Jean Jacques Rousseau

[Sandee]

I bought a french book by Jean Jacques Rousseau "Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes" which translates to "A dissertation on the origin and foundation of the inequality of mankind." in English. I think I'll read this one before the other one I bought which is "The politics of Popularism".

Anyone read this book (by JJR) or any other books by JJR? Feel free to share your thoughts about the author and what you agree and disagree with. I'll read the book first then make comments.

[Boleslaw]

I have a whole anthology of his political works. From the Discourses on Inequality, to On the Political Economy, and especially the Social Contract; as well as different commentaries on Rousseau.

So yes Im well aquainted with the man. :)

[John Abney-Hastings]

The Social Contract is one of the most important books in the world. Wrong, but important and interesting none the less.

[Anima Eternae]

It is society that makes men good, not evil. Rousseau's worldview was naive.

[Ahknaton]

It is society that makes men good, not evil. Rousseau's worldview was naive.
You're right. There was a good bit about this in The Blank Slate, comparing the rate of homicide in Amazon tribes to 20th century Europe. Even including both World Wars and the Holocaust, Europe was still a less violent place to live. The myth of the Noble Savage underlies a lot of liberal sentimentality about Blacks and third world peoples.

[Professor John Frink]

You're right. There was a good bit about this in The Blank Slate, comparing the rate of homicide in Amazon tribes to 20th century Europe. Even including both World Wars and the Holocaust, Europe was still a less violent place to live. The myth of the Noble Savage underlies a lot of liberal sentimentality about Blacks and third world peoples.
That's quite correct. 30% of all adult men in several primitive tribes in Papua, Brazil and other places die a violent death.

[Joe McCarthy]

I've read the 'Discourse'. It is Rousseau's most extreme work and highlights his exultation of the 'noble savage' and lambasts private property. It also promotes perhaps that most dangerous of leftist assumptions -- that man is inherently good; in this case in the form that man is pure in a 'state of nature' until sullied by civilization. As I recall, Voltaire 'thanked' Rousseau for this work with a sarcastic nod acknowledging his 'new work against the human race'.

I view Rousseau as perhaps the most destructive thinker in Western history (though Bentham also merits consideration) as he more than anyone else laid the groundwork for the events of 1789; which can rightly be regarded as the beginning of the end for our civilization.

I will observe that it is fairly interesting that those of a Nationalist bent, including those on this board, seem to despise Rousseau even though he was Nationalism's founder. There is good reason for this even though it at first seems incongruous. Chalk it up to one of those strange quirks where historical antecedents ultimately end up radically at variance with subsequent ideological developments.

[Boleslaw]

Correct Rousseau was the founder of modern nationalism and was staunchly against the cosmopolitanism that was prevailing within European society at the time. This is clearly expressed with his treatise Considerations on the Government of Poland:
"Today, no matter what people may say, there are no longer any Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, or even Englishmen; there are only Europeans. All have the same tastes, the same passions, the same manners, for no one has been shaped along national lines by peculiar institutions. All, in the same circumstances, will do the same things; all will call themselves unselfish, and be rascals; all will talk of the public welfare, and think only of themselves; all will praise moderation, and wish to be as rich as Croesus. They have no ambition but for luxury, they have no passion but for gold; sure that money will buy them all their hearts desire, they all are ready to sell themselves to the first bidder. What do they care what master they obey, under the laws of what state they live? Provided they can find money to steal and women to corrupt, they feel at home in any country."

And we should also remember that the ideal "Noble Savage" for Rousseau was not necessarily African hunters or "the savages of North America"(although he did speak fondly of them), but rather were the Spartans of Plutarch's account.

Basically his point was that civilization had grown too complex and focused too much on luxury that it had forgotten the most human of all things - family and community - virtues which still lived on in simpler societies.

Yes he definately overblew the case in many regards, yet in many ways he was onto something.

[Joe McCarthy]

Rousseau's nationalism was of the civic variety so ultimately he has little bearing on the cultural nationalism adhered to by most modern racialists.

Btw, Rousseau had good ideas on women as well. It's still small consolation. It should also be mentioned that along with his horrific ideals he was a moral leper.

[Joe McCarthy]

Correct Rousseau was the founder of modern nationalism

As I'm a bit of a pedant I'll chew on this a bit. Though I realize that Rousseau is occasionally attached to 'modern nationalism' I think this is faulty by implication as it assumes nationalism existed in any real sense prior to the modern era. Certainly there were currents prior to nationalism's rise that contained elements of it but nationalism only became a genuine, self-conscious political force in the 18th century.

This is a fine page on nationalism, its theory, and its history:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/modsbook17.html

[il ragno]

Yes he definately overblew the case in many regards, yet in many ways he was onto something.

Perun comes closest to my own take. I find it fascinating how the Far Right can both roundly condemn Rousseau and yet mirror so much of his message.

[Joe McCarthy]

Perun comes closest to my own take. I find it fascinating how the Far Right can both roundly condemn Rousseau and yet mirror so much of his message.

What message is that? You've pretty much seen Rousseau's good points mentioned already by both Perun and I. Practically everything else is extreme leftist trash.

[Boleslaw]

Rousseau's nationalism was of the civic variety
True but the civic element was to be practiced within the context of a traditional ethnic community. This clearly is seen in many of his writing on both Corsica and Poland.


so ultimately he has little bearing on the cultural nationalism adhered to by most modern racialists.
I fail to see why not, considering he had an immeasurable influence upon Herder's theories of nationalism.

