Rousseau; From the Slavery of Desire to the Experience of Freedom

The Agora Philosophical Association's meetings with Ramin Jahanbegloo, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, each time examine and discuss a philosophical, historical, and sociological aspect of the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the famous French writer and philosopher, which is now made available to enthusiasts. Today, I want to focus on Rousseau and revisit his ideas in relation to contemporary Iranian history. In the previous session, I spoke a bit about Benjamin Constant and his emphasis on negative freedom. It was mentioned that Constant believes that Rousseau's model, which he wants to implement in his social contract and which inspired the French revolutionaries of 1789, leads to a government of terror because it cannot consider the needs and requirements of the modern public and even private space. This is Constant's theory. Interestingly, I was reading Bertrand Russell's history of philosophy and saw that Russell, in a chapter about Rousseau, raises the same issue 130 years later. If you read Russell's writings (translated into Persian by Mr. Daryabandi), he states that Rousseau is the inventor of the political philosophy of seemingly democratic dictatorships. Russell uses a very beautiful phrase. He says that currently, Hitler is the result of Rousseau, while Roosevelt and Churchill are the results of Locke. This is what Russell says in the history of Western philosophy, which is one of his most important books. In this book, in the chapter on Rousseau, Russell notes that Rousseau's social contract was like a holy book for the leaders of the French Revolution and mentions that unfortunately, like many holy books, it has not been read carefully. Many of Rousseau's students were unable to understand the social contract and Rousseau's discussions. We know the impact of Jean-Jacques Rousseau on the French Revolution very well, and many books and articles have been written on this topic, especially in the West. However, it is interesting that Rousseau's fame, both in the 19th and 20th centuries and especially among his contemporaries, was not due to the social contract but rather due to Rousseau's other books, where he discusses romantic love, a return to nature, critiques of modernity, modern civilization, and the corruption of man in modern civilization. He is the one who, as I mentioned, influenced figures like Novalis, even Hegel, or even the Schlegel brothers and German romantics like Schelling, who are well-known after Kant. We see that Kant, too, follows Rousseau in his discussions of ethics. Therefore, Rousseau is more praised as a writer than as a political philosopher. However, here we are more concerned with Rousseau as a writer and political philosopher because our issue in Agora is the issue of freedom, and our issue is the social contract and how the French Revolution, as one of the important modern revolutions, brought forth and sought to implement Rousseau's foundation and basis of freedom. Let us not forget that Rousseau's significance is not only due to Robespierre's devotion to Rousseau but also because the French Revolution considers itself a product of Rousseau's romantic thought and wants to implement an ideology that sees itself much more reflected in Rousseau than in Montesquieu's laws or Voltaire's book, Candide. These are, after all, important writers of that period, namely the Age of Enlightenment. Diderot, the Encyclopedist, Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, and Voltaire, whose famous book is Candide, are all well-known. The French revolutionaries were more influenced by Rousseau and implemented his thoughts. This discussion about Rousseau is important when we return to the Iranian Revolution; we want to see how a revolution can draw inspiration from a thinker and what the results will be. Let me summarize Rousseau because later, whether we want to talk about Hegel, Marx, or Kant, we need to be familiar with him. The important issue from Rousseau's perspective is reconciling individual freedom with collective freedom. This is Rousseau's main discussion. He discusses individual freedom in his book called Emile. The issue is education, the issue is the individual, and how the individual can be free in nature. However, since he sees that this does not respond to modern society, he writes the social contract to address the issue of collective freedom as well. The important issue from Rousseau's perspective is reconciling individual freedom with collective freedom. This is Rousseau's main discussion. He discusses individual freedom in his book called Emile. The issue is education, the issue is the individual, and how the individual can be free in nature. However, since he sees that this does not respond to modern society, he writes the social contract to address the issue of collective freedom as well. The main issue for us should be the discussion of consensus. It should be about how to build a social contract between one individual and another. Therefore, since we are discussing the issue of freedom here, from Rousseau's perspective, the primary priority of political life is freedom. We can say that Rousseau is a philosopher whose main issue is freedom. However, he believes that this freedom can only be attained by humans in society. Because even if one lived in nature for a period and was very happy according to Rousseau, since he is no longer in nature and has been driven out of it, he must come and reconstruct it in society. Rousseau tries to lead the individual from what he calls 'the slavery of desire and passion' to a kind of experience of rights and freedom. His goal is to divert humans from their desires and pleasures, as this, in his view, creates corruption and leads them towards freedom and rights, which are important. That is why in part of the book Emile, which I mentioned is about education and upbringing, he states that political rights must be established. Here we see that Rousseau believes that political freedom is accompanied by political rights and is associated with the exercise of individual will and autonomy. Rousseau tries to lead the individual from what he calls 'the slavery of desire and passion' to a kind of experience of rights and freedom. His