Revolution in Rousseau and Burke:

Revolution in Rousseau and Burke: How Different Truly Were Their Views?

Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (June 28, 1712 - July 2, 1778) left a legacy as one of the finest Western thinkers. He was a Franco-Swiss writer, philosopher, political theorist and he also was a self-schooled composer of The Age of Enlightenment. As we know, Rousseau's political ideas served to guide the French Revolution, the development of socialist theory and even the growth of nationalism - some credit him for America's famous isolationism too. Rousseau's legacy as a radical and revolutionary is perhaps best demonstrated by his most famous line, from his most important work, The Social Contract: "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."

Rousseau's views on revolution are culled from a fundamental divide he saw between society and human nature. Rousseau contended that man was good by nature, a "noble savage" when in the state of nature (the state of all the "other animals," and the condition humankind was in before the creation of civilization and society), but it is society that corrupts him. In fact, Rousseau saw society as completely fake and argued that the actual growth of society, most particularly the growth of social interdependence, has, over time, been anathematic to the well-being of human beings. Hence, society breeds revolution as a definition.

According to Rousseau, society's negative effect on generally good men focuses on society's mutation of "amour de soi," a positive self-love, into "amour-propre," or pride. Rousseau argued that amour de soi generates the instinctive human desire for self-preservation, in conjunction with the uniquely human power of reason. To differentiate, amour-propre is not natural but artificial and forces man to compare himself to others, thus creating unwarranted fear and allowing men to take pleasure in the pain or weakness of others. Revolution for Rousseau, however, as an essential force to combat the negative influences of society stems from amour de soi, so it is pure in Rousseau's eyes.

In his work "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" Rousseau touched on a different angle associated with revolution. Rousseau asserted that the arts and sciences had not been a boon at all to mankind, because both studies were advanced not in response to human needs but as the result of pride and vanity - amour proper. Also, the opportunities arts and sciences engendered for idleness and luxury led directly and continue to lead directly to the corruption of man. Rousseau wrote in "Discourse on the Arts and Sciences" that the evolution of knowledge had rendered governments increasingly powerful and had destroyed individual liberty. Rousseau determined that corporeal progress had actually undermined the possibility of sincere friendship, replacing it with jealousy, fear and suspicion - more evidence of amour proper.

Here, Rousseau grounds his beliefs on revolution again in his intrinsic distrust of society's and learning's impact on man. Revolution is a way of abandoning corporeality for Rousseau - a way that arts and sciences can be used not for idleness, but for activity and new beginnings in government and social stratification.

Rousseau's subsequent "Discourse on Inequality" followed the progress and degeneration of mankind from a natural - Lord of the Flies-esque -- state of nature to modern society. Rousseau argued that the first human beings were actually isolated semi-apes who were distinguishable from animals only by their capacity for free will and their perfectibility.

Rousseau also asserted that these earliest humans were infused with a basic drive to care for themselves and an inherent leaning toward compassion or pity.

Indeed, society changed this - Rousseau argues that as humans were forced to socialize together more closely, by the inherent pressure of population growth, these humans experienced a psychological modification and ended up valuing the strong and correct opinions of fellow humans as an essential component of their own well being.

That is how revolution became possible, according to Rousseau: If man had retained the independent thinking of earlier times, he would never be able to socialize with other humans and come up with a common understanding and plan to overthrow a government. Socialization, though evil for Rousseau in so many ways, did contribute therefore to the ability of man to engage in a revolution with his peers, based on their opinions as well.

Indeed, Rousseau correlated this new self-awareness that humans were suddenly sporting with the golden age of human flourishing. However, he reasoned that the development of agriculture and metallurgy, private property and the division of labor led to increased interdependence and consequential inequality.

So self-awareness for Rousseau, then, not only gave man the ability to start a revolution, it gave man the reason to do so as well. The resulting state of conflict allowed Rousseau to argue that the first state for man was created as a type of social contract rendered at the insistence of the rich and powerful men of the community.

