PLS Seminar IV 2009

"I would have wanted to be born in a country where the sovereign and the people could have but one and the same interest, so that all the movements of the machine always tended only to the common happiness. SInce this could not have taken place unless the people and the sovereign were one and the same person, it follows that I ould have wished to be born under a democrative goverement, wisely tempered." (p26)

"For liberty is like those solid and tasty foods or those full bodies wines which are appropriate for nourishing and strengthening robust constitutions that are used to them, but which overpower, ruin, and intoxicate the weak and delicate who are not suited for them. Once people are accustomed to masters, they are no longer in a position to get along without them. If they try to shake off the yoke, they put all the more distance between themselves and liberty, because, in mistaking for liberty an unbridged license which is its opposite, their revolutions nearly always deliver them over to seducers who simply make their chains heavier." (p27). 

In reading Rousseau's descriptions of both a democracy and liberty, I wondered if this sort of definition was relevant in my own life. I do believe that when Rousseau says that he wants his land to be a "state where, all the private individuals being known to one another...and where that pleasant habit of seeing and knowing one another turned love of homeland into love of the citizens rather than love of the land." It would come to my attention that maybe Rousseau is referring to the truest form of a democracy, where a small group of people run the government. In our modern day, most Americans would consider our country to be a Democracy, but how is this so when we are a population of 300 million, and in more cases have far more consideration for the land than our own people?

Next, is the issue of liberty, with which a modern comparison can be made. Rousseau makes it clear that Liberty can only be used when necessary and with those who are truly ready to accept it. I make the comparison to two events in recent history that make me question the spread of what we call "freedom" or liberty. First, the obvious comparison is the Iraq war. The United States has the mission to spread Democracy and Freedom to the middle East, but is it the case that they might have not been and still might not be ready for a state of Liberty? How do we know when a country or group of people is ready to embrace such a state? Another case would be with the British presence in India. When is a country or state ready to accept the ways of Liberty? Does is happen naturally or with force from a country with liberty?