[Boleslaw]

As I'm a bit of a pedant I'll chew on this a bit. Though I realize that Rousseau is occasionally attached to 'modern nationalism' I think this is faulty by implication as it assumes nationalism existed in any real sense prior to the modern era. Certainly there were currents prior to nationalism's rise that contained elements of it but nationalism only became a genuine, self-conscious political force in the 18th century.

As an actual political ideology, yes nationalism only dates to the 18th century. But that can be said of any ideology really. The political labels "Left" and "Right" only date to the French Revolution for example. Before Edmund Burke, Im not sure one can even speak of "Conservatism" either.

Either way, what you're referring to is Mark II nationalism. Mark I nationalism, Joan of Arc being the most famous example of such, can be dated to at least the Medieval period. Yet many scholars, like Steven Grosby, have noted that it can even be dated further back to ancient times in Egypt, Babylon, etc.

And we also need not look further than the Old Testament for a pre-modern chronicle of nationalism. In fact the Old Testament is from where Europeans got most of their paradigms of nationalism and nationhood from.

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Leon Bloy
As an actual political ideology, yes nationalism only dates to the 18th century. But that can be said of any ideology really.

This isn't really accurate. To cite just one of the more obvious examples, the theory of absolutism dates at least as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries with Hobbes, Fillmer, Bodin, etc. In a strictly philosophical vein, we find that rationalism, empiricism, and the like are equally as old if not older.

True but the civic element was to be practiced within the context of a traditional ethnic community.

While this is somewhat true it is wholly incidental. The sort of civic (or liberal) nationalism we are discussing is distinguished from cultural nationalism for a very good reason. It de-emphasizes ethnicity in favor of contractarian abstraction, or in practical implementation finds expression in such things as the French revolutionary government's attempt to force the French language on disparate elements (i.e. divergent cultural groupings) found within the French state.

I fail to see why not, considering he had an immeasurable influence upon Herder's theories of nationalism.

I think you overstate Rousseau's influence on Herder. It's true that Herder was part of the same historical current as Rousseau in that Rousseau, like any father of a system, influenced subsequent thinkers of the same mold; but Herder was more apt to employ such things as Biblical allegory to sustain his arguments. Moreover, the man was a Kantian, and few that are familiar with the philosophies of Kant and Rousseau will deny their substantive intellectual disjunction.

[Jimbo Gomez]

It is my understanding that Kant and Herder didn't really see eye to eye on a lot of things either Joe.

[Joe McCarthy]

It is my understanding that Kant and Herder didn't really see eye to eye on a lot of things either Joe.

One should not confuse ideological discontinuity with the rejection of a thinker's opus. Perhaps the foremost analogy of thought to be drawn here is that of Hegal and Marx, who were far from harmonious in toto yet the former's influence on the latter is significant enough that Marx's status as a Hegelian is well known. Less familiar but similar is the Hobbesian strain in the thought of Leo Strauss. Even Nietzsche's influence on London was tremendous, even if London modified his theorems and even considered himself Nietzsche's intellectual opponent. I think the message we should take from this is that it is unfair and even ahistorical to expect a man to be 100% in accord with anyone -- even those with which he shares the same basic weltanschauung.

But more than this, I wonder what specifically you view as the differences between Kant and Herder. I do see some, notably the lack of cosmopolitanism in Herder's thinking. But knowing Herder to have been a rather prickly sort, I tend to see any differences between them as more in the vein of personality conflict. Herder had a bad habit of holding personal disdain even for those who admired him (Kant and Johann Hamann being just a couple of examples). Also remember that Kant and Herder were cultural competitors in the Germany of the day -- a competition in which Herder finished second best. Again, this essentially egotistical struggle for status bears little on philosophical divergence and I think the personal differences between the two trumps the ideological. I also think that the differences rest more on elaboration of thought than outright renunciation of principle. Herder for example carried an emotional angle characteristic of romanticists in general that the staid Kant lacked.

The following are several references to Kant's effect on Herder. Note as you read these that not only was Kant's effect on Herder enormous, Herder was even Kant's pupil at Konigsberg.

http://objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=90&h=51

Herder studied philosophy and theology at the University of Königsberg. His professor of philosophy was Immanuel Kant. While at Königsberg, he also became a disciple of Hamann, and upon graduating he became a Lutheran clergyman and man of letters. He is Kantian in his disdain for the intellect


http://www.philosophynow.org/issue49/49brady.htm

This was Kant's ‘pre-critical' period, as Kant scholars sometimes call the time before he developed the ideas in his seminal Critique of Pure Reason. Zammito is careful to distinguish the present-day philosopher's view from that of the historian, and equally cautious about challenging the enormous intellectual contributions Kant made in his ‘critical' period. He defines his task as ‘contextual intellectual history', an effort to retrieve “a substantial body of thought in late-eighteenth century Germany identified with ‘popular philosophy' and the ‘science of man' (anthropology)” and to examine the profound effect of this period on Herder's intellectual growth.

In other words, Zammito wants us to value Kant not only as the intellectual colossus he became in his later years but also for what he achieved in his own formative period and what he inspired in the young Herder.

Herder was a bright, small town boy and first-generation academic who fell under Kant's spell early, and as it turned out, indelibly, in Kant's classes at Königsberg between 1762 and 1764.

[Boleslaw]

This isn't really accurate. To cite just one of the more obvious examples, the theory of absolutism dates at least as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries with Hobbes, Fillmer, Bodin, etc.

Absolutism is not an ideology per se, but a theory of government. Abolsutism did not obtain an ideological character untill the 18th century with the concept of "Enlightened despotism", ie that the absolute powers of the monarch should be used to improve society for the better.


