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Rousseau and Imagined Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Steven T. Engel
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Extract

Rousseau's relationship to the phenomenon of modern nationalism is a consistent theme of political theory and the history of ideas. This article argues that Rousseau's thought can be seen as providing the foundation for nationalism even if he would not have endorsed it. That Rousseau's thought bears this relationship to nationalism can be seen by reexamining his argument through the lens of Benedict Anderson's concept of nations as imagined communities. Rousseau's account of political psychology, sovereignty, and the proper limits of the nation provide the core of the analysis of this question.

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Type
Research Article
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The Review of Politics , Volume 67 , Issue 3 , Summer 2005 , pp. 515 - 537
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 2005

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References

The author would like to thank Gonzalo Sanchez, Robert Pirro, and the anonymous referees of The Review of Politics for their helpful comments and suggestions.

1. For variances of this view see Babbit, Irving, Rousseau and Romanticism (New York: Meridian Books, 1955);Google ScholarTalmon, Jacob, The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952);Google ScholarPopper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966);Google ScholarCrocker, Lester G., Jean-Jacques Rousseau (London: Macmillian, 1968)Google Scholar.

2. Habermas, Jürgen, “Citizenship and National Identity: Some Reflections on the Future of Europe,” Praxis International 12 (1992): 1–19;Google ScholarViroli, Maurizio, For Love of Country (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

3. Melzer, Arthur, “Rousseau, Nationalism, and the Politics of Sympathetic Identification,” in Educating the Prince: Essays in Honor of Harvey Mansfield, ed. Blitz, Mark and Kristol, William (Lanham, MA: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), p. 123Google Scholar.

4. Melzer, Arthur M., The Natural Goodness of Man: On the System of Rousseau's Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 289–90Google Scholar.

5. An interesting question, which I will not engage in this essay, is whether Rousseau considered political identity—such as nationalism—a sufficient ground for virtue as such. For analyses of these questions see Smith, Jeffery A., “Nationalism, Virtue, and the Spirit of Liberty in Rousseau's Government of Poland,” Review of Politics 65 (2003): 409–437;Google Scholar and Reisert, Joseph R., Jean-Jacques Rousseau: A Friend of Virtue (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003)Google Scholar.

6. Cobban, Alfred, Rousseau and the Modern State, 2nd ed. (London: Archon Books, 1964)Google Scholar. See also Plattner, Marc F., “Rousseau and the Origins of Nationalism,” in The Legacy of Rousseau, ed. Orwin, Clifford and Tarcov, Nathan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 183–199Google Scholar.

7. See Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (London: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar and Anderson, Benedict, The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World (London: Verso, 1998Google Scholar).

8. Citations from Rousseau's works are from the following sources and will be cited in the text using the following abbreviations: (D) Rousseau, fudge of Jean-Jacques: Dialogues, from Collected Writings, vol I, trans. KellyJudith R. Bush, Christopher Judith R. Bush, Christopher, and Masters, Roger D., ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1990);Google Scholar (FD) First Discourse from Collected Writings, vol II, trans. Bush, Judith R. and Masters, Roger D., ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1992);Google Scholar (SD) Second Discourse, (PE) Political Economy from Collected Writings, vol. III, trans. Bush, Judith R., Masters, Roger D., Kelly, Christopher, and Marshall, Terence, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher (Hanover N.H.: University Press of New England, 1992);Google Scholar (SC) On the Social Contract, (GM) Geneva Manuscript, (PF) Political Fragments from Collected Writings, vol IV, trans. Bush, Judith R., Masters, Roger D., andKelly, Christopher, ed. Masters, Roger D. and Kelly, Christopher, (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1994);Google Scholar (Conf.) The Confessions, from Collected Writings, vol V, trans. Kelly, Christopher, ed. Kelly, Christopher, Masters, Roger D., and Stillman, Peter G. (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1995);Google Scholar (E) Emile: or, On Education, trans. Bloom, Allan (New York: Basic Books, 1979);Google Scholar (P) Considerations on the Government of Poland from The Social Contract and Other Later Political Writings, ed. and trans. Gourevitch, Victor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997);Google Scholar (C) Constitutional Project for Corsica from Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Political Writings, ed. and trans. Watkins, Fredrick (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1992);Google Scholar (LD) Letter to D'Alembert on the Theatre, trans. Bloom, Allan (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1960)Google Scholar.

