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SO CONFUSED and
self-contradictory seem
Rousseaus ideas on human rights that it
may be seriously questioned whether they
contain any kind of unifying locus or can
be reduced to systematic form at all. Intellectual source of both the Jacobins and
Hegel, equally condemned by Burke and
Bentham, the works of this exasperating
thinker constitute a kind of grab-bag in
which can be found just about whatever
suits ones fancy - together with its opposite! At present, however, the prevailing academic fashion is to discover order
in the midst of chaos, and numerous
scholars profess to find some sort of
underlying unity beneath his paradoxes.
And it must not be forgotten that
Rousseau himself claimed consistency for
his writings, asserting, in both his major
autobiographical works, the fundamental
coherence of his ideas.2
In the last analysis, however, it is hard
not to concur with the judgment of Henri
Piiyre: Rousseau is rife with contradictions, and the most ingenious men of
learning . . . have not succeeded in convincing us of the unity of his t h ~ u g h t . ~
For one thing, they are by no means
agreed as to wherein that unity lies. For
example, Rousseau is seen as a pioneer individualist by Rosenkranz4 and as the
Father of State Socialism by D u g ~ i t His
.~
Calvinist connections are stressed by Lanson6 and his affinities with Catholicism by
Masson. Irving Babbitt views him as a
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Rousseau was right about forcing people to be free. Freedom is an unalienable trust. Nobody has the right to
opt for any form of servitude that is
likely to extend beyond the one who
does the opting.44
Omit the legislator altogether: the result is still there. Imagine Rousseau a
perfect democrat: his perfect democracy is still a multiple autocrat. He
leaves no safeguard against the omnipotence of the souuerain. It is significant that the Social Contract ends
with the suggestion of religious persecution. . . . Rousseau was so far
from believing in les droits de lhomme
that he went to the other extreme. He
was so convinced that it was enough
for the individual to enjoy political
rights (as a fraction of the collectivity)
that he forgot the necessity of his enjoying the rights of civil and religious
liberty.51
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