The perception of beauty

When I see a beautiful woman (for I am a man, and that is how things go with me) - someone who is beautiful to me, rather than someone who is simply beautiful by virtue of consensus amongst a group of people - the effect upon me is singular. It does not happen a lot, and to be sure if it did I might live very long, but more likely I will die young (I have nevertheless done well, I am not exactly a teenager anymore).

This perception, which at first impression appears to be entirely superficial in addition to being entirely subjective, soon proves to be of consequence beyond its subjective origins. It is an experience that, if drawn to its conclusion - if one had the ability (and contrary to what any delusions of grandeur might suggest, that's usually not the case) to draw it to its conclusion before perishing one's persona - usually takes one beyond its original context in order to realise the associated ideation.

The resulting evolution is neither good or bad, that is to say one cannot guarantee that the effects of beauty, drawn to their conclusions, will be to everyone's liking. If one is able to survive the movement that it initiates, then the ripples of one's actions will go beyond subjective boundaries into other people's lives and may or may not be to everyone's liking.

But here is nothing new and the same can be said for countless other human actions. What makes it different is the experience of a certain absolute necessity in beauty - a compulsion and obligation that does not permit a failure to respond. The failure to respond ensures that there will be no second chance. Again, that cannot be evaluated in terms of good and bad - it should be seen as a call to respond, to behave differently than usual and yet with complete authenticity, because in the experience of beauty there is the opportunity to become. What person knows how he or she will act? Whoever says "I do" has either lived what can only be lived once at a time, which is impossible to predict, and therefore will be surprised. It is a strange law. Therefore, one can only say "I know how I will not act" by virtue of knowing how one is evolved at that point - and that is already an achievement.

What it is further possible to say, knowing that one's subjective perception is of more importance than any socially agreed upon criteria, is that even if there is reciprocation - as from another person, the beautiful woman, who may find you attractive in turn - it is possible to say, not unlike Sartre says of being (self-knowledge does not coincide with being), that eventually knowing the other person does not coincide with beauty.

That knowing the other person does not coincide with beauty.

The Social Contract: 4

In Book II Rousseau's sovereign is explained in more detail - it is inalienable because what it consists of is, by definition, the common interest of all individuals; it is indivisible, because it is either the general will or it is not, and the general will is passed as law - authority that does not represent the general will is bollocks; the general will errs when society is divided into sections, so that sections collude in their vote and citizens do not make up their own minds; the general will has limits, eg. it cannot bear upon particular interests, which must be observed and treated individually.

The Social Contract is a covenant, between the general will - the body - with each of its members. Because of man's natural freedom it always comes back to this: people entered into an original covenant, because everyone living on their own strength became unfeasible. The sovereign provides strength and security to all, in equal measure.

Things become tricky when the question of the right over life and death arises. Rousseau argues that the state has the right to judge a citizen's life expedient:

Whoever wishes to preserve his own life at the expense of others must give his life for them when it is necessary ... his life is no longer the bounty of nature but a gift he has received conditionally from the state

Ahem, ok.

As for law in itself, as we have already seen it is nothing but acts of the general will. But following from the state's control over the individual's very life, it is easy to see why Rousseau's little book can have been used to justify overly strong states. A little later we read:

Individuals must be obliged to subordinate their will to their reason; the public must be taught to recognise what it desires

Strong words indeed. The intention seems to be not to let individuals' desires ruin the common interest that the state represents, nay, is.

The rest of Book II goes on to investigate the relation between the lawgiver and the people. The proper lawgiver is no ordinary person, and just as rare, and ultimately has never existed (except, Rousseau says, in God). But this founder of nations, this "engineer who invents the machine", has a tendency to invoke the gods to justify his laws to his fellows. Apparently this is why religion often accompanies the birth of a nation.

This engineer of the future society is no softy. I imagine that this is every bit true, but it is quite chilling to hear it all the same:

The founder of nations must weaken the structure of man in order to fortify it, to replace the physical and independent existence we have all received from nature with a moral and communal existence

It is not that the outcome does not appear "good" (with emphasis on "appear"), but the thought of what the state will be willing to do to achieve this goal. I am beginning to see why The Social Contract is a kind of precursor to socialism and a strong state.

But if this sounds hardhanded, it must be remembered that the law is really the general will - i.e., it helps to realise the common interest. We are given a helpful note on how to distinguish between a lawgiver and a tyrant: "note the moment he chooses to give a people its constitution":

Usurpers always choose troubled times to enact, in the atmosphere of general panic, laws which the public would never adopt when passions are cool

I have decided that the treatise is very much worth reading - more than once even, it isn't very long - for its great insights into the nature of politics. It seems fresh even after more than two centuries. As such I can't convey all the details here without becoming boring - and he said it better anyway. But I think it is worth one more post to elaborate on his view of a good democracy.

The Social Contract: 3

Rousseau previously defines the sovereign as the collective of public persons - citizens - in an active role (in its passive role he calls it the state). It is worth noting Rousseau's distinction between natural man and cultural man once more - in his view natural liberty is constrained only by physical power (of the relevant individual) whereas civil liberty is limited by the general will. This distinction continues the slightly ambivalent attitude towards nature and culture respectively, which I noticd before. He maintains that

man acquires with civil society, moral freedom, which alone makes man the master of himself; for to be governed by appetite alone is slavery, while obedience to a law one prescribes to oneself is freedom

He then declares that in The Social Contract "'freedom' is no part of my subject" and so absolves himself from clarifying the apparent endorsement of some of societies' ideals.

I've been dipping my attention a little into the preface and fist chapter of The Confessions and from the preface one gets a clear impression of someone who was allergic to society's yoke. Good for him. But that makes it all the more interesting that he shouldn' t clarify himself a little more in The Social Contract.

Be that as it may, the nature-culture dichotomy makes for a useful juxtaposition of terms - possession is based on force and is part of natural liberty, whereas property is a legal claim that can only be decided for the individual through the state, i.e. the sovereign or general will (which also always has a stronger right over the estate of the individual than the individual has):

the state, vis-a-vis its own members, becomes master of all their goods by virtue of the social contract, which serves, within the state, as the basis of all other rights

But there is a catch: the state has "right of the first occupant" which was determined through individuals' actions. And so it is, relative to other states.

Rousseau states three conditions by which an individual can claim a land: firstly, the land is not already inhabited; secondly, the individual claims no more than is necessary for subsistence; thirdly, the individual must work the soil and not keep it idly.

It is useless to point out that virtually all empires have disregarded the second condition. More specifically I would say - and many would agree - that the
first condition is practically undecidable, unless a certain force of power is not taken into account. And so one is left with the suspicion that society came into existence because of forms of domination and force. Again, many would agree. In fact, we know it's so - why think differently? So nature and culture is a false dichotomy to start off with, and the only reason I can think Rousseau must justify culture is because it is a given, and he wants his audience to take him seriously.

Having said that, his insights into the basic injustices of society shine through - here is a little footnote on p.25:

In truth, laws are always useful to those with possessions and harmful to those who have nothing

He gives this as basis for his earlier contention that in society all men (but we should say individuals) should have enough for subsistence and none too much.