It is often easy to see the origin of Romantic philosophy. The evocation of feeling via beauty in nature can persuade a romantic attempt to derive higher meaning from it:
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At home in Gower, breathing my native Welsh air and watching the
waves crash upon fine sand, I understand the appeal of Romanticism. |
The sublimity of nature's beauty, the ideal of a simple, rural lifestyle and the experience of human emotion are what drove the romantic movement that originated in the late 18th Century. It was a passionate rejection of the Enlightenment's reassertion of classical objectivity and the concurrent rise of industrialism. The Romantics idealised medieval rather than classical civilisation. They preferred the life of the rural peasantry to that of the urban proletariat, the eccentric aristocrat to the hard nosed businessman and the emotional rogue to the upright stoic.
The shift in attitudes from the reason of the Enlightenment to the Romanticism of the 19th Century can be seen in Western architecture:
The Bank of England, built in the late 17th Century, is typical of the neo-classical architecture of the Enlightenment period - which is itself reflective of the objective neo-classical outlook of the age.
The Palace of Westminster, rebuilt in the 19th Century by Charles Barry showcase the neo-Gothic style of the Romantic era. The building is intended to beautiful, the detail of the architecture is designed to enthral. It is a work of subjectivity - a central tenet of Romanticism.
Both institutions would benefit from a dose of neo-classical economics..
Romanticism is characterised by nostalgia, it views modernity as corrupt and progress as befoulment. The foremost philosopher of Romanticism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau regretted even the very beginning of civilisation:
"The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody." - Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on Inequality, 1754
One could be forgiven for inferring a great similarity between Marxist and Romantic philosophy based on the above quotation. Marx and Rousseau share, politically, a distaste of property and individualism, and both seek a regression to forms of communalism. Their wider philosophies are, however, quite different. Marxism is an attempt at empirical criticism of classical liberalism, conflicting with the liberal economists and philosophers on their own ground. Rousseau's Romanticism is not empirical, it is highly subjective and values feelings and nature above books and statistics.
Marx developed his theories by pouring over records in the reading room of the British Museum, Rousseau conceived his by listening to waves on a beach.
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| JJ Rousseau - Romantic |
Rousseau believed that civilisation had corrupted humanity. To him only savages, such as the recently discovered Tahitians, were truly happy, truly virtuous and truly free. Like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, Rousseau built his philosophy around a hypothetical 'state of nature' which was in existence before civilisation. In this state of nature man was pure, beautiful and fully human without the shackles of civil society, law, convention and etiquette.
Rousseau wrote of this idea in his major work
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality, to which Voltaire responded:
“No one has ever used so much intelligence to persuade us to be so stupid. After reading your book, one feels that one ought to walk on all fours. Unfortunately, during the last sixty years I have lost the habit.”
Rousseau makes explicit Romanticism's rebellion against the enlightenment.
Rousseau's political philosophy, borne out of his romantic beliefs, is set out in his
Social Contract. It is from this book that the quotation:
"Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains." The chains to which he refers are the restrictions upon men's behaviour which are imposed by civil society. Rousseau realises that humanity can never return to the state of nature to live as noble savages; civilisation cannot be unlearned. Instead, Rousseau expresses a desire for a radically different political system to be ruled by that with which his glorified savage tribes have so much affinity; the general will.
The general will as described by Rousseau is not the will of the majority, nor sum will of all, but where the interest of all coincides. As Bertrand Russell puts it in his History of Western Philosophy:
"If the citizens have no opportunity of striking logrolling bargains with each other, their individual interests, being divergent, will cancel out, and there will be left a resultant which will represent their common interest; this resultant is the general will"
Rousseau, nominally, sets out his political philosophy with the admirable goals of liberty and democracy these are however constantly negated throughout in pursuit of the general will. Rousseau believes that freedom is achieved when all of the rights of all individuals are submitted to a community governed by the general will. To be ruled by the general will of the body politic is not tyranny in Rousseau's eyes as all are taken into account in a system of direct (rather than representative) democracy. In effect one can be forced to be 'free'. The tyranny of the general will is absolute as Rousseau advocates no separation between the public and private spheres for fear that private interests may conflict with the general will.
Rousseau's agenda is more about equality than it is about liberty and to put equality before liberty is the recipe for the collective tyranny he advocates. His political philosophy is a rejection of one of the most important aspects of the enlightenment; John Locke's conception of natural rights.
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| Romantics |
The French Revolution was heavily influenced by Rousseau's political philosophy. The character and nature of the revolution was different to that the revolution that began the enlightenment; The Glorious Revolution of 1688 and the revolution that helped define it politically - the American revolution. The French revolution, like Rousseau, sought a different sort of liberty to that which Americans won in 1776. As the French displayed through the relentlessly efficient decapitation of aristocrats and anybody else suspected of not being revolutionary enough, true liberty is not conducive to equality and fraternity. The 'liberty' fought for by the French revolutionaries, however, was not liberty as a liberal would understand it - it was the liberty of Rousseau, the liberty to be subject to the whim of a majority of which you are part.
It should not be surprising that the mass-murdering revolutionary leader Robespierre was a staunch believer in the teachings of Rousseau.
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| More Romantics |
Rousseau's philosophy has inspired and provided a justification some of the worst totalitarian regimes of history, notably it provided an intellectual basis for the rise of Fascism in the early 20th Century. Fascism is a romantic ideology based upon romantic nationalism. Who are the the people that make up the general will? Does a common ancestry and nationhood make membership of the body politic racially and nationally exclusive? These were the questions for political Romantics to which Fascism was the answer.
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| Romantic film (not a Rom-com) |
The National Socialists in Germany before the second world war were seen as an embodiment of the general will. Indeed it is obvious that that the Nazis were well aware of this perception, and sought to reinforce it through Riefenstahl's
Triumph des Willens (The Triumph of the Will) - a semianl film in the field of propaganda.
Today's romantic political force is not fascism, but environmentalism. Environmentalism is somewhat less dangerous than rampant Nazism, but not entirely harmless. Environmentalists do not tend to be interested the the ideals of Rousseau's
Social Contract, but their philosophy shares great similarity with his
Discourse on the Origins of Inequality. A disdain for civilisation and a desire to return back to the beauty, purity and virtue of nature is a romantic aspiration which motivates the idealistic attacks they make on the industrial prosperity of the west. They also, like the Nazis, are anti-capitalists. They share with Rousseau a disdain for property and reject the virtue of inequality.
It is interesting to have a philosophy that informs nature-loving eco-warriors and society-hating hippies along with genocidal National Socialists.
Romantic political philosophy is contrary to the prevailing liberal political philosophy set out by John Locke
. Locke is first a liberal, secondarily is he a democrat.
Democracy is but another form of tyranny without constitutional limitations and the rule of law. The 'general will' should certainly not have absolute claim to the life, liberty or property of the individual. The unrestrained political power of a body politic driven by populism is the highway to statism.
Freedom requires a constitutionally limited state, government by consent, the rule of law and respect for the supremacy of the individual.
