Autor: Manent, Pierre

Buch: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Stichwort: Rousseau 1; R. als Kritiker d. Liberalismus; Meinung als Souverän; Ungleichheit durch Vgl. des Einzelen mit d. anderen (die Reichen); Bourgeois - Bürger; Homogenität d. europäischen Kultur

Kurzinhalt: Modern man had become a bourgeois; he had ceased to be a citizen. The contrast between the bourgeois and the citizen, and the denunciation of the bourgeois as a degraded human type, are first found and best expressed in Rousseau's work.

Textausschnitt: CHAPTER VI
Rousseau, Critic of Liberalism

65a It seems anachronistic to present Rousseau as a critic of liberalism. After all, the first target of his indignation was the social and political order of the France he knew, which cannot be called liberal; the second was "society" as such, regardless of its political regime. But the fact that Rousseau criticized the ancient régime like everyone else in the second half of the eighteenth century must not lead us astray. In his eyes, the verdict was already in: the absolute monarchy was odious, and was already dead inside. If he crossed swords several times with "absolutism" or despotism, it was without particular anger. Besides, like Montesquieu before him, he was sure that a revolution would soon bring it down. What mattered to him was what was going to replace the monarchy, something that was already present in France and had already substantially transformed it. France was no longer characterized by the king's absolute power; it was ruled by opinion. Whose opinion? Society's. And what is society? It is inequality. (Fs; tblStw: Politik)

65b For Rousseau the king's favor no longer determined men's credit and thus their position. It was opinion, an authority with no specific organ and no specific place apart from "Paris," which had replaced Versailles. The credit that opinion conferred was attributed by no one in particular, but it was recognized and obeyed by all. This credit of opinion was directly related to credit in the financial sense of the term: one lent only to the wealthy, and those who had credit, for whatever reason, became wealthy.1 Consequently, men were ranked not on the basis of their power, birth, competence, or even riches, but rather on the basis of this imperceptible credit of which wealth was only the outward or measurable sign. The society Rousseau was contemplating was not characterized by powers attributable to persons or institutions, but by an inequality relating only to itself, with no content or meaning other than itself. Men looked at each other "from above" or "from below" according to a point of view which had been that of power, but which power had deserted. The relationships of power had become simply that, "relationships." They were relationships of inequality. Therefore, the spirit of society was inequality. (Fs) (notabene)

65c This is where liberalism comes in. To repeat, the foundation of liberalism is the distinction between civil society and the state: the latter is the representative instrument of the former. Civil society tends to be self-sufficient. Within it, members are governed neither by political power nor by other members; each of them is the source of his actions. They freely exercise their talents to ensure their preservation and even the most comfortable preservation possible—they seek to "better their condition." They also want to gain recognition for their merits, in particular intellectual and artistic merits, from their equals. As for the state, by representing and serving the individuals' instinct for self-preservation it promulgates laws that guarantee to each person security and free pursuit of happiness as he conceives of it. These are the principles. But how do they function in fact? (Fs) (notabene)

66a In such a system, the individual is, hypothetically, the unique source of his actions. He obeys only himself. But what are the motives or ends of these actions, which are supposedly his own? He necessarily enters into relations with other individuals for his education, business, and pleasures. He depends on them without ruling them or being ruled by them. How are these individuals, in principle independent but in fact dependent, going to relate to each other? The answer is contained in the question: they are going to compare themselves to each other. (Fs) (notabene)

66b Comparing oneself to others is the misfortune and original sin of men in our societies. The misfortune is that the man who compares himself with others is always unhappy. There will always be someone richer than me, and even if I am the richest, I will not be the most handsome or most intelligent. The sin is that the man who compares himself is always corrupted or on the point of being so. Not only does the desire to be first lead him to commit the everyday mischief that the moral code condemns, it also obliges him to give others a pleasing image of himself, to flatter himself and flatter them. His exterior will never be in harmony with his interior and his life will be a permanent lie. Moreover, comparing oneself with others is paradoxical. For the man who lives by comparison is the one who, in his relationships with others, thinks only of himself, and in his relations with himself, thinks only of others.2 He is the divided man. (Fs) (notabene)

Kommentar (29/10/14), zu oben: Desto mehr das soziale Gewebe zerfällt, desto mehr ist der Einzelne gezwungen, sich im Vergleich zu anderen zu definieren. Die Folge ist, dass das Mitläufertum in einer Gesellschaft universalen Verlgeichs stärker sein wird, als in einer wohl differenzierten.

