Bellum Omnium Contra Omnes

The aspect of Rousseau’s critique of Liberalism that I want to focus on for this post is the phenomenon that is the primary result of this new system: The Bourgeois. This type of person has been the bane of every Philosopher and Artist—on the Left and the Right—since Rousseau first gave him a name in his work Émile in 1762.

Rousseau said that he is a result of a mistake made by Locke: “He who in the Civil order wants to preserve the primacy of the sentiments of Nature [Self-Preservation and Self-Interest] does not know what he wants.” To him, The Bourgeois is stuck in the middle of what he feels are two very respectable extremes: 1) the good, Natural Man, as found in the State of Nature; and 2) the Moral (de-natured) Citizen of the ancient Republics in Greece and Rome. He is constantly divided by his Natural Inclinations and the demands of Social Duty. The conflict between Self-love and love of Others, Inclination and Duty, Sincerity and Hypocrisy, being one-Self and being Alienated has pervaded all modern discussion of the Human Condition since Rousseau’s critique of Liberalism.


When a Bourgeois thinks of others, he only considers how the interaction is going to benefit himself; yet, when he tries to think about himself, his only conception is in comparison to others, with no inner metric of Self-worth.


Bourgeois and Middle Class can be used interchangeably, but, where as Bourgeois is always used with derision, Middle Class in America has always been thought to be a good, desirable thing to be. It is a status the poor strive for and a demographic Politicians always pander to because a majority of Americans fall within it (depending, of course, on your definition of Middle Class). In Marxist theory, The Bourgeois is despicable because they are the buffer that allows the Capitalist system to continue and perpetuate itself; for Artists they are contemptible because they are un-poetic, un-erotic, and un-heroic—and their religion is empty and mostly just for show. They have neither longings for greatness nor enthusiasm for life and merely accept the world the way it is, in a passionless reconciliation with “Reality.”

The Bourgeois can be directly related with, what Locke called, the “Industrious and Rational” Man that he required in order for his system to work. He was a new type of Man that made the Politics of Consent—as opposed to politics based on Myth—work. He consults his Reason and sees that, by incorporating with other men, he can get a lot more done and better protect himself (i.e. preserve him-Self), but only will consent to a Government that protects his Individual Rights (the Natural Rights he possesses, which predate Government and Society).

Throughout American history there have been people who have spoke out against this type of system—most notably Thoreau in his book Walden in 1854 and the Transcendentalists—but for the most part it has been accepted and has helped America to become the Industrial and Technological behemoth that it is today. The latest and most far-reaching of these Counter-Movements occurred in the 1960’s and has completely transformed the face of America. Although beginning with legitimate claims against American society and the Government—Civil Rights and opposition to the War in Vietnam among others—their solution and method for enacting their social change, I would say in the end, has done much more harm than good.

Their Philosophy was an incongruous mixture of Marxist collectivist communalism paired with a Nietzschean over-emphasis on a free-spirited Individualism. (And don’t forget the Freudian rejection of society as a repressive agent of neuroses and unhappiness, as if we could possibly return to the State of Nature after all of our History that has moved us so far away from it.) Although, both Marx and Nietzsche hated The Bourgeois, they approached the problem from completely different vantage points—the modern Left/Right dichotomy—and to think the two could be combined is completely foolish and is based on nothing but wishful thinking.

There are very legitimate claims that can be made against our Government and our Culture—and have been made by many Thinkers even before America was created—but the solutions of the Sixties have failed. And far from reforming or transforming Bourgeois Society, their ideas have instead led to the greatest opportunities for growth “The System” could have ever hoped for. The Counter-Culture has now become part and parcel of the Consumer-Culture. There is no differentiation between Bourgeois and Bohemian anymore other than the style of dress and the dichotomy has collapsed in upon itself. Denim may have replaced Khaki on our University Campuses, but those pants were still bought at a store that fully participates in every unsavory practice that our Capitalist system was built on: unsafe factories, low wages, child labor, natural degradation, marketing—the lists goes on and on.

