General Will Essay -- Philosophy, Rousseau

The problem is to find a norm of connecter which provide defend and protect with the whole common force the individual and goods of individu whollyy associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with in all, may still accompany himself alone, and remain as free as before.Rousseau (1762)a, ll. 57bThus Jean-Jacques Rousseau sets proscribed his aim, and quite a formidable aim it is. He hopes to establish an clutch norm of association (i.e. kindred between individual and state) in which all individuals and their possessions are protected, to the greatest extent possible, by the state (or body politic) each individual gives himself wholly to the general cause of the state and all individuals make freely and of their own volition. It should be noted here that the state, in Rousseaus conniption of things, is constituted wholly and exclusively of the individuals subject to these criteria. There is no classify institutional government whose members befuddle a materially dif ferent relationship to the whole, and so the people are simultaneously the holders of power and the legal subjects in the body politic. In the former capacity they are referred to by Rousseau as citizens, and the active group made up by them is called the sovereign, a normal person, formed by the union of all other persons (l. 41). Rousseau sums up the terms of his resultant role succinctly thus the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community (ll. 1718). This is not intended to be as unilateral as it may sound. The key concept that brings together Rousseaus companionable contract theory is the bifurcation of each state members resolve into the general will and the individual will the distinction being most importantly that the g... ...es with Rousseauist hallmarks have historically existed does not swing the debate, since these societies generally confirm rather than mollify my doubts. Those groups that existed before Rousseaus time w ere invariably small to very small, this being the single environment in which I find his propositions at all practicable. In those larger scale political systems influenced by Rousseau, such(prenominal) as red communismf and the totalitarianism of Adolf Hitlers Nazi partyg, there is evidence of some of the flaws mentioned above climax to the fore the propagandist Nuremberg Rallies, for example, could be seen as broad manipulation of the general will and little vindication of the claim that each member of such societies obeys himself alone, and remains as free as before. At least, not free in the way that we would understand the term in the twentyfirst century.