I don’t know what do you guys feel about the article TO THE RE PUBLIC OF GENEVA MAGNIFICENT, MOST HONORED, AND SOVEREIGN LORDS, but when I read this I felt that Rousseau was ignorant. Maybe you will laugh at me, claiming that Rousseau is a great philosopher who have made a huge influence on the world so how can he be ignorant. However, here I don’t mean he knows nothing. Instead, he knows a lot but he doesn’t know how to get a right conclusion and he is a little bit naive. The following is some points where I think can be talked about further.
The first thing I want to talk about is his idea of the republic of Geneva. In this essay, he spoke highly of this country and indeed he admired the country and the people who lived there. “In looking for the best maxims which good sense might dictate regrading the constitution of a government, I was so struck to see them all implemented in yours that, even if I had not been born within your walls, I would have believed myself unable to refrain from offering this picture of human society to the one people which seems to me to possess its greatest advantages and to have best forestalled its abuses.” As we can see in the article, the republic of Geneva is exactly his dream country. According to my research of this country at that period of the time, it is not how Rousseau has said. On the contrary, it is more like an oligarchy. The real power of this country is controlled by a small parliament constituted by 25 persons, which is even less than the amount of that of Athens. There were 30 persons to make a decision. Without a very clear investment, Rousseau regarded the country as the best. He is not convincing and too careless. Only an ignorant people will judge without proofs. I don’t appreciate his words.
The second point is about his Utopia. Let’s see what he said about his dream country. “If I had had to choose my place of birth, I should have chosen a society of a size confined to the range of human faculties, that is to say to the possibility of being well governed.” “I should have wished to be born in a country where the Sovereign and the people could have had only one and the same interest, so that all the motions of the machine might always tend only to the common happiness.” “I should have wished to live and die free, that is to say so far subject to the laws that neither I nor anyone else could shake off their honorable yoke.” “I should have wished, then, that no one inside the State could have declared himself to be above the law, and No one outside it could have imposed and law which it was obliged to recognize.” I just quoted a few from the essay. Yes, from his words we can feel the world he depicted is almost perfect. Everyone can live a happy life there. But is this world really reachable? I really doubt that. Someone may argue that the solutions are told in his article The Social Contract. Let’s first not talk about whether his solution is effective or not. Let’s just face a simple question: what size is the perfect size for a country? What kind of location is perfect which no other country will attack it? Rousseau doesn’t give us an answer. Until now, nobody can find a perfect solution. I think Rousseau is a liar. He depicted a wonderful world to make people feel interested and get convinced. However, if you really think of it, what he says is far from building a wonderland.
The third point I want to make is about his idea of woman. In his essay, he praised woman a lot. “Could I forgot that precious half of the Republic which causes the others’ happiness, and whose gentleness and wisdom preserve its peace and good morals in it? Amiable and virtuous Citizen-women, it will always be the lot of your sex to govern ours. How fortunate when your chaste power, exercised in conjugal union alone, makes itself felt solely for the State’s glory and the public happiness.” Whereas, women are still defined as a role at home rather than outside. I am guessing that he did this because he wanted to get support by those women(for example those women in the salon), making them to feel that they are important. But this is not the fact. Women still were not equal to men. Here talking about women, a movie just jumped into my mind and I really wanted to share it with you guys. It’s called the hours. A little bit out of today’s topic but since we talk about women, I hope everyone can enjoy this movie. I cannot find a full free version of it, just put a trailer. If you are interested, please buy the full version to watch it. I promise it’s a good movie.
Here, I listed three points. Maybe Rousseau should not be called as an ignorant, but in my opinion, according to this essay, he wanted to get attention too eagerly. Without investment, he said the republic of Geneva was good. The world he showed could not be reached. The women he praised indeed was not regarded so important. All these small tricks were done to get attention, to make his ideas known to the public. He succeeded. But in my mind he is idealist and too romantic, which is why I don’t appreciate him and his works.
I know my opinion is strange and a little bit aggressive, and maybe biased. I really want to discuss with you guys. Hope for your comments.
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