Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Born: June 28, 1712, Geneva

Died: July 2, 1778, Ermenonville

Falsehood has an infinity of combinations,

but truth has only one mode of being.

- Rousseau

I am quite fascinated by Rousseau;
His innovative ideas and courage to challenge the "basic assumption of the elightmement." The censorship and threat from legal persecution for his thoughts is also fascinating. I am wondering what is being kept from us nowadays? We do, no doubt, have access to  more information than ever has been in history but it is still what has been 'ok'd' for our consumption. What is being held back? Is it  destroyed or put in an artic vault like the seed bank? see below
Perhaps nothing is held back; violent content, in my mind, should be held back but it's not. However, we are allowing ourselves to become very vulnerable to the possibility of losing all the information if we allow it to become completely digitalised, out of our control and beyond our access.

Global seed bank to be Noah's Ark of food
 http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2008/02/25/2171649.htm

As we have seen in previous texts there has been a "tactical nod" to the times in which they were written, Rousseau seems to disregard this, he "scandalized the religious establishment by rejecting the doctrine of original sin with his declaration of the innate goodness of human beings."

His ideas effected French thinking and helped fuel a revolutuon!

The emphasis is on THINKING now not belief. Having courage to challenge beliefs and have original thought.

These quotes  are reminiscent of Descartes for me. 

 "(...) human reason is capable of formulating ideals that extend beyond present reality, (...)."

A thought puts the idea into existence; even god.

 "(...) his "reform," or improvement of his own character, he began to look back at some of the austere principles that he had learned as a child (...)."

 deconsrtuction of what has been taught before one has really learned to think.

http://enlightenment-revolution.org/index.php/Rousseau,_Jean-Jacques
In 1751, Rousseau wrote The Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, in which he challenged the basic assumptions of the Enlightenment. (...) – Rousseau argued that rather than promoting morality, the advance of the arts and sciences had actually had the opposite effect and led to the decline of virtue. Increasing intellectual and cultural refinement proceeded hand in hand with the degeneration of moral character.

Rousseau reached the peak of his authorial career in 1762 with the publication of Emile and The Social Contract. Both works were condemned in France and Geneva, and warrants were issued for his arrest. Despite his literary success, Rousseau then faced a period of dangerous insecurity as he sought refuge from legal persecution.
In Emile, a treatise on education, Rousseau scandalized the religious establishment by rejecting the doctrine of original sin with his declaration of the innate goodness of human beings. The corruption of humanity is due to pernicious influence of society through the generation of artificial desires and passions, which are so intense that they in effect enslave their possessors. Rousseau’s solution is a system of education in which the pupil, Emile, is reared in such a way as to restrict the development of his desires so that they fall within the range of his own abilities.

The Social Contract is one of the great masterworks of western political thought, a celebration of democracy and equality. Rousseau begins with the current state of human beings, living in a condition of slavery even though they were born free. While its functioning has proven problematic, human reason is capable of formulating ideals that extend beyond present reality, and the social contract presents just such a construction.

http://history-world.org/rousseau.htm
'The Social Contract', stating that no laws are binding unless agreed upon by the people. This idea deeply affected French thinking, and it became one of the chief forces that brought on the French Revolution about 30 years later.

As part of what Rousseau called his "reform," or improvement of his own character, he began to look back at some of the austere principles that he had learned as a child in the Calvinist republic of Geneva.
He says that passions that generate vices hardly exist in the state of nature but begin to develop as soon as men form societies.

With the tender passion of love there was also born the destructive passion of jealousy. Neighbors started to compare their abilities and achievements with one another, and this "marked the first step towards inequality and at the same time towards vice." Men started to demand consideration and respect; their innocent self-love turned into culpable pride, as each man wanted to be better than everyone else.

fatal concept of property

You forget that the fruits belong to all and
 that the land belongs to no one.
- Rousseau