And so, the only chance to guarantee people’s independence in the age of cultural totality is bringing them up in terms of critical thinking. So, both Jan Jacques Rousseau and Theodor Adorno paid significant attention to the extent of person’s independency in the society. In their opinion, it is crucially important to remember about individual not social role in the community. Moreover, both of them realized the necessity of sympathy as an emotional background of moral and prosperous society. Finally, the modern concept of education is based on their approaches of bringing up unbiased and critical men not subservient citizens. However, the accents in their theoretical frameworks differ. As for Rousseau, he discussed the social contract as an ability to remember one’s significance in the society. As for Adorno, he stressed on the necessity to refer to previous masterpieces in order to escape from the totality of cultural industry. Consequently, both thinkers provided brand-new approaches in sociology. Moreover, their ideas are still up-to-date in the contemporary world. References Adorno, T.W., 1997. Aesthetic Theory. London: Continuum. Adorno, T.W., 2010. Education after Auschwitz. Canadian International Youth Letter, [online]. Available at: [Accessed 27 July 2014]. Alvarez, A. and Hurtado-Proeto J., 200-. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Karl Marx on the Critique of Economics. Some Insights from their Analysis of the Role of Money [pdf]. PHARE: Universite de Paris X -Nanterre. Available at: [Accessed 28 July 2014]. Bolaños, P.A., 2007. The Critical Role of Art: Adorno between Utopia and Dystopia. Kritike, 1 (1), pp.25-31. Bruce, R.A., 1976. Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Behavior Control: The Technology of a Romantic Behaviorist. Behaviorism, 4 (2), pp.245-256 Canivez, P., 2004. Jean Jacques Rousseau’s Concept of People. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 30 (4), pp.393-412. Cartor, N., 1997. The American century: varieties of culture in modern times. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Matthew, R.A., 1982. Jean-Jacques Rousseaus Tragic Vision of Reality: An interpretation of Rousseaus political philosophy in the light of his theory of language. MA. McGill University. McGuigan, J., 2009. Cool Capitalism. London: Pluto Press. Rousseau, J.J., 1979. Emile or On Education. Book I. New York: Basic Books, Inc. Rousseau, J.J., 1913. The Social Contract and Discourses. London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. Stahl, G., 2010. Essays in Philosophy [e-book]. Philadelphia: Gerry Stahl at Lulu. Available at: GerryStahl.net [Accessed 27 July 2014]. Stojanov, K., 2013. Education as Social Critique: On Theodor Adorno’s Philosophy of Education. In: PESGB (Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain), Annual Conference. Oxford, 22-24 March 2013. Oxford: New College. Woolner, H., 2008-2009. To what extent can Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ‘The Social Contract’ and John Berger’s ‘G.’ be said to show democracy as the best political model for a society. Innervate, 1: pp.308-313. Read More