Rousseau and Revolution

12 Rousseau and Revolution
highlights the peculiarity of republicanism, Rousseau’s included, being ‘as
much a way of life as a form of government’ (ibid.). This makes the political
task both political-institutional and cultural-educational, and Swenson
shows how refl ections on political culture ‘conducive to the cultivation of
the capacity of self-government’ (ibid.) permeate Rousseau’s work. Foundation
of a republic is also cultivation of mores. Rousseau had a keen sense of
this and it informs his study of existing societies and his recommendations
to their transformation as evident in the writings on Corsica and Poland or
his remarks on the resilient capacity of the Jews. In political theoretical
terms this leads Rousseau, according to Swenson, to place himself between
two positions often alleged in political philosophy by Constant, Isaiah Berlin
and others to be mutually exclusive and hostile, namely between ‘an
active, participatory liberty and a negatively defi ned absence of constraint
on personal prioritization of choices’ (ibid.).
As always, one is tempted to say, Rousseau is all his own, transcending or
disturbing the distinctions and conceptions of political philosophical consensus.
This makes his work challenging, sometimes confusing, but seldom
boring. Rousseau thought and wrote before our present concepts and
ideologies formed and one is often led to project ideas and policies back
into time to make his thinking comprehensible. This makes for poor analysis
and, as the contributions to this book shows, and as Swenson demonstrates
in the fi nal chapter, one can gain much more insight by suspending
or critically using our present concepts and distinctions, not to name or
classify Rousseau, but to show how he escaped easy labelling then and how
he still refuses to fi t into any neat and tight box.
Conclusion
What all of the arguments, positions and conceptions above demonstrate is
that political philosophy for more than 200 years has grappled, combated,
celebrated, debated and used Rousseau, making him say various things, but
also persistently insisting, whether in agreement or not, that it matters what
Rousseau said and meant when he posed a question and suggested an
answer. This makes a book about Rousseau more than just an exercise in
intellectual history. It is always also a meta-refl ection on the conditions of
our society and thinking as well as a room in which to contemplate the possibilities
and purposes of making the world anew in big and small.
We hope with this book to stimulate the seemingly never-ceasing but everexpanding
interest in Rousseau and to help show how the period in which