November 14, 2005
undersea world of Locke/Rousseau
If we are bound to exhume the body of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we could at least not misuse it cruelly. A brief passage from "On Political Economy" that might resonate with recent events more honestly:
Do we wish men to be virtuous? Then let us begin by making them love their country: but how can they love it, if their country be nothing more to them than to strangers, and afford them nothing but what it can refuse nobody? It would be still worse, if they did not enjoy even the privilege of social security, and if their lives, liberties and property lay at the mercy of persons in power, without their being permitted, or it being possible for them, to get relief from the laws. For in that case, being subjected to the duties of the state of civil society, without enjoying even the common privileges of the state of nature, and without being able to use their strength in their own defence, they would be in the worst condition in which freemen could possibly find themselves....
If a willingness to contemplate violence in any social condition is a mental illness, as one of my favorite poets has of late suggested; and if one's stance both in intent and effect serves to defend not peace but rather the state monopoly on violence; isn't this simply a rapturous request to be ruled by madness, as long as that madness is bound for others? Now imagine that the state violence one underwrites endlessly was directed toward you and your children, on a daily basis; what then of your gracious and tree-lined philosophy?
For those who wish to expound virtuous pacifism, and who wrap themselves in the noble rags of compassion for others, please include in your conversation a proposal for how the actual humans living as perpetual subjects of state violence ought behave, in your measure.
Posted by jane at November 14, 2005 08:02 AM | TrackBack