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Locker Room Nudes / Dieux du Stade: The French National Rugby Team
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Dieux du Stade: Making of 2005 Calendar
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Dieux du Stade: Making of 2004 Calendar
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Dieux du Stade: Making of the 2006 Calendar
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Bondi Classic
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Universal
ASIN: 0789313073
Release Date: 2005-08-23 |
Book Description
This remarkable collection of candid nude photos of France’s national rugby team goes beneath the uniform to reveal what real jocks look like underneath it all. Each image taken by leading French photographer François Rousseau depicts the rugby player―alone or with teammates―undressing, lounging on the bench, showering. Locker Room Men is at once a celebration of athletes and the beauty of the male form as well as the fulfillment of the fantasy of going behind the scenes in a winning team’s locker room.
Sure to appeal to both gay men and straight women, these photos are unusual because the men are not models. They don’t work out just to look good―and look good they do―their bodies are sculpted by winning victories on the field. They aren’t made up, shaved, or prettified in any way. These are some of the world’s best rugby players―brawny, tough, competitive.
Since 1999, the French national rugby team has posed nude or semi-nude for an annual calendar. The purpose behind the calendar was to get wider “exposure” for rugby and the team. In 2004, François Rousseau was selected as photographer, and he successfully brought out the sensual beauty and sexiness inherent in the rugby players’ rough and tumble exterior. The calendar became a cult hit, and thus the book was born so that even more of these unparalleled images could be savored.
Whether or not rugby will become more popular in this country remains to be seen, but this book will certainly raise the game’s profile…
Customer Reviews:
yummy.......2007-07-07
There really isn't much to say but GO RUGBY!!! This book has some of the most gorgeous bodies in it!!!
Sizzling photography.......2007-05-13
The pictures are terrific and capture the beauty of men in their element. I enjoy introducing the book to girlfriends of mine who appreciate men. I highly recommend this book!
Wow........2007-02-03
I gave this to my partner for Christmas and of all of the presents that I gave him, many much much more expensive, this was his favorite. It is truly a hot hot book. It's a must by if you are into "sporn".
Unforgettable beauty.......2006-12-18
This collection of pictures taken by Fancois Rousseau of athletic men is a wonderful presentation of his eye for beauty. The photos presented herein are the culmination of his captivating photo shoots documented in the making of the 2004 Dieux du Stade calendar DVD. Many shots from that film are handsomely displayed within the grand pages of this quality pressed book. The men are richly captured within black and white photography that gives them artistic beauty, with shadows that reflect off them offering some intriguing mystery.From the dreamy close-up facial pictures, to the wondrous nude forms, to even the shots of the bare locker room with muddy footprints and a barren field of play, Fancois Rousseau gives us a look through his keen eyes to what all the athletes have to offer, especially a love for their form.These athletic men are gorgeously photographed and are meant to be admired for their overall form; their faces and bodies are meant to steal your eyes, and not be given the same kind of treatment as an erotically charged photoshoot. Oh, there are scenes of eroticism, but it's a testament to Fancois Rousseau's talent that he can always pull it off with taste. There are very few instances of photography to match the class given to these men of sport.If you keep this in mind, and admire the photography for its beauty and not for its lack of frontal shots, you will come to see the men, and the book, as a great assemblage of male beauty. I simply cannot recommend this book enough, especially if you enjoyed the 2004-2005 making of the Dieux du Stade calendar DVDs, as there is no reason you should put off getting this as an accompaniment to those two great features.
An Avid Eye of a Gifted Photographer...........2006-08-22
As well as a vivid pictorial of antomical perfection of the French National Rugby League, this stunning expose lends the gifted eye of this photograher's protrayal of natural lockeroom brawn, and has captured as noted, raw and natual splendor in the male physique. And of course a dream book, of sorts, for a many fan's of the sport and male physique in perfection. In itself, this worthy publicaton proves that the athletic male form, in it's unwavering splendor, can make a marvelous subject matter for a serious collector as well as your coffee table collection, as it throws eye candy to the needy masses of skin in it's ultimate form. Possible' to pull out at your latest soire as it is a Splendidly Bound and Jacketed Publication worthy of a Collector's Shelf.
Yes it is that good, (gasp, even signed my Madonna offering her own praise) and YES the French have such attitude, as you will see those piercing eye stare, eyebrows flare and pillow lips are poised...as I say...Embrassez-moi vous imbécile.....Appréciez!!