While this is somewhat true it is wholly incidental. The sort of civic (or liberal) nationalism we are discussing is distinguished from cultural nationalism for a very good reason. It de-emphasizes ethnicity in favor of contractarian abstraction, or in practical implementation finds expression in such things as the French revolutionary government's attempt to force the French language on disparate elements (i.e. divergent cultural groupings) found within the French state.

This doesnt make sense. As the quote I just posted above from his treatise on Poland show, he's concerned about the lack of cultural diversity within Europe and the lack of national identities. In fact the major point of his work was to encourage the Poles to develop their own culture and identity.

Then in the Social Contract, he condemns Peter the Great for, as he put it, trying to make Germans and Enlighmen out of Russians. Instead, as he argues, Peter shouldve been trying to make his subjects into better Russians.

So I fail to see your argument about Rousseau ignoring ethnicities here.



I think you overstate Rousseau's influence on Herder. It's true that Herder was part of the same historical current as Rousseau in that Rousseau, like any father of a system, influenced subsequent thinkers of the same mold; but Herder was more apt to employ such things as Biblical allegory to sustain his arguments.

Again, in reference to his treatise on Poland, Rousseau actually lists Moses as a model nation-builder for which the Poles should seek inspiration from.

It probably also be mentioned that many Christian thinkers have found inspiration in Rousseau as well. Chateubriand, for example, actually exploys Rousseau as an ally in his assault against the Philosophes in his famed apologetical work the Genius of Christianity. In fact during my discussion with WM, I posted this excerpt where Chateubriand directly refers to Rousseau:


"Not satisified with enlarging the sphere of the passion in the drama and the epic poem, the Christian religion is itself a species of passion, which has its transports, its ardors, its sights, its joys, its tears, its love of society and of solitude. This, as we know, is by the present age denominated fanaticism. We might reply in the words of Rousseau, which are truly remarkable in the mouth of a philosopher: "Fanaticism, though sanguinary and cruel, is nevertheless a great and powerful passion, which exalts the heart of man, which inspires him with a contempt of death, which gives him prodigious energy, and which only requires to judiciously directed in order to produce the most sublime virtues. On the other hand, irreligion, and a reasoning and philosophic spirit in general, strengthens the attachment to life, debases the soul and renders it effeminate, concentrates all the passions in the meanness of private interest, in the abject motive of self, and thus silently saps the real foundations of society; for so trifling are the points in which private interests are united, that they will never counterbalance those in which they oppose one another."

Then Hilaire Belloc spoke fondly of many of Rousseau's ideas about "the general will" and influenced his own critiques of modern politics.

I was not saying Rosseau was the only influence on Herder. Herder was also considerably influenced by the Pietist movement which was sweeping German society at the time.

[Joe McCarthy]

Originally Posted by Leon Bloy
Absolutism is not an ideology per se, but a theory of government. Abolsutism did not obtain an ideological character untill the 18th century with the concept of "Enlightened despotism", ie that the absolute powers of the monarch should be used to improve society for the better.

I disagree. Absolutism found stark expression in 17th century Britain in the conflict between Charles I and parliament. Furthermore, Voltaire's 'enlightened despot' Frederick the Great scoffed at the sort of divine right autocracy characteristic of non-Hobbesian absolutist strains.

This doesnt make sense. As the quote I just posted above from his treatise on Poland show, he's concerned about the lack of cultural diversity within Europe and the lack of national identities. In fact the major point of his work was to encourage the Poles to develop their own culture and identity.

Then in the Social Contract, he condemns Peter the Great for, as he put it, trying to make Germans and Enlighmen out of Russians. Instead, as he argues, Peter shouldve been trying to make his subjects into better Russians.

So I fail to see your argument about Rousseau ignoring ethnicities here.


As in most inexact sciences political theory is apt to get bogged down in disagreements over matters of degree and interpretation. We've reached that precipice. As both Rousseau and Herder were nationalists, we can expect the occasional mention of ethnic factors by even a civic sort such as Rousseau. Nonetheless, as stated, even though both were nationalists they are grouped in different branches for a reason. While Herder's emphasis was in his enunciation of the Volk, and like Humboldt, the exploration of language as a determinant of a people's character, Rousseau's principle emphasis (and for which he is remembered) was much more along the lines of contractualist nostrums like 'the general will'.

Again, in reference to his treatise on Poland, Rousseau actually lists Moses as a model nation-builder for which the Poles should seek inspiration from.


You may have misunderstood my Biblical reference. My statement was not indicative of a lack of Biblical citation on Rousseau's part but it was made to indicate Herder's own reliance on the Bible over the ideas of Rousseau. Herder was fond of drawing analogies using such things as Jewish nationalist prototypes such as opposition to the Seleucids.

The rest of your response is, I think you'll agree, rather tangential, and therefore has little bearing on the argument. I do however appreciate your erudition.

[KerguelenExileDissident]

[QUOTE=Leon Bloy]As an actual political ideology, yes nationalism only dates to the 18th century. But that can be said of any ideology really. The political labels "Left" and "Right" only date to the French Revolution for example. Before Edmund Burke, Im not sure one can even speak of "Conservatism" either.QUOTE]

This is interesting and upon taking notice of this I had to respond.

I believe as humanity "evolves" or "evolved" that slowly but surely man builds one idea upon another until it can be generalized into a definition. Upon believing this I think that many ideas such as Nationalism, Empiricism, Abolitionism, even things like Communism and Nazism have vaguely existed for countless ages in one form or another. For example, its a good assumption that when Huns invaded Germany in the Hunnish-Goth wars that those Germans who lived under Hunnish rule for 25 propably turned fairly racist, even though the term racist had no been coined yet.

