Jean Jacques Rousseau- Interesting Title

 Jean Jacques Rousseau- Hypocrisy 

Personal Anecdote: So you can relate to me 

I’ve found Rousseau both difficult and intriguing to write about. Having never studied History and Philosophy before in my post-secondary education. Rousseau was one of the few Philosophers who I could recall leaning about previously. First being introduced to him in my Grade 9 social class. I still can recall one of his famous quotes from the Social Contract being uttered in class. “"Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.”  This truly resonated with me. For my fourteen year old self was contemplating my own extent to freedom. I among many of my peers were beginning to experience new levels of liberty at this time. I was allowed off campus at school. I could stay out later with friends, with the occasional “party” where our parents would buy enough alcohol just to pretend we were drunk.

 My parents were of the mind that it was better for them to permit these coming of age experiences under their safe watch rather than have us sneak off and do it ourselves anyway. Communication and respect were demanded from us, not a ridged set of rules. Perhaps it was in this, which permitted me to understand the complex notion of freedom. It wasn’t difficult to imagine my parents or my teacher’s limitations to freedom, when the discussion of Rousseau came up. Unlike in my early childhood where I viewed my parents as being completely free. They were the ones who set the framework for discussion. They decided when to go to bed and if we could go get ice-cream. For a child this was freedom!  

Insert Social Reference Here:

 Shout out to class and Prof:

After listening to Philosophy Bob speak about Rousseau’s life in class contrasted with reading excerpts from the Social Contract and our reading for this week “The Second Discourse”. My brain was prompted with a question.

Question to keep you engaged:  Does Hypocrisy Matter?

Hopefully you my fellow little bloggers with help me answer this question.

I’m going to “pull a Rousseau” and argue the counter-intuitive. Just as he did in the essay competition “A Discourse on the Moral Effects of the Arts and Sciences” which later became known as “The First Discourse” and argue that hypocrisy in a philosopher’s personal life does not matter at least for Rousseau.

This question is important because we are going to find in about every philosopher we study. (And not because they are French) It is especially easy to see the degree of hypocrisy in Rousseau thanks to “The Confessions” which I view were written as a coping mechanism to deal with his loneliness due to his personally “defects”. This on my part is purely speculation, but I digress.  

Argument 

What we can say is that he was a hypocrite. I don’t think I need to go into too much detail to here. It’s easy to see that he himself personally benefiting from the social injustices he wrote about. Not to mention the abandoning of his five children when contrasted to his work on childhood education in “Emile”

What I am going to tell you is, we are all hypocrites. Our actions and our words are very different things. (You already knew this)  It’s really just down to measuring to what degree we are hypocrites. Perhaps the question should be: What type of Hypocrite are you?  

In the case of Rousseau’s philosophy, his words spoke louder than his actions. We are far removed from the context of his time. Who he was, no longer really matters. Therefore neither does his hypocrisy. It is in what his words became, that resonated with us. That we have carried forward and applied further meaning to. Rousseau writings are credited with inspiring aspects of the French Revolution and the freedom and democracy that we see today. Were all of these interpretations and actions that his words inspired intended by Rousseau?  Probably not but I doubt that it matters.

 Final Question: So you comment 

This leaves me with an interesting question that I do have some thoughts on but perhaps I will leave this question for you.

Are things different now? Does the hypocrisy of modern thinkers matter?