Book Description
Molena Point, California, should be a tranquil place. Nestled quietly on the Pacific coast miles below San Francisco, it's not the kind of town escaped convicts seek out. But if you're a thief named Cage Jones, you've just sprung yourself from the clink, and the woman who turned state's witness and helped put you behind bars lives there––where better to go than Molena Point?
Wily Tomcat Joe Grey knows that something sinister is afoot when he hears about Cage Jones––but he doubts that his girlfriend Dulcie's suspicions that the escaped thief is after Dulcie's human companion, Wilma, are justified. But when Jones shoots a federal officer, and the bodies of two peaceful, local residents are found brutally murdered in their home, even the suspicious Feline Detective knows that things are only going to get worse. Paw–in–paw with Dulcie and their tattercoat friend Kit, the indomitable feline trio––with special powers that only a few select humans are privy to––team up to capture the thief, and in one of award–winning author Shirley Rousseau Murphy's most suspenseful and unforgettable books to date, bring peace to the town they love.
Customer Reviews:
Cat Pay The Devil.......2007-08-12
Love the Joe Grey books by Shirley Rousseau Murphy. She has a talent for bringing out the cat lover in everyone, while creating a mystery.
Addicted to Joe Grey mysteries.......2007-06-09
I really loved Shirley Murphy's latest Joe Grey mystery. I cannot find another author who can compare to her. I wait with abated breath for her next book to come out. She is one of the few authors whose books I can read over & over again.
th most recent in the series.......2007-05-17
If you like this imaginative and well-written series, you will like this latest addition. It is fun and a bit different from previous entries. It revisits some previous characters and answers some interesting questions. I recommend it for a light, enjoyable read.
Cat-tastic.......2007-05-01
I was hooked on this series when I read the first Joe Grey mystery. I think that this is one of the best so far. The story is well written and keeps you wanting to turn the page. I like that the other feral cats are being brought into the story line. Only wish she could write faster.
All the cats are great .......2007-03-28
If you are a cat lover and you have some imagination you will really enjoy this book. There is never a dull moment. I like the introduction
of more cats this time and their special ability to help the humans.
Book Description
A clear, readable, and highly engrossing translation of Rousseau's masterpiece on the education and training of the young.
Customer Reviews:
Post-Modern Child Rearing.......2007-04-13
A deceptively simple text. Rousseau has distanced himself from the Social Contract and the concept of the noble savage here, and has decided to illustrate the principles of an education that will bring about `natural man.' Emile is his guinea pig, whom he allows to grow on his own accord. His governor and nurse impose nothing on him, and he is allowed to build and explore without any external authority, eventually choosing a vocation and place in society.
For Rousseau, the most important property of modern society that is inimical to man is the exertion of authority and power over the subject. Emile is allowed to grow and flourish without the arbitrary directives of parent/authority figures. And as always, Rousseau's prose is light and wonderful. He falls short in the section on Emile's counter-part Sophie, who embodies practically all of the sexist facets of enlightenment prejudice, but this remains a very great work of political theory in spite of its shortcomings and frequent meanderings.
great book, great translation.......2004-11-12
Rousseau has a reputation as a hypocrite and a left wing nut job. He certainly didn't practice what he preached but his writings cannot be reduced to serve mere partisan purposes. Everyone can learn something from this book. Allan Bloom does a great job of turning this book into good English. The translation is intended to be quite literal, but nonethess reads very smoothly. Highly recommended.
Nature, Education and Democracy.......2002-10-21
Heersink's distillation of the "essence" of Rousseau's Emile is so bazaar, tendentious and misleading that I am left to wonder whether he has read a single page of the book that he finds so tedious and banal. Nature, for Rousseau, is not the vast open spaces of the great outdoors; it is rather, the totality of created beings such as they exist prior to their being worked over by human artifice, and, in particular, the inner, inborn nature of human beings before it has been deflected, distorted, and perverted through their reciprocal, social interaction. In Emile, Rousseau sets out to show how, even in the midst of the corrupting forces of society, it might still be possible to raise a healthy, fully-actualized, harmonious individual; a human being whose inner nature is developed and realized in its potentialities. Such an education is not possible under the instruction of trees, bears and geysers, but only through the most exquisite attentiveness of the tutor, who, through constant vigilance, tries to develop the mind and sentiments of his pupil without giving a foothold to the social passions that make children vain, greedy, manipulative, and deceitful. This requires, above all, that at every moment, the child should learn to judge its actions by their natural effects, and feel its own will limited by the resistance of the nature without it, rather than by the will of other human beings. For whereas the child will submit easily to the force of nature, it will do everything to overcome the force that oppose it once it regards them as expressions of a human will.