The true result of the Sixties Philosophy came to a head in the Eighties and was personified by the Me! Me! Me! Generation and can be best described by the phrase, “Whoever dies with the most toys, wins!” When the contradiction of Community through Individuality became manifest, there was no longer anything left to stop the excesses of Capitalism because another part of Sixties Ideology was rejection of the past/attempt to kill History (at least Western History). This meant two things: 1) the Religion that made people at least stop and think about the state of their souls for two seconds had disappeared; and 2) all those great Thinkers that proposed alternatives or modifications/correctives to our System had been forgotten as well.

We are now Solitary Individuals, being kept afloat by life-boats in the middle of a vast, empty ocean, with no connection to History, no connection to our Community, no connection to our Country, and with only an abstract connection with the rest of Humanity.

“These are the times that try Men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
—Thomas Paine Crisis December 23, 1776

The Party's Over

Loss of Human Dignity? That is a pretty high price to pay. Why did Kant feel that this new system—which he ultimately agreed with—had such a high cost, especially when you think about all the great things that were gained from it: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, the Right to vote and have a say in the functioning of your Government, and a whole plethora of other Rights to protect the Individual.

To find the answer to that question we must look to the other half of the Modern American dichotomy: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (who I indicated earlier as the basis for the current crop of Liberals today).

Rousseau wrote about 60 years after Locke’s highly influential book Two Treaties on Civil Government, and started off his thought in fundamental agreement with Locke. He agreed with him about the origins of society in the State of Nature and the principles of Freedom and Equality for all Men, but drew very, very different conclusions about how society should be set up to ensure those principles.

Locke (following in the footsteps of Machiavelli) thought—since 2000 years of philosophizing and preaching had been completely ineffectual against Man’s natural desires and the methods that had been created in order to do so led to such great torment (sin, the threat of Hell)—that we may as well act as we naturally are, instead of how we ought to be and that would lead to happiness. Man is naturally Selfish, and his two main concerns are Self-preservation and Self-Interest. But, Locke thought, if Self-Interest could be trained to be Enlightened Self-Interest—where Man has the Right to believe whatever he wants, say whatever he wants, and be whatever he wants, but must also recognize the same Right for everyone else—then Society would be much more peaceful and prosperous and the Individual much more content.

These ideas began to spread throughout Europe like wildfire by men known as the Philosophes—popularizers of Enlightenment thought—and people everywhere began to realize that all the old loyalties—God, heredity, social class, age and even gender—were simply myths used to keep the People down and resigned to be content with their miserable living conditions. Locke and the rest of the Enlighteners rationalized everything till all tradition and convention was left without a leg upon which to stand—till it seemed like anything was possible.

This is the backdrop upon which Rousseau entered on the wings of a scathing critique of Enlightenment thought, in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences, that completely destroyed its confidence right at its grand moment of triumph. His insights were nuanced looks at the Human Condition that peered much more deeply than Locke’s philosophy into the phenomenon known as Man to try and explore the results of this new philosophy of Individualism and what it actually meant for people’s lives: for Politics and Community, Love and Friendship, Morals and Art, and even Human Purpose.

And Kant, following in Rousseau’s footsteps, saw the degradation to human relationships that would result from this over-emphasis of the Individual and attempted to re-shape Enlightenment thought to make up for these supposed deficiencies. Kant was the last great Enlightenment Philosopher and all Movements and Political Programs—ranging from Romanticism to Communism to Fascism—that have come after him have been a result of the perceived failure of Kant, and of the initial Enlighteners, to adequately account for the Human Condition and to give a place to an exclusively Human quality that would separate us from the determinism of Natural phenomenon and the Animal Kingdom.

I will delve more deeply in posts to come into the critique made by Rousseau that has been so persuasive that it has shaped all of Western history since him…