[Joe McCarthy]

I was enjoying the discussion and fully expected there to be more action on this thread. I guess the 'other side' ran out of ammo.

[Boleslaw]

I was enjoying the discussion and fully expected there to be more action on this thread. I guess the 'other side' ran out of ammo.

No, more likely I havent gotten around to addressing your arguments.

[harjit]

You're right. There was a good bit about this in The Blank Slate, comparing the rate of homicide in Amazon tribes to 20th century Europe. Even including both World Wars and the Holocaust, Europe was still a less violent place to live. The myth of the Noble Savage underlies a lot of liberal sentimentality about Blacks and third world peoples.
I do not believe the myth of the Noble Savage, but the part in red is hard to believe. Do you have a source?

[Professor John Frink]

I do not believe the myth of the Noble Savage, but the part in red is hard to believe. Do you have a source?
http://www.thephora.net/forum/showpost.php?p=186385&postcount=6

Do you want me to dig up the sources?

[Joe McCarthy]

No, more likely I havent gotten around to addressing your arguments.

I look forward to your address.

[Professor John Frink]

That's quite correct. 30% of all adult men in several primitive tribes in Papua, Brazil and other places die a violent death.

I've been asked to supply the sources for these claims:

”The Yanomamo number some 15,000 individuals and are
subdivided into approximately 200 politically independent
communities. During the past 23 years I have visited 60
villages on 13 field trips and have spent 50 months living
among the Yanomamo. Warfare has recently diminished in
most regions due to the increasing influence of
missionaries and government agents and is almost
nonexistent in some villages. Here I summarize the roles
that killing and revenge play in the lives of the members
some dozen villages in one area of the tribe who were
actively engaged in warfare during the course of my
continuing field research (21). The current descendants of
these communities (and their immediate historical
antecedents) were studied more intensely than others
between 1964 and 1987 (9). The population was
distributed among 12 villages and numbered 1394 as of
April 1987. Approximately 30% of deaths among adult
males in this region of the Yanomamo tribe is due to
violence (9, 22). This level of warfare mortality among
adult males is similar to rates from the few other
anthropological studies that report such data. Warfare
mortality among adult males is reported as 25% for the
Mae Enga, 19.5% for the Huli, and 28.5% for the Dugum
Dani, all of Highland New Guinea (23, 24).”

Full PDF: http://www.unc.edu/courses/2005fall/geog/160/001/GEC'05/6!pdf_imm_a17.pdf


"Peaceful pre-state societies were very rare; warfare between them was
was frequent, and most adult men in such groups saw combat repeatedly in a lifetime,” writes Lawrence H. Keeley, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Primitive warfare was conducted not by arrays of troops on a formal battlefield, in the western style, but by raids, ambushes and surprise attacks. The numbers killed in each raid might be small, but because warfare was incessant, the casualties far exceeded the losses of state societies when measured as a percentage of population. "In fact, primitive warfare was much more deadly than that conducted between civilized states because of the greater frequency of combat and the more merciless way it was conducted. Primitive war was very efficient at inflicting damage through the destruction of property, especially means of production and shelter, and inducing terror by frequently visiting sudden death and mutilating its victims.

Keeley's conclusions are drawn from the archaeological evidence of the past, including the Upper Paleolithic period, and from anthropological studies of primitive peoples. These include three groups or foragers that survived until recent times—the !Kung San, Eskimos and Australian aborigines—as well as tribal farmers such the Yanomamo of Brazil and the pig and yam cultivating societies of New Guinea.

To minimize risk, primitive societies chose tactics like the ambush and the dawn raid. Even so, their casualty rates were enormous, not least because they did not take prisoners. That policy was compatible with their usual strategic goal: to exterminate the opponent's society. Captured warriors were killed on the spot, except in the case of the Iroquois, who took captives home to torture them before death, and certain tribes in Colombia, who liked to fatten prisoners before eating them.

Warfare was a routine occupation of primitive societies. Some 65% were at war continuously, according to Keeley's estimate, and 87% fought more than once a year. A typical tribal society lost about 0.5% of its population in combat each year, Keeley found. Had the same casualty rate been suffere by the population of the twentieth century, its war deaths would have totaled two billion people.

On the infrequent occasions when primitive societies fought pitched battles, casualty rates of 30% or so seem to have been the rule. A Mojave Indian war party was expected to lose 30% of its warriors in an average battle. In a battle in New Guinea, the Mae Enga tribe took a 40% loss. At Gettysburg, by comparison, the Union side lost 21%, the Confederates 30%. An archaeologist, Steven LeBlanc of Harvard University, recently reached similar conclusions to Keely after an independent study. "We need to recognize and accept the idea of nonpeaceful past for the entire time of human existence," he writes. "Though there were certainly times and places during which peace prevailed, oveall, such interludes seem to have been short-lived and infrequent. ... To understand much of today's war, we must see it as a common and almost universal human behavior that has been with us as we went from ape to human.

Primitive warriors were highly proficient soldiers, Keeley notes. When they met the troops of civilized societies in open battle, they regularly defeated them despite the vast disparity in weaponry. In the Indian wars, the U.S. Army "usually suffered severe defeats" when caught in the open, such as by the Seminoles in 1834, and at the battle of Little Bighorn. In 1879 the British army in South Africa, equipped with artillery and Gatling guns was convincingly defeated by Zulu armed mostly with spears and ox-hide shields at the battles of Isandlwana, Myer’s Drift and Hlobane. The French were seen off by the Tuareg of the Sahara in the 1890s. The state armies prevailed in the end only through large manpower and attritional campaigns not by any superior fighting skill.”

Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, The Penguin Press, 2006, pp. 151-152.

