Rousseau and Revolution

68 Rousseau and Revolution
the chain of events set in motion by the Enlightenment is neither morally
nor politically ‘wrong’. It is a historical necessity. It is the un-dialectical refusal
to recognize the legitimacy and the power of the individual that undermines
the universality of Rousseau’s general will. For, set up against the
individual, the universal remains abstract, and holding on to a negative
notion of equality, it is structurally unable to master the arbitrariness proper
to the individual will. The sovereign universal can erase all individuality – its
only action is indeed to bring death by guillotine – but it cannot eliminate
the contingency and arbitrariness that eventually penetrates the general
will. In destroying all individuality, absolute freedom proves the sheer arbitrariness
of its universal action and becomes a mere particular, the arbitrary
power of a faction. ‘Government,’ observes Hegel, is called that faction that
happens to be the ‘victorious faction’. In this triumph of sheer contingency,
concludes Hegel dialectically, ‘lies the immediate necessity of its overthrow’
(ibid., 437, my italics).
Universal and Individual Will
In the 1805–6 Realphilosophie, Hegel shares with Rousseau the typically modern
problem of the origin of the state. 4 The issue is how to make citizens of
atomic individuals; how to bring individuals to recognize a common and
really communal purpose above and beyond self-interest. Hegel, however,
rejects the solution proposed by the natural right tradition and the notion
of a social compact. Echoing the fragment on the Verfassung Deutschland
and the problem posed by the fact that contemporary Germany is not a
‘state’, Hegel observes that states can only be established by ‘the noble force
of great men’ (Schmidt, 1998, 18). Only force can produce the organic
unity of the state; only the activity of a ‘great man’ can bridge the gap that
separates the private individual from the political community. Theseus is
the fi gure back to which Hegel traces the origin of the state in a sort of
mythical genealogy. His interest, however, is chiefl y historical and philosophical.
Theseus leads him immediately to the contemporary political
scene. ‘In this way Theseus established the Athenian state. And thus, in the
French Revolution, a fearful force sustained the state [ . . . ]. This force is
not despotism but tyranny, pure horrifying domination. Yet it is necessary and
just, insofar as it constitutes and sustains the state as this actual individual ’ (Hegel,
1968, 8, 258, my italics). Hegel’s Theseus resonates with Rousseau’s Legislator).
The mythical Theseus is readily replaced by the French Revolution.
The revolution is invested with the world-historical task of converting the