Introduction
Revolution
French is the result of a mature process of thinking initiated extremely
ruthless in French with the death of Maximillien de Robespierre on July 28,
1794, five year after the beginning pacific of revolution which took place
between 1789 to 1799. The will of the Frenchmen to abandon the ancient
political system of government was so strong and intense that they were not in the
capacity to wait. With his revolutionary ideas, Robespierre read social contract and seen on that, the
mechanic instrument and guide for orientation on his revolutionary plan.
Unfortunately for him, he will not see and live it in its result. Certain
Political leader will see in his thinking a monument for freedom and democracy.
It’s the case of Napoleon who said that the French revolution would never have
occurred without Rousseau. That is to say that Rousseau is at the center about
thinking aspect of revolution in French. In that context, we are in right to
examine the problem of impact or incidence of Rousseau’s thinking on the French
revolution. From then on, resolving that problem consist to present firstly the
premonition character of social contract, secondly influence of thinking of
Rousseau and thirdly the interest of this thinking in the world.
1. The premonition character of social contract
It is in
the social contract, the signs of
strong feeling that something is going to happen, an intuition of future event.
The proof of that premonition is clearly present in the chronological aspect of
event and in the change of state in the Rousseau perspective.
1.1.
Chronological
reason and change of state
This
heading further clarifies in the first time the chronological aspect of the
premonition character of social contract.
Thus Rousseau was born on 1712 and published the social contract on 1762 when
French went out progressively of economic growth started on 1930. The book
doesn’t know a success at this time and the Robespierre had only four year ago,
sight that he was born on 1758. When come the eighty years, Rousseau was not
there; he died on 1778. The content of the book is out, the nobility hoped to
use the assembly to control the monarchy and the king hoped to control the
people by using the nobility. The conspirancians are pursued with principle targeting
Robespierre; but it was too late, July 14, 1789 revolution rang out slowly with
taking of Bastille place. Robespierre becomes the Jacobin’s leader in 1790. The
government of Louis XVI felt, this later is guillotined on January 21,
1793. Robespierre will not miss to greet
Rousseau when he asserts “Rousseau is the one man who, through the loftiness of
his soul and the grandeur of his character, showed himself worthy of the role
of teacher of mankind”[1].
He was arrested on July 27, 1794 and killed on July 28, 1794. Then, revolution became
bloody, aggressive; it’s the reign of terror. Briefly, the fact that social contract was published many years
before revolution, presupposes and justifies the chronological reason of premonitory
character of social control. Then,
what about the change of state in the Rousseau’s perspective?
In the
second time, on top of the fact that chronological reasons constituted, to see
of the date of publishing social contract,
a premonition of French revolution, Rousseau announces his possibility and his
hypothesis of social state, which leaves understand that there is a possibility
to change situation, to change method of reign and govern peoples. French
society before revolution is French of inequality, French of subordination of
the clergy. It was no state of right;
all privileges were on the hand of the king and his surrounding. However, It’s
true that it’s no comparable with the natural state of Rousseau, but it is
important to underline that the abandon of this state by Rousseau is the
manifestation of his will to establish a new order. A new order of equality and
right. It’s that step which shall inspire revolutionaries. Thus, natural state
of Rousseau has presented its limits like the clergy government presented its
own limits. It is for that reason that revolutionaries wanted change. They want
equality of right for everybody. Rousseau maintained this word that “But the
social order is a sacred right which is the basis of all other rights.
Nevertheless, this right does not come from nature, and must therefore be
founded on convention.”[2]
Like to say that, right of the Frenchmen must be obtaining through negotiations,
and Frenchmen have made choice of intensity in order to make possible their
right.
In short,
the previous analysis aimed at demonstrating that for the chronological reason
and change of State, Rousseau is a prophet of the French revolution. However, what
about thinking Rousseau influence on revolution properly?
2. Influence of Rousseau’s thinking on French
revolution
This idea
shows through the fact that the political thinking of Rousseau particularly on
rights questions have stimulated and affected French revolution movement. That
influence unveils itself in term of wish of great reforms.
2.1. Wish of great reform requested by revolutionaries
and already thinking by Rousseau
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On
the way of revolution, revolutionaries requested vaguely and generally more
right, but Rousseau in his social
contract had presented these rights in detail and with brightness. Among these
rights there have reclamation and extending equality in front the law. If we
consider doubtless that the universal character of justice emanating from
reason, then everybody must be equal in front the law. Rousseau is clear about
it: “conventions and laws are therefore needed to join rights to duties and
refer justice to its object. In the state of nature, where everybody and
everything is common, I owe nothing to him, whom I have promised nothing; I
recognize as belonging to others only what is of no use to me. In the state
society, all rights are fixed by law; and the case becomes different.”[3]
The French before revolution will not certainly be the French after revolution.
All of them by Rousseau’s thinking.
