Introduction into Romanticism: Rousseau, The French Revolution and FREEDOM!

After nearly two months of being away from Winchester it was time for the usual Tuesday after HCJ lecture. After having a heated argument with the Creative Writing lecturer over who had been allocated the right room for their lecture (note to self don't ever try and argue with Brian Thornton), we sat in our seats eager for the next topic in the HCJ timeline: The Romantic Movement.

Before we begin I just want to make it clear we are talking about The Romantic Movement that occured in the 19th Century and not the movement of boy bands who were dressed like women in the early 1980's. So, before we get into any arguments, here is a brief distraction before we return to our normal scheduled blogging:



Now we have got that out the way I will get back to The Romantic Movement. Romanticism occurred during the end of the 18th Century and brought an end to the Enlightenment and the end of the creative force of Christianity, which had near enough vanished. There was one main whose creative force and opinion would drive and base the foundations of The French Revolution; Jean-Jacquees Rousseau.

Rousseau was disowned as a child by his father and uncle and made his living through many jobs throughout France and Italy, including being a servant to being the secretary of the French ambassador to Venice. However, it was not until Rousseau returned to his native Switzerland that his influence over western society began to take shape.

Rousseau would spend countless days in the mountains of Geneva or on a small island off the coast of the Austrian capital, Vienna where he would just listen to the waves. He suggested that when he listened to the waves that his mind was wiped clear of all of the painful memories of the past and the anxieties of the future were lost. All he felt was the sense of being. Rousseau disowned all of his previous beliefs, including those of the church and denounced them all as lies and that you could find the divine truth in human nature.

I decided I wanted to put Rousseau theory into practice and listened to the waves to see if my wind escaped all of the painful memories and could escape all conceou thought except the sense of being.



Now I did not listen to the waves for the whole ten minutes, however even a couple of minutes of listening to them can help your mind relax and escape some thought.

Rousseau believed in the beauty and innocence of nature and that it could be extended to man. He believed that the natural man was virtuous and reacted against the corruption that was profound in 18th Century society. Rousseau glorified the noble savage, who without any form of civilisation was pure and natural. This followed the concept of Locke who believed that people were good in the sense of being pre-civilised.

Now I can understand Rousseau's concept that a person who has had no contact with modern civilisation will be pure, but even in modern western society, that concept is near impossible due to the social democracy we live in and the nearest we become to the noble savage is through out first few years of life when we are learning about the world as a child.

Rousseau was intelligent enough to accept the fact that his vision of the noble savage was near impossible due to the influence of society that has chained us in and made us naturally civilised. The French philosopher Voltaire argued against this opinion saying, "No one has such intelligence to persuade us to be stupid. After reading your book one feels as if we should walk on all fours.

Even though we are descended from Primates, I can not believe that Voltaire can suggest that Rousseau is suggesting that the noble savage is in fact a pig. Rousseau suggests that the social statue has left us alienated and has us trapped in the competition of self esteem and the personal wealth and the competition that we keep up with our peers. Personally, I feel that self esteem will always be profound because it constructs a personal self belonging and places people within the structure of civilised society. This would be profoundly argued by Voltaire that this is wrong and everyone should act as individuals and should only worry about themselves, not everyone else around them.

Rousseau constructed a document that would base the foundations of the French Revolution in his Social Contract. Rousseau believed in "taking men as they are and law as they might be. Rousseau identified the main problem within society in the late 18th century and stated "Find forms of association which defends and protect with all the common force, the person and good of each associate and by means of which each one while united with all only obeys himself as remain as free as before." 


Rousseau is stating that we should as individual find forms of association with each other and protect all our common human rights as a group, but at the same time have our own free will and rights as individuals.

He went on to describe about the general will of a individual or a group. As a group we all contribute to shaping our own general will in society and that we should only obey laws, no more than we obey ourselves. Rousseau goes on to say that our general will is driven by appetite alone and that as slaves within a dictatorship, they must abide to and follow the laws laid down by the dictatorship .