I disagree with Rousseau about many things, even about the most fundamental issues. Most of all, I do not think that what it means to be human should be thought limited by a pre-existing, and pristine human nature. Yet I also believe that, now more than ever, we must take Rousseau seriously, and read him rigorously - not merely as an antiquarian piece, but as a profound challenge to our conceits and myopias. There can be no true democracy without citizens who are free not only in the eyes of the law, but in their own eyes; yet we cannot recognize others as free, unless we have eyes for our own freedom. This demands nothing less than a liberal education. In place of this, we have entrusted our children to those whose seek only their own gain and who profit by tapping into human desires, dissociating them from the whole, and crystalizing them into a form in which it seems as though they could be satisfied through some given commodity. As a result, we have become, in the words of my friend, the social critic Dan A. Leythorn, "a nation of slaves - to our desires, to our whims, to money, to power, to each other"
Not the Best Rousseau.......2002-02-15
Three works mark Rousseau: Confessions, Social Contract, and Inequality. "Emile" is a tedious tome that espouses at great, if not banal, length the issues he has more adequately and eloquently addressed in his major works. The premise is simple: Let nature be the educator. Imagine a kid dropped in the middle of Yosemite National Park, revisit him at age 20, and the kid will know everything he needs to know. Now, you know the substance of the book. If you think nature alone without a preceptor or teacher other than nature alone is sufficient, you'll be bored with the redudancies and polemics against "this" and "that" institution that has developed over the centuries. The core of the book is a vain effort to show that these institutions have corrupted the student, and ergo, society. If only nature could be allowed to "speak," so to speak, then men everywhere would be better off. Right!
The Unread Masterpiece.......2000-05-25
A natural education is one that "consists not in teaching the child many things, but never letting anything but accurate and clear ideas enter his brain."
Rousseau, in his longing to return to the state of nature, ventures to raise a natural man. Emile (or On Education) is the Corner Stone to Rousseau's "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" & "Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality." Rousseau's imaginary pupil, Emile, will "get his lessons from nature and not from men." Rousseau is not concerned with teaching Emile numerous facts, but with instructing the child to be able to think for himself.
Emile will have one mentor, Robinson Crusoe. Crusoe is Rousseau's modern natural man. Crusoe is "on his island, alone, deprived of the assistance of all the arts, providing nevertheless for his subsistence." Rousseau goes to extremes to create a childhood that is free from habit, and one that provides Emile with the greatest adaptability to his surroundings, whatever they may be, for the rest of his life.
Rousseau's ideas are profound. Though he is far less well known than Marx, Nietzsche, and or Weber, to name a few, his ideas are the basis for the philosophies' of these men, who have in return influenced society. Along with Rousseau's Two Discourses, Emile is a must read. (I recommend reading the Discourses before Emile.) However, do not expect Rousseau to tell you everything because he does not spend an extensive time explaining all of the minute details, especially those regarding the first few years of Emile's life. Rather, he says, "if you have to be told everything, do not read me."
If you are interested in the foundation of thought for many of the most influential philosophers of modern Europe, then read Emile. (I recommend the Allan Bloom translation.)
Product Description
Tracing postmodernism from its roots in Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant to their development in thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Richard Rorty, philosopher Stephen Hicks provides a provocative account of why postmodernism has been the most vigorous intellectual movement of the late 20th century. Why do skeptical and relativistic arguments have such power in the contemporary intellectual world? Why do they have that power in the humanities but not the sciences? Why has a significant portion of the political Left - the same Left that traditionally promoted reason, science, equality for all, and optimism - now switched to themes of anti-reason, anti-science, double standards, and cynicism? Explaining Postmodernism is intellectual history with a polemical twist, providing fresh insights into the debates underlying the furor over political correctness, multiculturalism, and the future of liberal democracy.
Customer Reviews:
A postmodern point of view.......2007-07-30
Hicks thinks postmodernism leads to nihilism (p.201). For me, postmodernism is a breath of fresh air, something hopeful growing out of rock-hard tradition, like a new flower emerging from a crack in an old concrete wall. Hicks tells us that should not listen to postmodernism because he wants to "shield" us against "postmodern strategies". Instead, he wants us to continue "the forward progress of the Enlightenment vision...." (p.201) That is, like Bush, Hicks wants us to "stay the course."