In
addition, revolutionaries requested opening government offices to the middle
class and guarantee of private property. Firstly, about the opening government
offices to the middle class Rousseau said that government is something of
everybody. He speaks in term of sovereignty, because sovereignty is sacred and
inalienable. He assert “the sovereign can only be considered collectively and
as a body; but each member, as being a subject, is regarded as an individual:
thus the sovereign is to the subject as ten thousand to one, i.e., each member
of the state has as his share only a ten thousandth part of the sovereign
authority, although he is wholly under its control.”[4]
So, if the sovereign is a part of each member of people, it is normal that revolutionaries,
who are in majority in the middle class, claimed their part of representation
in the body sovereign. This can be possible to reaching to the government
offices. That claim is also solved by Rousseau when he suggests a democracy
like form of government; in that form of government, every point of view is
considered in the process of voting. Rousseau maintains: “the more concert
reigns in the assemblies, that is, the nearer opinion approaches unanimity, the
greater is the dominance of the general will.”[5]
Secondly, about the private property, all grounds are detained by clergies and
nobles. The middle class claim their part of ground in order to have
possibility to detain their part of private property. Rousseau, many years ago,
had reflected on that question. It is true that natural disasters caused the
reorganization of all things that was for everybody in the natural state. With
general will, it is possible to talk about private property where any person
has capacity and possibility to detain private property. It is in that context that
the revolutionaries walked. Rousseau solves the problem with his logic of first
occupier which shall become the logic of right of property. He asserts “For the
State, in relation to its members, is master of all their goods by the social
contract, which, within the State, is the basis of all rights; but, in relation
to other powers, it is so only by the right of first occupier, which it holds
from its members”.[6] Author
of Emile or the education continues to assert by thinking that “the right of
the first occupier, though more real than the right of the strongest, becomes a
real right only when the right of property has already been established.”[7]
Apart from, matters of religion, middle
class claim by their step revolutionary secularization and the laicization of
the society. They want like a form of split between church and State. Rousseau,
who is to the basis of their movement at the point of view of thinking, has already
examined that question. According to him, it’s a great time to talk about the
civil religion, where will exist now much church property and ecclesiastical State
will be banished. For the thinker of social
contract, it is not possible for the State to live without basis in
religion. “We should demonstrate to the former that no State has ever been
founded without a religious basis”[8] Rousseau went so far by distinguishing the
religion of man and that of the citizen. “The first, which has neither temples
nor altars nor rites and is confined to the purely internal cult of the supreme
God and the internal obligation of morality. The other, which is codified in a
single country, gives its Gods, its own tutelary patron; it has its dogmas, its
rites, and its external cult prescribed by law; (…) of this kind were all the
religions of early peoples, which we may define as civil or positive divine
right or law.”[9] With
that assertion, middle class or revolutionaries have the possibility to decide
in which church to go. Rousseau is for them, a messenger and the scout; his
social contract, the book of bedhead and torch of scout.
Briefly, the work above is the proof that
the thinking of Rousseau is a driving force for French revolution; particularly
on the aspect of equality in front the law, opening government offices to the
middle class, private property and the matters of religion. However, what about
the interest of Rousseau’s thinking for the world?
3. Interest of Rousseau
thinking for the world
The aim of that part consists to
present interest of Rousseau’s thinking for institutions and countries.
3.1. Interest of Rousseau’s thinking for
institutions and countries
The ideas defended by Rousseau have been
adopted by many institutions and countries in the world. It’s the case of
France which has for motto: liberty equality and fraternity. It is the same
thing for the institutions like United Nation which adopts many ideas in its
declaration of the rights of man. For example: Men are born and remain free and
equal in right and in obligation. The aim of all political association is the
preservation of the natural … rights of man. These rights are liberty,
property, security, and resistance to oppression.
Conclusion
Finally, recall that the problem of our
exercise was the incidence of Rousseau’s thinking on French revolution. To
solve that problem, we are firstly presented the premonition character of
social contract; secondly, the influence properly of Rousseau’s thinking on the
French revolution and thirdly the interest of Rousseau’s thinking for the
World.
Bibliography
1- Stephen Hicks, Explaining
postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault,
publishing, 2004, 2011.
2- Jean Jacques Rousseau, The social contract: or principles of political right, electronic
text center, University of Virginia library, 1762. Translated by G. D. H. Cole,
EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY: New York, P. 5, 1913.
[1] Stephen Hicks, Explaining postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism
from Rousseau to Foucault, publishing, 2004, 2011.
[2] Jean Jacques
Rousseau, The social contract: or
principles of political right, electronic text center, University of
Virginia library, 1762. Translated by G. D. H. Cole, EVERYMAN’S LIBRARY: New
York, P. 5, 1913.
[4] Ibid. P. 37
[5] Ibid. P. 67
[6] Ibid. P. 15
[7] Ibid. P. 15
[9] Ibid. P. 84
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