Gentleness, Severity, and the System of Rousseau: Responses to Modern Commerce and Enlightenment

Rousseau seems 'republican' in critiquing modern people as luxurious and soft, in contrast with primitive sternness and virtue. Yet he also seems 'romantic' in exposing modern life as cruel and oppressive, in contrast with primitive gentleness and idleness. This dissertation comprehensively analyzes themes related to gentleness and severity in Rousseau, while also comparing him with other major political philosophers and social theories. It shows that, despite the pervasiveness of these themes in Rousseau, scholars have either neglected them or treated them in isolation from one another. Chapter 1 characterizes the pivotal social types appearing in Rousseau, including the citizen, the civilized modern, the moral human (Emile), the solitary dreamer (Rousseau), and several kinds of 'savages.' An innovative typology reveals substantial coherence behind many of his central paradoxes. Chapter 2 argues that despite his searing critiques of modern oppression, Rousseau typically does not characterize his contemporaries as cruel. Instead, the fundamental structures of civilization institutionalize basic conflicts of interest and self-reinforcing inequalities. With these structures secured, modern elites can reap civilization's false benefits without needing to be violentÌ¢‰âÂ'they need only be 'harsh' or 'hard.' In Chapter 3 we turn to 'doux commerce,' the prevailing Enlightenment theory that increasing commercialization and cultural refinement would make people more 'gentle,' 'mild,' and tolerant. Whereas Rousseau has been understood to repudiate commerce simply because of its cruelty, we find that he largely concedes the descriptive premise of doux commerce. However, he frames the 'softness' it generates as politically base in comparison with the stern virtues of the ancients, as resulting from moral indifference rather than genuine conviction, and as perfectly compatible with the ramification of cruel institutions. Chapter 4 discusses basic tensions in Rousseau's highest prescriptive ideals, the citizen and the moral human. We find, for instance, that he was more critical of the violence generated by republican patriotism than is usually believed, that his domestic education counterbalances emancipation from direct human authority with exposure to the harshness of nature, and that the pinnacle of his social thought may be a stoicizing overcoming of the violent jealousy which arose with human society itself.