The question, of course, is "What is the forward path?" Like Hicks, I think it is a path away from negative or "nostalgic postmodernism" (see Lois Shawver, Nostalgic Postmodernism). I recognize that postmodern sensibilities usually begin with a sadness and disillusionment. But such disillusionment need not be an entirely negative thing. Sometimes it is just the darkness before the dawn. Even Hicks recognizes his bias against postmodern thinkers, telling us after being excessively critical, "Clearly I am flirting with an 'ad hominem' here." For a corrective, he suggests you listen to the postmoderns.
So, in step I, Lois Shawver, to show you the half-full part of the postmodern glass. I'm biased, too, of course. My bias comes from being a psychologist -- although I was once a philosophy major, and maybe that's important. But now, I have been a therapist for thirty plus years, and so I have spent much of my time listening to people talk about their serious life problems. I believe, that Hicks, like most passionate philosophy critics, is simply pointing to the half-empty part of the glass. Apparently he isn't considering fields like mine, or aware that in other fields there is an embracing an "affirmative postmodernism" (Pauline Rosenau, Post-modernism and the Social Sciences).
Where postmodernism is rooted in philosophy, it is mostly rooted in the works of Jean-Francois Lyotard. But even so, while Lyotard was a philosopher, he saw postmodernism in terms of a social movement (see Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, p. XXV). Postmodern conversation, Lyotard explained, took place where postmodern minds congregated, where people talk-in-order-to-listen to each other (Lyotard, Just Gaming, p.71), Lyotard's vision of the postmodern future was not unlike the vision that founded Google, Yahoo and Amazon (see The Postmodern Condition, p.67). That's not all bad.
This new postmodern democratic knowledge breeds more wisdom. As Surowiecki tells us (in Wisdom of Crowds) research often shows that a group of people can often think better together than any of us can think individually. And, as Lyotard says, while "A self does not amount to much, ... each self exists in a fabric of relations [where each contributes to the conversational process of informing the other]" In other words, if we can listen to each other, we can think better together than we can apart.
So, which way forward? It is up to you. If you puzzle about it for a while, that's postmodern. But if you choose to stay the course, you are definitely not being postmodern, not at this time. On the other hand, if you surf the net for more knowledge, if you check out Hicks, but also other books, maybe even the educational (and entertaining) Utube for ideas and commentary, if you belong to a listserv and think you might also like to blog, then you're probably postmodern or becoming so very quickly, and in that case, I hope you don't let Hicks' alarm shield you from your future personal and intellectual happiness. There may be a little disillusionment with the old schools of thought, but there is also the opportunity to participate in our collaborative invention of a better future.
Explaining Postmodernism's Postmortem Socialist Blues.......2007-01-09
This is a wonderful book outlining the history of the influences that has given rise to postmodernism. Hicks provides a very comprehensive overview that touches on the theory and practices of pomo practitioners in their efforts to subvert Capitalism and influence students toward socialism and cultural Marxism. Two theses are presented and are convincingly argued throughout the book. The book ties together many of the ideas of great thinkers from Kant to Heidegger and his students, and their subsequent impact on politics from the initial attack on reason during the Enlightenment to the death of reason in the 20th century. An interesting fact is that faith in reason died in the academy during the 1960s with the failure of Analytical philosophy to substantiate reason as anything but normative and subjective. My one criticism is that if reason was unable to describe reality, how was it possible that math and logic could be used to place man on the moon? Science was on a roll during that period and the scientific community certainly had a greater faith in the power of reason to know reality than did the humanities. Hicks doesn't address this question but the book is still a wonderful and resourceful guide to the inanities and contradictions that apparently plague postmodern thinking.
Pretty good... for an objectivist.......2006-11-14
I'm not a philosopher, I'm a retired scientist. So I'm probably not the best reviewer for this book. However, I did enjoy it. That in itself is unusual when I read philosophy.
In all fairness, I suspect this book probably would not be considered to be an "academic level" philosophy book, at least for the advanced undergraduate philosophy major. But it does take one through a history of philosophical thinking from the Enlightenment to the postmodern present.
I had done some prior reading about postmodernism. I enjoy reading about the subject for the same reason I like going to public aquariums - the denizens are so strange and alien that one is astonished that such odd creatures exist at all. Of course, behind the scenes in the aquarium are vast engineered systems to provide anm environment that will support the inhabitants. For the postmodernists, universities serve as that vast engineered system. This book explains why the postmodernists need such a system to survive in a world that doesn't focus on pickle slices, hot meat and trans-fats.