[Steppenwolf]

Rousseau stinks of moralism. I have to wash myself thoroughly whenever I read him, but that is not a negative thing after all.

[antibuddha]

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0520226100/ref=cm_cr_dp_pt/002-2022780-7459223?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Book Description
In this important and original study, the myth of the Noble Savage is an altogether different myth from the one defended or debunked by others over the years. That the concept of the Noble Savage was first invented by Rousseau in the mid-eighteenth century in order to glorify the "natural" life is easily refuted. The myth that persists is that there was ever, at any time, widespread belief in the nobility of savages. The fact is, as Ter Ellingson shows, the humanist eighteenth century actually avoided the term because of its association with the feudalist-colonialist mentality that had spawned it 150 years earlier.
The Noble Savage reappeared in the mid-nineteenth century, however, when the "myth" was deliberately used to fuel anthropology's oldest and most successful hoax. Ellingson's narrative follows the career of anthropologist John Crawfurd, whose political ambition and racist agenda were well served by his construction of what was manifestly a myth of savage nobility. Generations of anthropologists have accepted the existence of the myth as fact, and Ellingson makes clear the extent to which the misdirection implicit in this circumstance can enter into struggles over human rights and racial equality. His examination of the myth's influence in the late twentieth century, ranging from the World Wide Web to anthropological debates and political confrontations, rounds out this fascinating study.

[Galdr]

I bought a french book by Jean Jacques Rousseau "Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'inégalité parmi les hommes" which translates to "A dissertation on the origin and foundation of the inequality of mankind." in English. I think I'll read this one before the other one I bought which is "The politics of Popularism".

Anyone read this book (by JJR) or any other books by JJR? Feel free to share your thoughts about the author and what you agree and disagree with. I'll read the book first then make comments.

I love Jean Jacques Rousseau and consider him my favorite historical idol.

The discourse on the inequality of man is a very good book but one would learn more if they read his book Emile.

I believe the discourse of the inequality of man is good in that it shows society as the cause of corruption and today's ills instead of the perceive notion that such creations are a extension of nature which in all reality they are not.

If you ever read Emile Rousseau's favorite work you will understand many more conceptions.

[Galdr]

It is society that makes men good, not evil. Rousseau's worldview was naive.

All corruptions stems from society.

I disagree with you.

[Galdr]

You're right. There was a good bit about this in The Blank Slate, comparing the rate of homicide in Amazon tribes to 20th century Europe. Even including both World Wars and the Holocaust, Europe was still a less violent place to live. The myth of the Noble Savage underlies a lot of liberal sentimentality about Blacks and third world peoples.

comparing the rate of homicide in Amazon tribes to 20th century Europe.

Doesn't negate the fact that both examples are manifestations of civilization even if one should be in the jungles instead of concrete.

[Galdr]

I've read the 'Discourse'. It is Rousseau's most extreme work and highlights his exultation of the 'noble savage' and lambasts private property. It also promotes perhaps that most dangerous of leftist assumptions -- that man is inherently good; in this case in the form that man is pure in a 'state of nature' until sullied by civilization. As I recall, Voltaire 'thanked' Rousseau for this work with a sarcastic nod acknowledging his 'new work against the human race'.

I view Rousseau as perhaps the most destructive thinker in Western history (though Bentham also merits consideration) as he more than anyone else laid the groundwork for the events of 1789; which can rightly be regarded as the beginning of the end for our civilization.

I will observe that it is fairly interesting that those of a Nationalist bent, including those on this board, seem to despise Rousseau even though he was Nationalism's founder. There is good reason for this even though it at first seems incongruous. Chalk it up to one of those strange quirks where historical antecedents ultimately end up radically at variance with subsequent ideological developments.


I've read the 'Discourse'. It is Rousseau's most extreme work and highlights his exultation of the 'noble savage' and lambasts private property. It also promotes perhaps that most dangerous of leftist assumptions -- that man is inherently good; in this case in the form that man is pure in a 'state of nature' until sullied by civilization. As I recall, Voltaire 'thanked' Rousseau for this work with a sarcastic nod acknowledging his 'new work against the human race'.

I view Rousseau's best work to be Emile and if you read his biography you would find out that was his favorite writing piece.

I view Rousseau as perhaps the most destructive thinker in Western history

Why?


I will observe that it is fairly interesting that those of a Nationalist bent, including those on this board, seem to despise Rousseau even though he was Nationalism's founder.

He was indeed a nationalist and if you study his political writings you would find some rather spectacular instances of it.

[Galdr]

Correct Rousseau was the founder of modern nationalism and was staunchly against the cosmopolitanism that was prevailing within European society at the time. This is clearly expressed with his treatise Considerations on the Government of Poland:
"Today, no matter what people may say, there are no longer any Frenchmen, Germans, Spaniards, or even Englishmen; there are only Europeans. All have the same tastes, the same passions, the same manners, for no one has been shaped along national lines by peculiar institutions. All, in the same circumstances, will do the same things; all will call themselves unselfish, and be rascals; all will talk of the public welfare, and think only of themselves; all will praise moderation, and wish to be as rich as Croesus. They have no ambition but for luxury, they have no passion but for gold; sure that money will buy them all their hearts desire, they all are ready to sell themselves to the first bidder. What do they care what master they obey, under the laws of what state they live? Provided they can find money to steal and women to corrupt, they feel at home in any country."

And we should also remember that the ideal "Noble Savage" for Rousseau was not necessarily African hunters or "the savages of North America"(although he did speak fondly of them), but rather were the Spartans of Plutarch's account.

Basically his point was that civilization had grown too complex and focused too much on luxury that it had forgotten the most human of all things - family and community - virtues which still lived on in simpler societies.

