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ROUSSEAU AND THE EVILS OF INEQUALITY (EGALITARIAN ANTI-MODERNISM PART 3)
Outright opposition to modernity is often dismissed as backward-looking or “reactionary” and associated with a rigidly hierarchical or aristocratic outlook. But there is another tradition of resistance to the modern world that has very different ideals and can serve as the basis of an old-new radical philosophy of natural and cosmic belonging, inspiring humanity to step away from the nightmare tranhumanist slave-world into which we are today being herded. In this important series of ten essays, our contributor W.D. James, who teaches philosophy in Kentucky, USA, explores the roots and thinking of what he terms “egalitarian anti-modernism”.
The cosmos is desacralised
Now the world must be rebarbarised
The cosmos is desacralised
And the world must be rebarbarised
Now the world must be rebarbarised
– Alisdair Roberts, Ned Ludd’s Rant
Can we still remember ourselves…?
– Paul Cudenec, The Withway
In The Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men (1755), or simply The Second Discourse, Jean-Jacques Rousseau gives us, as the title states, an examination of how social inequality came about. Really, though, he gives us much more. He lays out a social psychology of oppression. He gives us a critical theory which unmasks inequality as an institutional and structural artifact. Rousseau’s anti-modernism comes out, in this essay, in the fundamental antitheses he sets up. First and foremost is his distinction between the natural and the social. Building on this, he further distinguishes Being, what is, or what we are, from appearing. As Alessandro Ferrara observed, “Rousseau formulates his critique of modernity as a critique of the effects of a social production based on competition.” i
His fundamental mistake is failing to recognize the essentially social nature of human beings. Here he falls into the same error as Thomas Hobbes (though John Locke at least seams to sidestep this), of whom he is otherwise a staunch critic. Here we see, as mentioned in the previous essay, how Rousseau still operates largely within the intellectual horizon of modernity, but turns his critical acumen against that very development. This work was also, like the First Discourse, written in response to an essay competition. This time Jean-Jacques did not win. Perhaps the judges had prudently lost their spines. Here Rousseau set out to, as he puts it, “defend the cause of humanity”.ii
Rousseau’s ‘state of nature’
Rousseau starts by distinguishing what he terms “natural or physical” inequality from “moral or political” inequality. The former refers to differences of age, health, physical ability, and mind. The latter refers to inequalities of wealth, honor, and power and require the “consent of men”, that is, they depend on social and political institutions.iii All modern defenders of the legitimacy of the inegalitarian status quo will need to show that the latter somehow stem from the former. Rousseau’s task is to refute that. So, in developing his theory of the ‘state of nature’, what Rousseau is wanting to do is bring into focus what inequalities are just given or baked into the situation (they are ‘natural’) and which are subject to critique. That people are unequal with regard to age is not a matter of moral or political critique, that they are unequal with regard to wealth is.
He asserts that people like Hobbes, in attributing characteristics such as competition and aggressiveness to human nature (situating it within the ‘state of nature’) actually make the mistake of taking traits that only emerge in society (and are therefore, not innate) as natural. He intends to be more careful. Rousseau describes what he sees as the natural human being:
…I see an animal that is less strong than some, less agile than others, but, in sum, formed in the most advantageous way of all. I see him satisfying his hunger beneath an oak, quenching his thirst at the first stream, making his bed beneath the same tree that furnished him his meal—thus his needs are satisfied!iv
He lives “a way of life that is simple, constant, and retiring, as nature has prescribed.”v Rousseau is often criticized for his naïve view of the natural goodness (or at least simplicity) of human nature and of romanticizing the ‘noble savage’. However, this sort of critique misses what Rousseau is actually doing here. He is only trying to distinguish what is innate in human nature from what varies from society to society. That which varies we can rightfully hope to improve upon.
We have the picture of a creature very little raised above other animals. He or she just wanders about the natural environment satisfying their felt needs as they go. They experience thirst, but nature provides many opportunities for slaking that thirst. They experience the sexual urge, but nature is likewise generous here. His point is that what is innate in the species is not hard to satisfy, so there is not much need to compete to satisfy our innate needs and, hence, there is not much of an ineradicable basis for conflict. There is nothing in humans, as long as they stay near these basic, simple, needs and pleasures, to disrupt the situation and, hence, their happiness is secure (their needs being satisfied).
What fundamentally sets this creature apart from others is their freedom (note; not their rationality, pace most Enlightenment thinkers). While with other creatures “nature alone directs everything in the life of the beast [via instinct], while man in his role as free agent partakes in the process.”vi Freedom is natural and essential to human beings. It enables us to cooperate with nature. As he will famously note in On the Social Contract (1762), “Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.”vii That is essentially Rousseau’s summary of the Second Discourse to launch the argument of the later work.
