Rousseau and Representative Democracy Reconsidered: Rehabilitating the General Will

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this discussion paper is to promote a reconsideration of the political theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He has long been out of favour among responsible political philosophers, theorists and the very select politicians who know or care anything at all about traditional political philosophy and political theory. He has been accused of being the fountainhead of every evil ideology and dastardly deed from the eighteenth-century regicide in France to twentieth-century totalitarianisms of the left (e.g., Maoism and Stalinism) and the right (e.g., Fascism and Nazism). His phrase, the "General Will," has come under special criticism as interpreted by scholars who see it as a kind of abstract Platonic idea which subsumes the individual in the state, eliminates personal liberty and choice, and sets the stage for imminent authoritarian dystopias. I hope that the comments set down here may lead to a more fruitful conversation among people who chose to see innovation as a process not about changes for the sake of efficiency and improved service quality (or, worse, merely for the sake of change), but as practical initiatives that are normatively infused with ideas of liberty, equality and solidarity among citizens and nations.Keywords: Rousseau, representative democracy, General Will, political participation, democratic theoryAn Introduction to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)The story may be apocryphal; but it is said that, when Richard Nixon made his historic trip to China in 1972, he asked the venerable Chinese Foreign Minister Chou En - Lai about his thoughts on the lasting impact of the French Revolution on Western society. Allegedly, Chou ruminated for a few moments and solemnly replied: "It's too early to tell. "Some say that either the question or the comment was misunderstood. Some say Chou had thought that Nixon was referring to the student uprising in Paris four years earlier, in which case the response was perhaps unduly cautious, but barely noteworthy. Many, however, took it to reflect an understanding of history that was not tethered to the daily newspaper headlines. It seemed to indicate an awareness of, and a concern for, the "big picture. "Whatever the Chinese leader's intent, the question of the earlier and somewhat more memorable French Revolution of 1789 is still much debated by historians. For those with a large view of human events, it may well be "too early to tell"; for most of us, it is a matter of mainly antiquarian interest. It conjures up little more than the belief that Napoleon Bonaparte (whether deemed a hero or villain) was a "great man," that there was much blood at the guillotine, that Marie Antoinette made a fateful miscalculation when offering culinary advice to the poor, that it inspired one of the world's most recognized national anthems, and that Charles Dickens used the occasion to offer us one of the three most famous opening lines in English-speaking literary history: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" (the others, of course, are "Call me Ishmael" and "It was a dark and stormy night"). Otherwise, except presumably for the citizens of France, it is an antique event and largely irrelevant to current affairs. This is a pity, for little describes intellectual history today as much as the public's indifference to it. As Santayana warned, we do not remember our history and seem thus condemned to repeat it. Think Afghanistan. Think Sarajevo. Think SevastopolEqually distressing is our indifference to "thinkers" in general, and especially to those "dead white males" to whom prior generations turned for wisdom about the past, advice about the present and informed speculation about the future. Now, we not only neglect the lessons of history that might make the future salvageable, but, on those rare occasions when we do turn our attention to political and social philosophers of the past, we prefer those whose contributions to our civilization are, or are believed to be, positive or at least relatively unambiguous. …