Once upon a time..(all good stories start like that right?) -there was this young good looking Frenchman (Swiss?) in Geneva names Jean Jacques (Rousseau). He used to sit up late at night with his watchmaker father reading sentimental novels.. (his dear mum had passed away during childbirth)
One day, after reaching maturity he found himself locked out of the city after the gates were closed. Rather than beat the door down, or throw a couple of attention getting rocks at the nearest watchtower, Jean Jacques decided instead to 'see the world' so...off he went to other places... higher up in France and found himself in the company of an older woman he called "Mama" and to whom he sold himself for sex as a gigolo.
At the age of 37, he was going to visit a friend of his named Diderot, who was in jail for some censorship infringement. This is the Diderot who in 1751, co founded a document called the Encyclopedie...the first attempt to put in accessible and systematic form all the knowledge of the world.
On this journey to the place of Diderot's incarceration, Jean Jacques, (by now around 37) saw a poster which advertized a competition for an essay.. the subject matter was "Has the progress in the arts and sciences contributed more to the advancement or deterioration in morality?". Well.... this impacted the emotional Jean Jacques like a falling glacier on a row boat and he was overwhelmed with feelings from every part of the spectrum. After recovering from the initial impact of what this unleashed in Jean Jacques mind, he set about writing to win this competition. He took the 'negative' view and held that the progress of science etc and the associated institutions had utterly hammered morality (remember this bloke sold himself for sex to an older woman) to the point of near death.
After winning the competition, and gaining instant fame for his eloquent prose and powerful vocabulary, Jean Jacques decided to take a job as a "Tutor". In another later volume titled "Confessions" where he lays open his heart and life and deeds, he explains how he 'sucked' (to use modern slang) at this occupation and sought help from another high profile figure of the time who he much admired.
That person was
John Locke the English Philosopher (who had puritan parents) who contributed greatly to modern liberalism and the concept of the State, but Jean Jacques main interest was in Locke's theories of education and psychology. He wanted to discover the 'ideal' means of educating a person who would, because of this perfect education, attain 'virtue' without reference to God, and without the strict guidance of the Church.
Jean Jacques embraced John Locke's view that man was not born with original sin... and this was his starting point for the creation of his ideal character "Emile". Emile was written with the idea of exploring and establishing this new enlightened, 'reason based' eductional model. Jean Jacques did this in 5 volumes and ladies beware... volume 5 will not sit well with you if you hold strongly independant and feminist views.... *you have been warned*.
In the script....i.e.the book, Jean Jacques constructs an educational plaform which does not dictate the need for reading or writing before Emile is 'ready'... which means when he knows the real world meaning of words such as "justice" etc.
Long story short.. "Emile" becomes the philosophical darling and toy boy of the enlightenment and liberal tradition, and they push forward with this approach as a strong factor in their thinking. Emile is.. emancipated and independant of the Church! "Hip hip hooray the liberals would cheer" (in my apocryphal mind). But interestingly, a couple of people actually tried to raise children using Jean Jacques methods as spelt out in Emile. It not only didn't work, it failed miserably.
We might observe, that "when you write the script...the ending is assured" but in real life??? err.. not quite so easy.. the other main observation of Jean Jacques life is that while he incorporated "No original sin" into the construction of "Emile" (and Jean Jacques on world view) he actually proved the opposite by his own behavior. Not only was he a gigolo, he also fathered a number of children out of wedlock and abandoned them... I suppose the easy 'work around' on this is to simply re-define "sin" and evil to be "Anything I don't do that I consider so" and this lets you off the hook to do whatever you consider not to be 'sin' or evil. "Heyyyy..whatsup with abandoning a few fragile vulnerable kids.... no problemo, plenty of peasant women out there who want another baby"... and so it goes on. As I said... when you write the script..the ending/outcome is assured and it will be 'happy ever after'. Reality though, tends to bite you in the rear end!
The enlightenment was characterized by these things.
-Emanicpation of man from the Church. (But with Deistic background music)
-Seeking an alternative source for authority than the Church, to understand the universe and to relate the individual to it.
This is rather surreal and needs close examination. The problem for some enlightenment figures was that they felt the Church or a 'theological' framework for life would inhibit scientific enquiry and stifle creativity and discovery. *Ouch*.... but consider this, the man described the late Professor George Mosse of the University of Wisconsin calls Blaise Pascal the "last great Christian Intellectual" prior to the enlightenment. Pascal was a genius, child prodegy and invented the first 'computer'...a mathematical calculating machine. He contributed amazingly to the science of mathematics and physics. Was a a reformed evangelical Christian. He demonstrated that science was not in the slightest bit inhibited by a Church or Theistic social framework.
Looking back now at Jean Jacques Rousseou's life, (and inclinations) one is tempted and enticed to the attractive conclusion that the issue for Rousseau was not scientific or theistic...but
moral. He lived a life that most would call promiscuous.
The Influence of "Emile" (the reader can sus this out separately for more information).
Clearly, this idea of an emancipated autonomous indivual was attractive to the increasing number of endarkened minds (oops..sorry. "EnLIGHTened").. and one such mind was Gotthold Lessing, born in 1729,a German Jew who worked as a
Writer, Philsopher, Dramatist, Art Critic, Publicist.
Lessing embraced this enlightened thinking and looked for an example of this from within his own ethno religious community, and he found his star in the form of
Moses Mendelssohn. Lessing regarded Mendellsohn as a truly emancipated Jew...no longer held captive by his own theological or religious traditions within Judaism, but set FREE by 'reason'. In his influential play titled "Nathan the Wise", he casts a number of useful characters which include:
-Daya the humble "supersticious Christian" housemaid
-Nathan the 'rich merchant'.(The emancipated Jew)
-The Patriarch (representing the pre enlightenment despotic Church world view.... the 'villain')
-The Templar (who increasingly doubts his religious convictions due to Nathan's raw 'reason')
-Sultan Saladin the Muslim.
All these characters, (as for Emile) follow Lessing's script and the utopian ending once again is assured. Lessings objective in this play is to show how religious tolerance and enlightented emancipated thinking is the most desirable condition of mankind.
But that's the 'kicker' as they say..... once more...reality bites Lessing as it bit Rousseau... people are not particularly tolerant of different views.... but this is greatly exacerbated when there are issues of power balances, trade and commerce involved. We should keep in mind that in the back of Lessing and Rousseau (and Locke)'s minds.. was the 30 yrs war between various European states where to the observer it could appear that they were only about 'religious differences'. You know that saying "Religion is the cause of all wars"... (rolls eyes)
We see in both Lessing's Nathan and Rousseau's Emile, two examples of the desired utopian conditon for mankind... but one need only to look at the important differences between Saladin's Islamic religion and Lockes Christianity. The two are vastly and totally incompatible. Saladin's Islam specifically aims to subjugate the world by military force, though not force immediate conversion. Locke's Christianity want's to subjugate the heart "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" (Matt 5:5). Meek people don't take up swords or M16's and blast they way to that inheritance. By contrast, Saladin's Islam calls on Muslims to "Fight those who do not believe in Allah and the last day"(9:29)
Lessing's Nathan and Rousseau's Emile.. desirable? Absolutely, but achievable? never. Dare I state it?... the reason?... "Original Sin".