There is one other thing though which marks out this species; its tragic flaw, if you will. That is his “faculty of self-improvement” which is “the source of all man’s miseries”.viii Here is where the ironic, insightful, and iconoclastic Jean-Jacques enters in. Here, in the human capacity underlying the Enlightenment, indeed, the whole modern project, even the civilizing project itself, lies the source of our miseries, not our beatitudes. It is from the human capacity to imagine something better, so see something as a problem to be solved or an inconvenience to be removed, the shadow side of our very freedom, humans will not just remain ‘natural’ but will develop social and cultural ‘progress’.
But wouldn’t our desire for self-preservation (the basis of the right to life in both Hobbes and Locke) itself be sufficient to introduce conflict and war into the natural state? For Rousseau, no. Because, though he fully recognizes that we will by nature seek to defend ourselves, this is balanced by the no less natural (innate) sense of “pity”.ix Rousseau observes this is not completely unique to humanity but can be seen in many other animals. This manifests itself in the reluctance to harm one’s own kind when there is no compelling reason to. This is so deep in our bones that it exists prior to reflection—it just is a part of us. “Constrained by both instinct and reason to protect himself against the harm that threatens him, he is restrained by natural pity from doing harm to others unless he is compelled to do so, even if he has been harmed….”x
In this situation, how human beings would be by nature alone, there is also no basis for the oppression of some by others:
“A man might seize the fruit another has gathered, or the prey he has killed, the den he has used for refuge—but how will he ever succeed in making the other obey him, and what would be the fetters of dependence among men who possess nothing?”xi
So, there is no basis for the relatively minor ‘natural’ inequalities to rigidify into structures of domination. However, in social life, magnified inequalities supported by institutions is what we see everywhere.
Rousseau’s anti-modernism is implicit here. Whereas Hobbes and Locke had presented Nature as that which we must leave behind to fulfill our human nature and seek our happiness, Rousseau takes the exact opposite approach. It is in nature that we are most ourselves and most happy. The simpler we can make things, the better.
The fall of natural man and the birth of oppression
“The first man who fenced in a plot of land and dared to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people who were sufficiently simple to believe him, was the true founder of civil society.”xii
Proudhon essentially echoes Rousseau when he declares “Property is theft.” But it is also more than that. What could have led to a human being, as Rousseau has described him, to conceive of “mine” and to stake out exclusive rights to the detriment of his “simple” neighbors?
Here we’ll track, in outline, Rousseau’s account of the Fall of Man. With the capacity for reflection, humans first come to awareness of their species and its unique abilities. This ignites the first inklings of pride (which proverbially is the root of all evil and comes before a fall- Rousseau seems to agree). This initial sense of self (as an object of esteem), combined with the ‘faculty of self-improvement’, leads people to give more care to their lodgings (first, simple huts) and tools (a simple stone axe). This births a sense of ownership and also encourages ‘settling down’. On Rousseau’s reckoning, this “first revolution”xiii encourages more prolonged cohabitation, eventually resulting in the formation of families which bring with them “the sweetest feelings known to man: conjugal love and paternal love.”xiv
This largely salutary change tragically brings in its train untold misfortunes. The increased stability of life creates the first opportunities for leisure. This is our “first yoke” according to Rousseau.xv We are able to create conveniences which soon turn into necessities we can’t live without. We will willingly take upon ourselves unceasing labor which our ‘natural’ nature abhors. We’ll soon start creating cultural artifacts to entertain ourselves and our friends in our leisure time: songs and dances. Here for the first time genuine social competition will emerge. Some will be better singers and dancers. They and their friends will perceive themselves as such. They will wish to excel, to increase their esteem in their own eyes and in the eyes of their associates. “Shame and envy” make their appearance on the human scene.xvi Now, in this social state, we have a basis for competition and conflict: “everyone claimed a right to it [esteem], and it was no longer possible to deprive anyone of it with impunity.”xvii
Soon people start to see the advantages of a division of labor and of laying up additional provisions. Per Rousseau:
“But from the moment one man needed the help of another, as soon as men realized that it was useful for an individual to have provisions for two, equality disappeared, property was introduced, work became necessary…[and] one soon saw slavery and poverty sprouting and growing along with the harvest.”xviii
Then arise skills and technologies. More and more specialization, ‘progress’, and inequality and misery. The debacle continues to unfold:
“All the natural qualities have been put to work, and the rank and fate of every man is established, not only in relation to the number of his possessions and his capacity to help or harm, but also in relation to mind, beauty, power or skill, and merit or talent. Since these qualities were the only ones that could attract esteem, it soon became necessary either to have them or to pretend to have them. It was indispensable for one’s own interest to present oneself as being different from what one in fact was. Being and appearing became two entirely different things, and from that difference arose ostentation, deceitful cunning, and all the vices in their train.” (my emphasis)xix
Then, from our striving to excel our associates, by hook or by crook, arise the perpetual seeds of civil war which necessitate the creation of ‘justice’: law, the judge, and the executioner. This is all to lock in the advantages accruing to the strong over the week, the rich over the poor.
