One of the Demon Rebels, the floating pot space - Rousseau

Jean, Jacques, and Rousseau (1712-1778) were French thinkers, philosophers, political theorists, and composers of Swiss origin during the Mongol era, whose essays "Are the Progress of Science and Art Beneficial to the Improvement of Customs" and "On the Origin and Basis of Human Injustice" confirm his place in the history of philosophy.

His philosophical ideas on popular sovereignty and democratic politics in The Social Contract have profoundly influenced the Enlightenment Movement, the French Revolution, and modern political, philosophical, and educational thought.

Paris was associated with the Encyclopaedists. In 1742 Rousseau moved to Paris. In Paris, a large city of openness and freedom, Rousseau became acquainted with many famous thinkers, scholars, Diderot and Condiac, who had a great influence on Rousseau.

At the invitation of Denis Diderot, Rousseau wrote an essay on the music of the Encyclopédie, and with Diderot's encouragement, in 1749, Rousseau participated in the Dijon Academy with his essay "Is the Progress of Science and Art Beneficial to the Improvement of Customs", and won the ranking, which made him famous in France.

From 1756 to 1762, Rousseau lived in seclusion in the suburbs of Paris, where he published books such as The Social Contract and Emile.

Fight with the Encyclopedia faction. At first, several liberal writers of the French Enlightenment movement were friends of Rousseau, including Dendiderot and Jean-d'Alembert, but his ideas were at odds with others, and Rousseau opposed Voltaire's establishment of a theater in Geneva. Pointing out that the theater was a school of immorality led him to turn against Voltaire and become lifelong enemies.

In addition, due to the later disagreement between Rousseau and the encyclopedists, the publication of Emile set off an anti-Rousseau wave in France and the whole of Europe, and Rousseau began to live a life of seclusion.

Rousseau was a famous enlightened thinker, philosopher and educator, and his ideas were the banner of the Jacobins in the French Revolution and the gospel of the bourgeoisie in the revolution, in which the idea of "popular sovereignty" was the essence and basic principle of his thought.

The Social Contract is a concentrated expression of Rousseau's democratic political thought. According to Rousseau, human beings were originally in a primitive "state of nature". At this time. There is no such thing as private ownership and inequality, private ownership creates inequality between people, the state is created by making contracts, and the people are the subjects of making contracts. This led to the idea of "popular sovereignty".

National sovereignty cannot be divided. It is also not transferable. The expression and application of the owner must express the will of the people, and the law is the "public will", and everyone is equal before the law. The monarch cannot be above the law.

In the field of philosophy, Rousseau published two papers in the fifties of the 18th century that confirmed his place in the history of philosophy, in "On the Origin and Basis of Human Inequality", Rousseau pointed out: "There is very little inequality in nature, and the inequality that prevails today is gradually derived from man in the process of human survival and progress.

His thoughts even influenced the later Declaration of Independence and Max's Capital.

Social Contract Theory and the French Revolution: On the Origin and Basis of Human Inequality and Social Contract Theory.

Perhaps Rousseau's most important work, The Social Contract, which describes the relationship between man and society, begins with the statement that "man is born free, but he is always in bondage."

Published in 1762, it was unpopular at the time, but it has since become one of the most influential works reflecting traditional Western political thought.

Contrary to his earlier works, Rousseau believed that the state of nature was a state of bestiality without law and morality, and that good people were created by the emergence of society.

In the state of nature, there are often situations that individuals cannot cope with, and they must unite with others in order to survive, so everyone is willing to join forces.

People unite and exist as a collective, which forms society. The social contract is people's agreement on the social status of their members.

His main works are On Science and Art (1749) and On the Origin and Basis of Human Inequality (1755)

The New Elois (1761), The Social Contract (1762), Emile (1762), The Book of the Mountains (1763), The Confession (1788), The Botanical Correspondence.

Rousseau's writings were translated into Japanese by Nakae Zhaomin during the Meiji period, and his writings and ideas were introduced to China in the early years of the Republic of China.

The Social Contract, Volume 1, Chapter 1 (translated by He Zhaowu)

"I suppose that mankind has reached a state in which the obstacles to man's existence in the state of nature have been resisted by more force than each individual can exert in that state for his own existence.

As a result, that primitive state can no longer be maintained, and humanity will be wiped out if it does not change its way of being.

However, man can neither produce new forces but combine and use existing ones, so there is no other way for man to survive on his own, except to form a sum of forces that can overcome this resistance, and to mobilize them by a single motive force, and to make them work together. The Social Contract

The eighteenth-century philosopher in the French sense was not what is now called a "philosopher."

However, Rousseau had as much influence on philosophy as he did on literature, taste, fashion, and politics. Whatever we may say about him as a thinker, we must always admit that he has a very important position as a social force.

This importance mainly came from his ability to impress emotions and what was called "sentimentality" at the time. He was the father of the Romantic movement.

The founder of the system of thought of extrahumanism in terms of human emotions was the inventor of a political philosophy of pseudo-democratic dictatorship, as opposed to the traditional monarchy.

Since the time of Rousseau, those who consider themselves reformers have always been divided into two groups, those who follow him and those who follow Locke.

Sometimes the two factions work together, and many people don't see any incompatibility in them. But gradually their incompatibility became more and more apparent. At the present time, Hitler is a consequence of Rousseau, and Roosevelt and Churchill are the consequence of Locke.

Rousseau's biography is described in great detail in his Confessions, but it does not respect the facts at all. He was happy to present himself as a great sinner, and often exaggerated in this regard.

However, there is also abundant external evidence that he lacks all ordinary morality. This did not afflict him, for he thought that he would always have a warm heart, but that it never prevented him from acting vilely towards his best friend.

When Rousseau used the term democracy, he meant the direct democracy of the ancient city-states. He pointed out that this kind of democracy must not be fully realized, because the people cannot always gather together and are always busy with official business.

"If there were a people made up of gods, their government would be democratic. Such a perfect government is not something that is part of human beings. ”

What we call democracy is called "electoral aristocracy," which he says is the best of all forms of government, but not for all nations.

After that, it must be neither very hot nor very cold, and the property must not exceed what is necessary, for if it is exceeded, the vice of luxury is inevitable, and it is better for the monarch and his court to be confined to the whole people.

Because of these limitations, autocracies are left with a wide range of possibilities. However, the democratic politics it promotes, despite all its limitations, is certainly one of the reasons why the French government hates the book.

Another reason seems to be the negation of royal power. The doctrine of divine authority, because the doctrine of the social contract as the origin of politics implies a denial of the divine right of kingship.

The Social Contract became the bible of most of the leaders of the French Revolution, and of course it was the same fate as the Bible, and many of its followers did not read it carefully, let alone understand it.

This book recreates metaphysical abstractions among democratic political theorists and, through the doctrine of the general will, enables a mystical equivalence between the leader and his people.

This does not need to be confirmed by casting one's worldly concreteness. There are many things about its philosophy that can be exploited in the defense of dictatorships. (To be continued......)