Therefore, Rousseau believes that a free society is one where all the laws and laid down and agreed upon by the people and for the people (I think I have been watching the Egyptian protests a little too long). This means for example that you must not do anything that interrupts or goes against your own free will, however if it is something that is a law you must follow this law because you have all agreed to follow it.

This does contradict Rousseau as he says that we should only do things that we are happy to do, however the system suggest that we may have to do thing we do not want to do. For example if the law dictates that everyone has to play Football on a sunday morning, then everyone must abide and follow this rule and if they is someone who objects to this rule, then they are excluded from the group and hazed until they accept this law and abide by it. This is the danger of a new kind of dictatorship that even though it has been agreed upon by the people, there is a risk of people refusing to obey and then these individuals being "forced to be free", until they conform.

Rousseau says that freedom exists only free the laws begins. Now I agree with Rousseau's concept of free will and that everyone should only do thing that make them happy, but I feel that the social contract and the declaration of general will is contradict and we must conform to law that are set out by everyone, even if they do not make us happy. This does not make any sense, but I understand within society there will be people who will confirm and abide by the rules and then there will be others who will objects and fight laws to establish their freedom. This reminds me of one the iconic films scenes of the last twenty years.





This scene in Braveheart sees William Wallace rallying up his troops in the fight to secure the freedom of Scotland. You can compare this scene in Braveheart to the night of the 14th July 1789 and the storming of the Bastille, which brought upon the beginning of The French Revolution.

The French government at the end of the 18th Century were bankrupt and during May and June 1789 King Louis XVI held meetings of the three estates. The three estates comprised of the Clergy (the church), The Nobles and The peasantry. They met to reform the financial stability of France, however the King had the clergy and nobles on the right of the assembly hall and the peasantry on the left, which initially formed the basis of what we know today as left-wing and right-wing politics.

The peasantry rebelled against the monarchy and formed the national assembly. They based their constitution on the ideas of Rousseau and declared that the right of men are born and remain free and are equal in rights and that law is the expression on general will. It also expressed that every citizen has the right to represent themselves personally. The initial beginning of the revolution was pedantic and the constitutional phase belongs in the realms of the age of reason.

The assembly denounced everything that happened before in time and started again, even to the point where they started from the year 0 and changed all the months of the year to months of emotions. Word of the revolution has crossed over to the shores of Great Britain and the British philosopher Wordsworth said that the revolution had brought upon Rousseau's ideas of natural man into reality and therefore the romantic movement had begun.

The Monarchy were not at pleased with the formation of The French Assembly and wanted to stop this power vacuum, before it could gain momentum. The advantage was that no one in the assembly knew who was in charge, leaving everyone to run round like headless chickens, not knowing who to follow and what to believe. At the same times the Prussians were fuming about the uprising in France and wanted to stop this rebellion once and for all. The potential invasion sparked fear throughout France and the paranoia led to the country giving all of it's citizens weapons to protect themselves.

They did not know that the paranoia would get to the point where the citizens would turn on each other and in September 1792, the September Massacre began with the search of counter-revolutionaries brought upon by the profound paranoia that had been embedded in the minds of the French population. This eventually led to the execution of King Louis XVI in 1793 and the invention of the guillotine, which was created as a simpler way of executing people seen to be counter-revolutionists.

The government were seen as deliberately using violence to create a reign of terror and to stop the revolution in it's track. It only created a counter-affect and added more fuel to the fire and spurred on the revolution, as it changed the landscape of western society forever.

One of the key figures of the revolution was Mary Wollstoncraft and her writings majorly influenced the role of women within society and helped shape the revolutions as a whole. Her readings, including A vindication of the women are the subject of this week's seminar. I will leave this subject until next time, but until them I leave you with one strong message.

You have come to fight as free men and free men you are. What will you with that freedom, will you fight. This strong statement makes me realise that freedom is a precious thing to have and that historical events, such as The French Revolution has given society such freedom. So until next time I only have one thing to say FREDOM and I think I may have just gave myself a splitting headache!