The spirit of freedom and the modern world
For Rousseau, the simpler the society and the closer to nature people live, the more freedom they retain. It is here on the margins that he sees some residual of natural liberty: “the barbarous man does not bow his head to the yoke that civilized man bears without a murmur, and will prefer the most turbulent freedom to tranquil subjection.”xx So he does look to ‘savages’ as, in this sense, more noble. He also clearly prefers rural people to urban and small virtuous polities to large cosmopolitan ones.
This allows him to come to the conclusion that “By giving up freedom, man denatures his being…”.xxi In later works he will attempt to outline a politics and theory of education to rehabilitate as much liberty as possible in the civilized state. Ultimately attempting to repair the gap between appearing and being.
Here, he contents himself with making sure we know just how locked in we are. Our leaders, who officially should be working toward social harmony and the common good, instead cynically pit groups of citizens against one another to maintain their positions at the top. They will seek policies that:
“might give society an air of apparent harmony while [actually] sowing the seeds of real division; anything that can inspire the different social orders to mutual distrust and hatred by pitching their rights and interests against those of the others, and consequently strengthening the power that restrains them all.”xxii
What better insight into our contemporary socio-political cauldron? ‘Virtue’ that is no virtue. ‘Inclusion’ that aims at exclusion and division. ‘Freedom’ that secures the shackles. ‘Safety’ that harms. ‘Equality’ that solidifies inequality. ‘Democracy’ that censors, persecutes, and cancels anything and anyone that challenges the elite, and which can’t abide the outcomes of elections.
The Withway vs. the COVID regime
I sense that same Rousseauian love of freedom and hatred of cynical political manipulation in the following passage from Paul Cudenec’s The Withway: calling us home:
We could compare their power with our empowerment; their desire for control with our need for freedom; their lust for quantity with our quest for quality; their emphasis on price and profit with our commitment to value and fair exchange; their life-hating fetish for artificiality with our love for nature within and without; their twisted addiction to lies with our gut feeling for truth; their shallow, fragmented and subjective outlook with our profound and all-embracing organic vision; the ugliness of their world with the beauty of the archetype we hold in our hearts.”xxiii
While that work certainly has profound value beyond the context of the COVID-19 epidemic and the near global COVID regime put in place, it is, to me, marked by its particular relevance to that (and still this) moment.
Cudenec laments the “epidemic of fear and despair [that] has been sweeping the world since 2020, with liberties abolished, livelihoods lost, childhoods ruined, families divided, communities splintered, hearts broken, dreams shattered and lives left in ruins.”xxiv Lord, hear our prayer.
His anti-modernism is explicit in his conclusion: “the nightmare imposed upon us under the New Normal is the logical conclusion of our departure from the natural order of the Withway and the domination of power, greed, money and industrial Technik.”xxv
COVID, less as a disease and more as the set of policies and structures put in place to putatively combat the disease, has proven a watershed moment in our awareness of our political and existential situation. All the pathologies Jean-Jacques carefully delineated for us have been on full display.
Rousseau similarly concludes his discourse:
“…we are left only with a deceitful and frivolous façade, honor without virtue, reason without wisdom, and pleasure without happiness. I think it sufficient to have proven that this is not the original state of man, and that it is only society’s growing sophistication and the inequality that society engenders that have changed and debased our natural inclination.”xxvi
i Alessandro Ferrara, Modernity and Authenticity: A Study of the Social and Ethical Thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, State University of New York, 1993, p. 29.
ii Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Essential Writings of Rousseau, translated by Peter Constantine and edited by Leo Damrosch, The Modern Library, 2013, p. 12.
iii Ibid, p. 12.
iv Ibid, p. 17.
v Ibid, p. 21.
vi Ibid, p. 25.
vii Ibid, p. 93.
viii Ibid, p. 25.
ix Ibid, p. 39.
x Ibid, p. 58.
xi Ibid, p. 47.
xii Ibid, p. 50.
xiii Ibid, p. 54.
xiv Ibid, p. 55.
xv Ibid, p. 55.
xvi Ibid, p.57.
xvii Ibid, p. 57.
xviii Ibid, p. 59.
xix Ibid, p. 63.
xx Ibid, p. 72.
xxi Ibid, p.75.
xxii Ibid, p.83.
xxiii Paul Cudenec, The Withway: calling us home, Winter Oak, 2022, p. iii.
xxiv Ibid, p. 144.
xxv Ibid, p. 147.
xxvi Rousseau, p. 86.
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