Yes he definately overblew the case in many regards, yet in many ways he was onto something.


People should remember that modern multiculturalists hijacked Rousseau's writing for their own agenda.

Early forms of liberalism and egalitarianism was not multicultural because only recently has it become so. There was a time when liberalism and egalitarianism were purely a European existance only.

[Galdr]

Rousseau's nationalism was of the civic variety so ultimately he has little bearing on the cultural nationalism adhered to by most modern racialists.

Btw, Rousseau had good ideas on women as well. It's still small consolation. It should also be mentioned that along with his horrific ideals he was a moral leper.


Rousseau's nationalism was of the civic variety so ultimately he has little bearing on the cultural nationalism adhered to by most modern racialists.

Civic institutions are important in nationalism.


Btw, Rousseau had good ideas on women as well. It's still small consolation. It should also be mentioned that along with his horrific ideals he was a moral leper.

:rofl:

[Galdr]

I will come back to this thread later.

[antibuddha]

I view Rousseau as perhaps the most destructive thinker in Western history

Why?



Because he has an absurdly simplistic and overly idealistic view of history... :rolleyes:

(That, and blaming individual thinkers for complex historical developments is a useful polemical device.)

[Professor John Frink]

Doesn't negate the fact that both examples are manifestations of civilization even if one should be in the jungles instead of concrete.
Those tribal societies were, by definition, pre-civilisational.

[Galdr]

Because he has an absurdly simplistic and overly idealistic view of history... :rolleyes:

(That, and blaming individual thinkers for complex historical developments is a useful polemical device.)

Because he has an absurdly simplistic and overly idealistic view of history... :rolleyes:

He viewed history for what it really is......... :rolleyes:


(That, and blaming individual thinkers for complex historical developments is a useful polemical device.)

Explain.

[Galdr]

I've been asked to supply the sources for these claims:

”The Yanomamo number some 15,000 individuals and are
subdivided into approximately 200 politically independent
communities. During the past 23 years I have visited 60
villages on 13 field trips and have spent 50 months living
among the Yanomamo. Warfare has recently diminished in
most regions due to the increasing influence of
missionaries and government agents and is almost
nonexistent in some villages. Here I summarize the roles
that killing and revenge play in the lives of the members
some dozen villages in one area of the tribe who were
actively engaged in warfare during the course of my
continuing field research (21). The current descendants of
these communities (and their immediate historical
antecedents) were studied more intensely than others
between 1964 and 1987 (9). The population was
distributed among 12 villages and numbered 1394 as of
April 1987. Approximately 30% of deaths among adult
males in this region of the Yanomamo tribe is due to
violence (9, 22). This level of warfare mortality among
adult males is similar to rates from the few other
anthropological studies that report such data. Warfare
mortality among adult males is reported as 25% for the
Mae Enga, 19.5% for the Huli, and 28.5% for the Dugum
Dani, all of Highland New Guinea (23, 24).”

Full PDF: http://www.unc.edu/courses/2005fall/geog/160/001/GEC'05/6!pdf_imm_a17.pdf


"Peaceful pre-state societies were very rare; warfare between them was
was frequent, and most adult men in such groups saw combat repeatedly in a lifetime,” writes Lawrence H. Keeley, an anthropologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Primitive warfare was conducted not by arrays of troops on a formal battlefield, in the western style, but by raids, ambushes and surprise attacks. The numbers killed in each raid might be small, but because warfare was incessant, the casualties far exceeded the losses of state societies when measured as a percentage of population. "In fact, primitive warfare was much more deadly than that conducted between civilized states because of the greater frequency of combat and the more merciless way it was conducted. Primitive war was very efficient at inflicting damage through the destruction of property, especially means of production and shelter, and inducing terror by frequently visiting sudden death and mutilating its victims.

Keeley's conclusions are drawn from the archaeological evidence of the past, including the Upper Paleolithic period, and from anthropological studies of primitive peoples. These include three groups or foragers that survived until recent times—the !Kung San, Eskimos and Australian aborigines—as well as tribal farmers such the Yanomamo of Brazil and the pig and yam cultivating societies of New Guinea.

To minimize risk, primitive societies chose tactics like the ambush and the dawn raid. Even so, their casualty rates were enormous, not least because they did not take prisoners. That policy was compatible with their usual strategic goal: to exterminate the opponent's society. Captured warriors were killed on the spot, except in the case of the Iroquois, who took captives home to torture them before death, and certain tribes in Colombia, who liked to fatten prisoners before eating them.

Warfare was a routine occupation of primitive societies. Some 65% were at war continuously, according to Keeley's estimate, and 87% fought more than once a year. A typical tribal society lost about 0.5% of its population in combat each year, Keeley found. Had the same casualty rate been suffere by the population of the twentieth century, its war deaths would have totaled two billion people.

On the infrequent occasions when primitive societies fought pitched battles, casualty rates of 30% or so seem to have been the rule. A Mojave Indian war party was expected to lose 30% of its warriors in an average battle. In a battle in New Guinea, the Mae Enga tribe took a 40% loss. At Gettysburg, by comparison, the Union side lost 21%, the Confederates 30%. An archaeologist, Steven LeBlanc of Harvard University, recently reached similar conclusions to Keely after an independent study. "We need to recognize and accept the idea of nonpeaceful past for the entire time of human existence," he writes. "Though there were certainly times and places during which peace prevailed, oveall, such interludes seem to have been short-lived and infrequent. ... To understand much of today's war, we must see it as a common and almost universal human behavior that has been with us as we went from ape to human.