goal is to divert humans from their desires and pleasures, as this, in his view, creates corruption and leads them towards freedom and rights, which are important. The purpose of Rousseau in writing the social contract is to create a bridge between human social existence and the limits and boundaries of rights and freedom. Do not forget that most writers living in that period in France and even Europe who are discussing political philosophy, one of the topics that is important to them is the limits of human freedoms. Montesquieu discusses this topic. Voltaire also talks about it. Diderot also discusses it. Then there are German philosophers who come to address the limits of the rights we want to give to an individual and the freedom he should have. Absolute and indivisible sovereignty. Therefore, Rousseau's goal, in my opinion, is to create a balance between human happiness and their moral and civil choices to achieve this social happiness, which they choose in civil terms. Since individual happiness and well-being of humans and their relationship with their membership in a society are defined together from Rousseau's perspective, he believes that both the formation and evolution of human nature are aimed at creating freedom. That is, from Rousseau's perspective, humans evolve to be free. For this reason, Rousseau, despite believing in a kind of civil progress like some Enlightenment thinkers such as Condorcet and others, believes that humans move towards freedom, and for this reason, he seeks to create a bond between the individual and society. That is, from Rousseau's perspective, humans evolve to be free. For this reason, Rousseau, despite believing in a kind of civil progress like some Enlightenment thinkers, believes that humans move towards freedom, and for this reason, he seeks to create a bond between the individual and society. Rousseau's issue is to describe what a citizen should be, as he has described in the social contract, which considers both the individual's interests and the interests of others or collective interests. For this reason, when he discusses sovereignty, he states that sovereignty is, in a sense, absolute and indivisible. From Rousseau's perspective, absolute sovereignty is because it is the collective body of citizens who have a superior power. Rousseau presents the discussion of sovereignty in this way. Therefore (and here is a mathematical equation for those who are doing scientific work), Rousseau presents this as a mathematical equation. He states that sovereignty cannot be less than itself and cannot be summarized in one individual or group. Because if you place sovereignty in a king, for example, or a cleric, or in a group of aristocrats... he believes that it is no longer sovereignty. Because sovereignty is less than itself. It is summarized in something that is less than itself. For this reason, Rousseau believes that no citizen can transfer their power to another. This is one of the very important discussions of the modern era, and we are still grappling with it. According to many radical thinkers in Europe today, you cannot transfer your sovereignty to another. Sovereignty is accompanied by participation. For this reason, those who advocate shared democracy are, in a way, followers of this Rousseauian thought. Because in a way, when you talk about sovereignty as popular sovereignty, you cannot present it as representative. Because as soon as you say I want a representative, you have taken that sovereignty from yourself and given it to someone else. That is, you have confirmed your non-participation. Rousseau states that if you say I am part of this sovereignty and I am part of this that sovereignty cannot be less than itself, then you must continuously participate in this sovereignty. If you have not forgotten, the criticism that Constant and others have of Rousseau is that we can no longer discuss power and sovereignty in modern times as the ancients did, that we always participate in it. Because both from the perspective of human geography and from the perspective of modern pleasure-seeking and livelihood, we cannot. Because the modern world does not give us the time to have this presence like the Greeks, Romans, or Spartans. Therefore, from Rousseau's perspective, the whole and the part are interdependent. Because when we say power is in the hands of all, it is actually in the hands of no one. That is, Rousseau's discussion is that he says power is in the hands of everyone, meaning it is in the hands of no one. Because you cannot point to one person and say you are the sovereign. Because the people are all sovereign together. Rousseau sees this type of dependency as positive. Because for Rousseau, there is also negative dependency, which he discusses in many of his books, including his discourses. For example, he says that human dependency on things in nature is negative dependency because in a way we are slaves to those things. Or dependency of one human on another, like slavery, is negative dependency. But here, the dependency that is discussed in the social contract in relation to sovereignty is, in his view, a positive thing and is also presented as a mathematical equation. The discussion I have is that Rousseau wants to take all the positive aspects of nature, as he has discussed in Emile, and all the positive aspects of modern political society and place them in a mixture together. That is, as he says, he wants to create a morality that enables humans to elevate themselves, meaning to reach a virtue that adds to human freedom. The discussion I have is that Rousseau wants to take all the positive aspects of nature, as he has discussed in Emile, and all the positive aspects of modern political society and place them in a mixture together. That is, as he says, he wants to create a morality that enables humans to elevate themselves, meaning to reach a virtue that adds to human freedom. Here we understand why Kant was so influenced by Rousseau later. Because Rousseau does not separate the discussion of freedom from the discussion of ethics. For him, freedom means being able to lead a human to a virtue in a society. Because Rousseau moves from the position that modern society has morally corrupted humans. And this is exactly written in the first paragraph of the social contract.