9. Anderson, , Imagined Communities, p. 6Google Scholar.

10. Melzer, , “Rousseau, Nationalism, and the Politics of Sympathetic Identification,” p. 125Google Scholar.

11. For Anderson's, response to an argument like Melzer's, see Imagined Communities, chap. 8Google Scholar.

12. Ibid., p. 7.

13. See also Grant, Ruth, Hypocrisy and Integrity: Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,1997), pp. 155–61;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Starobinski, Jean, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. Goldhammer, Arthur (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 27Google Scholar. Both Grant and Starobinski argue that for Rousseau, reflection is the main source of our ills.

14. Note, however, that conjugal love can also turn violent. In both its positive and negative aspects, then, family love points toward patriotism.

15. See Melzer, , Natural Goodness, p. 78Google Scholar, where he draws a distinction between loving others versus needing them. According to Melzer these are “opposite, mutually exclusive tendencies.” This claim ignores the way in which one can be in a loving relationship and be personally dependent on others. The family is based on mutual need (especially in the case of children) but it is also bound by love.

16. Note that Rousseau proposes a number of different remedies to the problems of amour-propre and imagination. The most important of these is political. When working on The Social Contract, Rousseau came to see “that everything depends radically on politics, and that, from whatever aspect one considers it, no people ever would be anything other than what it was made by the nature of its Government” (Conf., 340). We are clearly referred to a political solution to the problems of social life. The other solutions focus on a retreat of some sort from social life into the family (Emile or Julie) or into oneself (Reveries, Confessions, or Dialogues). These solutions are quite different in many ways, but each seeks to overcome the perversion of amour de soi.

17. Because the alteration of love or amour is at the core of this argument it is necessary to use the original French rather than an English translation. The terms “nationalism” or “patriotism” simply do not carry the necessary connotation.

18. See also Masters, Roger D., The Political Philosophy of Rousseau (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), pp. 45, 50,146Google Scholar.

19. See also Manent, Pierre, An Intellectual History of Liberalism, trans. Balinski, Rebecca (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 74:Google Scholar “All Rousseau's analyses concerning rights and wills have a single end: to show how this unity, this identity can be established.”

20. Anderson, , Imagined Communities, p. 144Google Scholar.

21. Ibid., p. 145.

22. Ibid., p. 44.

23. See also SC, 154: The public “must be obligated to make their wills conform to their reason.”

24. Ernst Cassirer recognizes Rousseau's prioritization of reason but fails to account for the necessary role of the passions in supporting reason (The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 2nd ed., trans. and ed. Gay, Peter [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989], p. 55)Google Scholar.

25. See also Cassirer, , The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, pp. 59ff on law as the solutionGoogle Scholar.

26. This is quite different, however, from Madison's solution of having ambition counteract ambition (Federalist, No. 51,” The Federalist Papers, ed. Rossiter, Clinton [New York: Penguin, 1961], pp. 320–25).Google Scholar

27. For a discussion of nationalism as it appears in the Government of Poland, see Smith, , “Nationalism, Virtue, and the Spirit of Liberty in Rousseau's Government of Poland.”Google Scholar

28. For an argument against large states, consider SC, 168: “The larger the State grows, the less freedom there is.”

29. On the concept of civil religion in America, see Bellah, Robert et al. , Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

30. This is essentially the argument of the following works: Babbit, Irving, Rousseau and Romanticism;Google ScholarTalmon, Jacob, The Rise of Totalitarian Democracy;Google ScholarPopper, Karl, The Open Society and Its Enemies;Google ScholarCrocker, Lester G., Jean-Jacques Rousseau (London: Macmillian, 1968)Google Scholar.

31. For a development of the brief argument that follows, see Engel, Steven T., “Rousseau and the Problem of Patriotism” (Ph.D. diss., Loyola University Chicago, 2000)Google Scholar.