Primitive warriors were highly proficient soldiers, Keeley notes. When they met the troops of civilized societies in open battle, they regularly defeated them despite the vast disparity in weaponry. In the Indian wars, the U.S. Army "usually suffered severe defeats" when caught in the open, such as by the Seminoles in 1834, and at the battle of Little Bighorn. In 1879 the British army in South Africa, equipped with artillery and Gatling guns was convincingly defeated by Zulu armed mostly with spears and ox-hide shields at the battles of Isandlwana, Myer’s Drift and Hlobane. The French were seen off by the Tuareg of the Sahara in the 1890s. The state armies prevailed in the end only through large manpower and attritional campaigns not by any superior fighting skill.”

Nicholas Wade, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors, The Penguin Press, 2006, pp. 151-152.



Primitive war was very efficient at inflicting damage through the destruction of property, especially means of production and shelter,

Not pre-civilization.

[Galdr]

Those tribal societies were, by definition, pre-civilisational.

Points above.

When I think of pre-civilization I think of a nomadic hunting and gathering society.

[Galdr]

What message is that? You've pretty much seen Rousseau's good points mentioned already by both Perun and I. Practically everything else is extreme leftist trash.

Practically everything else is extreme leftist trash.

What examples?

[Galdr]

This isn't really accurate. To cite just one of the more obvious examples, the theory of absolutism dates at least as far back as the 16th and 17th centuries with Hobbes, Fillmer, Bodin, etc. In a strictly philosophical vein, we find that rationalism, empiricism, and the like are equally as old if not older.



While this is somewhat true it is wholly incidental. The sort of civic (or liberal) nationalism we are discussing is distinguished from cultural nationalism for a very good reason. It de-emphasizes ethnicity in favor of contractarian abstraction, or in practical implementation finds expression in such things as the French revolutionary government's attempt to force the French language on disparate elements (i.e. divergent cultural groupings) found within the French state.



I think you overstate Rousseau's influence on Herder. It's true that Herder was part of the same historical current as Rousseau in that Rousseau, like any father of a system, influenced subsequent thinkers of the same mold; but Herder was more apt to employ such things as Biblical allegory to sustain his arguments. Moreover, the man was a Kantian, and few that are familiar with the philosophies of Kant and Rousseau will deny their substantive intellectual disjunction.


While this is somewhat true it is wholly incidental. The sort of civic (or liberal) nationalism we are discussing is distinguished from cultural nationalism for a very good reason. It de-emphasizes ethnicity in favor of contractarian abstraction, or in practical implementation finds expression in such things as the French revolutionary government's attempt to force the French language on disparate elements (i.e. divergent cultural groupings) found within the French state.

I fail to see how old liberal nationalism in the past ignored the vitality of ethnicity and personally I thinking you are creating problems where they don't exist.

[Galdr]

It is my understanding that Kant and Herder didn't really see eye to eye on a lot of things either Joe.

Kant was influenced heavily by Rousseau though. :)

[Galdr]

I disagree. Absolutism found stark expression in 17th century Britain in the conflict between Charles I and parliament. Furthermore, Voltaire's 'enlightened despot' Frederick the Great scoffed at the sort of divine right autocracy characteristic of non-Hobbesian absolutist strains.



As in most inexact sciences political theory is apt to get bogged down in disagreements over matters of degree and interpretation. We've reached that precipice. As both Rousseau and Herder were nationalists, we can expect the occasional mention of ethnic factors by even a civic sort such as Rousseau. Nonetheless, as stated, even though both were nationalists they are grouped in different branches for a reason. While Herder's emphasis was in his enunciation of the Volk, and like Humboldt, the exploration of language as a determinant of a people's character, Rousseau's principle emphasis (and for which he is remembered) was much more along the lines of contractualist nostrums like 'the general will'.



You may have misunderstood my Biblical reference. My statement was not indicative of a lack of Biblical citation on Rousseau's part but it was made to indicate Herder's own reliance on the Bible over the ideas of Rousseau. Herder was fond of drawing analogies using such things as Jewish nationalist prototypes such as opposition to the Seleucids.

The rest of your response is, I think you'll agree, rather tangential, and therefore has little bearing on the argument. I do however appreciate your erudition.


As in most inexact sciences political theory is apt to get bogged down in disagreements over matters of degree and interpretation. We've reached that precipice. As both Rousseau and Herder were nationalists, we can expect the occasional mention of ethnic factors by even a civic sort such as Rousseau. Nonetheless, as stated, even though both were nationalists they are grouped in different branches for a reason. While Herder's emphasis was in his enunciation of the Volk, and like Humboldt, the exploration of language as a determinant of a people's character, Rousseau's principle emphasis (and for which he is remembered) was much more along the lines of contractualist nostrums like 'the general will'.

Rousseau says:


It is national institutions which form the genius,the character,the tastes, and the morals of a people,which make it be itself and not another,which inspire in it that ardent love of the fatherland founded on habits impossible to uproot,which cause it to die of boredom among other peoples in the midst of delights of which it is deprived in it's own.

[Galdr]

Rousseau stinks of moralism. I have to wash myself thoroughly whenever I read him, but that is not a negative thing after all.
What do you mean?

[Professor John Frink]

Points above.

When I think of pre-civilization I think of a nomadic hunting and gathering society.