66c In such a society based on universal comparison of all with all, it is natural that society place importance on the outcome of the comparison. The terms of the comparison being varied—power, birth, wealth, talents—this permits the comparison of comparisons, so to speak. And the inequality that sums up all the others, into which all the others can be converted, is that of money. Hence the importance of denouncing the rich more than the powerful in Rousseau's work. But for him, the rich man is not an economic category: he epitomizes a society founded on comparison, that is, on inequality among men who no longer govern themselves. (Fs)

66d In Rousseau's eyes, this inequality, and the behavior of which it is both cause and effect, are not only to be found in the French society of his time. He simply happens to live in that society, and therefore know it best; it may be also that inequality and its consequences are more visible in that society. But fundamentally, the behavior was that of modern man in modern society: it was the same in Paris and London, Edinburgh and Naples. Modern man had become a bourgeois; he had ceased to be a citizen. The contrast between the bourgeois and the citizen, and the denunciation of the bourgeois as a degraded human type, are first found and best expressed in Rousseau's work. Consequently, the difference between the English liberal regime and the French absolutist regime was secondary. Rousseau had some kind words for English liberty, he also had some cruel ones. What mattered was that the motivating spirit of social life was identical in the two nations. The same human type tended to prevail: the bourgeois, the man who by withdrawing into himself distinguished his own good from the common good. But to find his own good, he needed others, on whom he was dependent while seeking to exploit them. (Fs) (notabene)

67a Yet, between France and England there was an incontestable difference. Hobbes and Locke formulated the principles of liberal or bourgeois individualism; the English founded the political regime destined to be inhabited by the bourgeois, who found it eminently suitable. But to carry out this political task, the bourgeois had to become citizens, at least for a certain period; by Rousseau's time this was undoubtedly over. The English had temporarily imposed on themselves the burdens of citizens so as subsequently to become bourgeois. Hence a certain equivocation in their political and social character, and Rousseau's apparent hesitation to make a political judgment concerning them. The French on the contrary became quite plainly bourgeois under the oppressive aegis of the absolute monarchy, which successfully prevented them from becoming citizens. (The English had for a time been citizens, though in a confused way in the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth century.) It was thus in the French absolute monarchy that the psychology of modern bourgeois man developed and revealed itself most completely, while the English kept several traits of civic virility. For Rousseau, the very different place of women in the two societies attested to this fact. (Fs)

67b What Rousseau leads us to see by his very revolt is the homogeneity of European history, the homogeneity of what he calls the "modern peoples." The author who best summarizes European history is Hobbes; he decisively substituted the bourgeois for the citizen and thus became Rousseau's principal modern interlocutor, in approval as in criticism. The French body politic developed continuously, without rupture, according to Hobbes's prescription. But the English body politic modified that prescription according to Locke's corrections. Absolutism thus produced the bourgeois which liberalism only imagined. (Fs)

68a The time has come to listen to Rousseau's own voice. Here is how, from a genealogy of the goods and evils of society in general, he characterizes the bourgeois man of modern society. (Fs)

If this were the place to go into details, I would easily explain how, even without the involvement of government, inequality of credit and authority becomes inevitable between individuals as soon as, united in the same society, they are forced to make comparisons between themselves and to take into account differences they find in the continual use they have to make of one another. These differences are of several kinds; but in general wealth, nobility, or rank, power, and personal merit being the principal distinctions by which one is measured in society, I would prove that the agreement or conflict or these various forces is the surest indication of a well- or ill-constituted state. I would show that of these four types of inequality, as personal qualities are the origin of all the others, wealth is the last to which they are reduced in the end because, being the most immediately useful to well-being and the easiest to communicate, it is easily used to buy all the rest.... I would point out how much that universal desire for reputation, honors, and preferences, which devours us all, trains and compares talents and strengths; how much it stimulates and multiplies passions; and making all men competitors, rivals, or rather enemies, how many reverses, successes, and catastrophes of all kinds it causes daily by making so many contenders race the same course.1