This original social contract, logic dictated for Rousseau, was incredibly skewed as the richest and most powerful members of society hoodwinked the general population, and as a result cemented inequality as a permanent feature of human society. Rousseau's own idea of the social contract can be interpreted as another option to this fake and degrading form of association. At the end of the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau argues how the desire to have value in the eyes of others, which originated in the golden age, comes to undermine personal integrity and authenticity in a society marked by interdependence, hierarchy, and inequality.

The Social Contract is arguably Rousseau's most important work. Published in 1762, it outlines the basis for a legitimate political order. The Social Contract is now, of course, one of the most lasting works of abstract political thought in the Western tradition. Building on his earlier work, such as the Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau argued that the state of nature eventually degenerates into a brutish condition without law or morality, at which point the human race must adopt institutions of law or perish.

Rousseau argues that In the degenerate phase of the state of nature, man is victim to frequent competition with his fellow men while at the same time becoming increasingly dependent on them. This double pressure attacks both man's survival and his freedom.

When freedom is threatened, the seeds of revolution are planted, according to Rousseau. Also according to Rousseau, by joining together through the social contract and abandoning their claims of natural right, different men are able to both preserve themselves and remain free. This duality occurs because submission to the authority of the general will of the people as a whole guarantees individuals against being subordinated to the wills of others and also ensures that they obey themselves because they are, collectively, the authors of the law.

Even though Rousseau asserts that sovereignty should thus be in the hands of the individual citizens, he also creates a sharp difference betwixt the actual sovereign and government. For Rousseau, the government is charged with implementing and enforcing the general will and is composed of a smaller group of citizens that he called magistrates. Rousseau was whole-heartedly against the idea that the individuals should exercise sovereignty via a representative assembly.

Rather, Rousseau felt that the citizens should make the laws directly. It has been argued that this would prevent Rousseau's ideal state being realized in a large society, though in modern times, communication may have advanced to the point where this is no longer the case. Much of the subsequent controversy about Rousseau's work has hinged on disagreements concerning his claims that citizens constrained to obey the general will are thereby rendered free.

But the result was a fire for revolution across the body of Rousseau's work. Rousseau felt that revolution, drawing together his arguments above, was not only necessary, it was pure and prideless - a true force for change among man that was engendered by man's socialization which, oddly enough, gave man the reasoning to wage a revolution while concurrently planting the seeds of inequity that engendered the revolution.

Burke

Burke's views on revolution are entirely different. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was not a reactionary. As a member of Parliament, he had supported the American colonists in their initial protests against the British government. He is most famous, however, for his writings on the French Revolution. His Reflections, written in the form of a long letter in 1791, in a sense marks the origin of modern conservative thought.

Burke wrote, "I certainly have the honor to belong to more clubs than one, in which the constitution of this kingdom and the principles of the glorious Revolution are held in high reverence, and I reckon myself among the most forward in my zeal for maintaining that constitution and those principles in their utmost purity and vigor. It is because I do so, that I think it necessary for me that there should be no mistake. Those who cultivate the memory of our Revolution and those who are attached to the constitution of this kingdom will take good care how they are involved with persons who, under the pretext of zeal toward the Revolution and constitution, too frequently wander from their true principles and are ready on every occasion to depart from the firm but cautious and deliberate spirit which produced the one, and which presides in the other."

Here, Burke argued that revolution in general, and the French Revolution in particular, must be matched with reason and a reluctance to completely give up to radical thinking.

Rousseau gave in directly to the revolution, arguing that it is a direct result of man's socialization, but Burke was much more cautious: Revolution is not automatically good for Burke, nor is it intrinsic to man.

Given Burke's record as a strong supporter of American independence and as a fighter against royalism in England, many readers and thinkers were taken aback when Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790. With this work, Burke suddenly went on to became one of the earliest and most passionate English critics of the French Revolution, which he interpreted not as movement towards a representative, constitutional democracy but instead as a violent rebellion against tradition and justified authority and as an experiment dangerously disconnected from the latently complex realities of integrated human society, which would ultimately end in absolute disaster both in France and abroad.