I'm not so sure about that:

civilization
.An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Third Edition

culture with a relatively high degree of elaboration and technical development. The term civilization also designates that complex of cultural elements that first appeared in human history between 8,000 and 6,000 years ago. At that time, on the basis of agriculture, stock-raising, and metallurgy, intensive occupational specialization began to appear in the river valleys of SW Asia. Writing appeared, as well as urban centers that accommodated administrators, traders, and other specialists. The specific characteristics of civilization are: food production (plant and animal domestication), metallurgy, a high degree of occupational specialization, writing, and the growth of cities. Such characteristics originally emerged in several different parts of the prehistoric world: Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, India, the central Andes, and Mesoamerica. However, some civilizations did not have all of these characteristics (e.g., the Classic Maya had no metallurgy, and true writing apparently never emerged in central Mexico or the central Andes). Many anthropologists now focus on a political factor—the development of hierarchical administrative bureaucracies—as the critical characteristic of all civilizations. 1
See P. Sorokin, Social and Cultural Dynamics (1981); R. Wothnaw, Meaning and Moral Order (1987); F. Fernández-Armesto, Civilizations: Culture, Ambition, and the Transformation of Nature (2001).
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.
http://www.bartleby.com/65/ci/civiliza.html

BTW, the Yanomamo have taken up agriculture rather recently.

Keeley's conclusions are drawn from the archaeological evidence of the past, including the Upper Paleolithic period, and from anthropological studies of primitive peoples. These include three groups or foragers that survived until recent times—the !Kung San, Eskimos and Australian aborigines—as well as tribal farmers such the Yanomamo of Brazil and the pig and yam cultivating societies of New Guinea.

[Galdr]

I'm not so sure about that:

civilization



http://www.bartleby.com/65/ci/civiliza.html

BTW, the Yanomamo have taken up agriculture rather recently.



Civilization is a extension of private property and agriculture.

The example you used had forms of private property and that still makes it a form of civilization.

[Galdr]

I'm not so sure about that:

civilization



http://www.bartleby.com/65/ci/civiliza.html

BTW, the Yanomamo have taken up agriculture rather recently.




BTW, the Yanomamo have taken up agriculture rather recently.

Maybe the killings are a recent phenomena too.

I am curious........

[Professor John Frink]

Civilization is a extension of private property and agriculture.

The example you used had forms of private property and that still makes it a form of civilization.

Let's say that the difinition of "civilisation" is malleable. We're still dealing with tribal societies profoundly different from what we usually classify as "advanced societies".

Maybe the killings are a recent phenomena too.

I am curious........

If the agricultural phenomenon bothers you, we can discount the evidence from the observations of the Yanomamo, and we're still left with pre-agricultural tribes with similar death rates.

[antibuddha]

Death rates per capita is meaningless in human terms. Even if the death rate is similar among whatever definition of “primitive societies” we're using against that of “civilized societies” the weight, so to speak, of human suffering is still greater in the latter. To whit, There is no moral superiority, especially if one wants to take into account how many civilized people are killed by their own governments or work or technology, etc. and call that “murder”. Many tribal cultures do not consider blood feuds “murder”, and this term is essentially a legal definition. Furthermore, comparing dying in a modernized war like WW2, where one is drafted into a conflict which often has no real immediate personal value attached to it and generally kills strangers from a distance, to fighting and dying in, a usually heavily ritualized, tribal war where personal values are nearly paramount and the enemy has a face is ridiculous as the two are experienced entirely differently psychologically and so should not be considered morally equivalent.

Only a hyper-civilized, abstract statistical analysis would consider rougly equivalent ratios in death rates to be a valid argument for civilized moral superiority, which is precisely the problem with civilized consciousness in general (or, at least ours) and why various thinkers or schools have critiqued it. World Wars I and II caused a massive re-evalution of western society's own values and left a looming spectre of nihilism in its wake. There is rarely any such widespread existential introspection after a tribal war, it is accepted stoically (and in the case of certain “barbarian” cultures, celebrated or romanticized). Reading one anthropological study, the author noted how when he took his informant, who was from a tribe involved in a bitter war, to the film theatre in the city to see a war movie, I believe it was, and the man stood up and began shouting about how he couldn't believe these people on the screen could be killing people who they did not even know, or something to that effect (I guess black folk from Africa shout in movie theatres too, heh). Lastly, although perhaps regrettable, tribal warfare often has the effect of maintaining ethnic group autonomy and re-allocating local resources. Hence, we see the civilized praise for a leader like Charlemagne, who unifies the warring disparate ethnic tribes into a centralized nation-state, and usually through a blood-bath at that.

I will try to dig up some sources on this if anyone insists on disputing me, although most likely they will simply be dismissed anyway, because people are too busy romanticizing their own “heroic-pessimist”, Hobbesian outlook on humanity. “A History of Warfare” speaks of the ceremonialism around primitive war, off the top of my head. As regards to Keeley's work however, it only mentions foragers six times over nine pages in a book with about 200, so Galdr has a valid point which is being brushed aside. Futhermore, Keeley is not an anthropologist who has spent any time with actual tribal cultures, and certainly not foragers. At any rate, no one seems to have looked at the work I posted, which refutes the idea that there was ever widespread or meaningful acceptance of Roussea's noble savage (and it has been pointed out here, he was not actually speaking of 'primitives' truly, anyway) and was actually constructed by the right-wing aristocracy in order to justify their superiority vis-a-vis comparing themselves to leisured, healthy hunters as opposed to degraded soil-tilling peasants. So, if the guardians of “high culture” and civilitas want to complain about their value system being undermined, through their own science no less, they can only blame themselves.

Seriously, this whole argument about early warfare is as when you argue with a person about modern, industrial technology destroying the ecology and wildlife and someone responds back with “well, some ancient hunters killed the mammoths you know” as if this was the same as massive species die off; it is absurd (and not actually even proven, by the way) and turns into some ridiculous pissing contest. It proves nothing and only assuages people of any potential guilt through association.