The book also does a good job of explaining in more-or-less plain English the vacuity of postmodern thought. If you aren't impressed and awed by the kind of self-congratulatory dense prose one often gets from philosophical writers, and you want a readable overview of the development and blossoming of dead-end thinking, this is the book for you. If you're a real philosopher, though, I'm sure you'll find it so accessible as to be beneath contempt. And if you're a postmodernist, stay away at all costs. It will be dangerous reading for you. Your trope might trip.
UNMASKING POSTMODERNISM.......2006-10-18
This book isn't an introduction to postmodernism (PM). There are several introductions to PM on Amazon if that's what you want. Rather, its task could be described as turning some of the techniques of academic PM on its founders - Foucault, Derrida, Lyotard, & Co. The title could have been "Unmasking Postmodernism" because Hicks does so with devastating effect.
I have read several hundred books on philosophy from Plato to the present and I cannot think of one that I consider to have been more clearly written than this. The exposition is admirably jargon-free and straightforward, although some terms might be unfamiliar to some folks. This is the only book in many years that I began re-reading and marking up as soon as I had finished reading it the first time - I think it's that good.
It's important to distinguish between PM in the arts, which is largely an aesthetic trend, and academic PM, which exists almost exclusively in some humanities departments in the universities and identifies with particular epistemological and linguistic assumptions. This book is concerned with the latter group and Hicks provides a well documented case for the following historical sequence:
1) Leftist socialists had traditionally believed that reason and facts would show the superiority of socialism - theoretically, morally, and economically.
2) Academic PM's creators were all leftist socialists around the time that leftist socialism was failing - theoretically, morally, and economically (1950s on).
3) The reaction of leftist academic socialists to this wasn't to accept that they had been wrong. Instead, they availed themselves of recent developments in epistemology and linguistics as a pretext for dismissing reason and facts.
4) They then proceeded to impose leftist socialism on students from behind this mask.
This reaction parallels the Counter Enlightenment movements beginning over 200 years ago that were trying to save room for faith against the advance of science.
I was particularly interested to see Hicks point out the similarities between the tactics of creationists (anti-evolutionists) and PMs. I've been engaged in a running debate in print with a group of creationists for over a year and the similarities are striking and revealing. Academic PM definitely has a cult aspect to it; the movie "Invasion of the Bodysnatchers" comes to mind. American philosopher John Searle once remarked that French PM philosopher Jacques Derrida's work is the kind of stuff that gives bulls**t a bad name.
Some people will say that Hicks is a Randist and that he's merely criticizing PM from that perspective without understanding it. That's a knee-jerk PM tactic - if you disagree with us, you don't understand us. I'm not a Randist, nor am I particularly sympathetic to Rand, yet I didn't feel a Randist presence in the text other than to the extent that Randists still think reason has value and that all opinions are not created equal.
Hicks ends appropriately by telling us that because the Enlightenment project remains unfinished the PMs will be able to carry on as though that project has failed. It could be that the final refutation of academic PM will entail a significant advance in the completion of the Enlightenment project, although it will almost certainly be an updated conception of that project.
There is a lot more value in this book than what I'm reporting here, including a wonderfully illuminating account of the philosophical trends that led to PM and an inventory of the rhetorical tactics used by PMs, so I strongly recommend getting it in your hands ASAP.
People of the Lie.......2006-10-11
In this engrossing work, the author traces the history of the betrayal of the Enlightenment from which Modernism arose to give us tolerance, democracy, human rights, individualism and free enterprise. This is the legacy of, amongst others, Bacon, Locke, Descartes, Smith, Hobbes, Spinoza and Galileo. For all its faults - like the idea that pure reason could replace religion - it still succeeded in providing the West with a blueprint for a humane and decent society.
The assault on truth and reason in the latter half of the 20th century was led by people like Derrida, Foucault, Lyotard and Rorty. The author chronicles the long march of this mindset from Jean Jacques Rousseau who launched the counter-enlightenment, through Kant (although it might not have been his intention), Hegel, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and above all the charlatan Heidegger.
Postmodernism is anti-reason, subjective and nihilistic, denying the possibility of truth, reality and meaning. Hicks views postmodernism as a smorgasbord of reactions to Kant's division of the world into phenomena and noumena. Although Kant was trying to shield religion from scientific skepticism, this divide opened the door to the demons of nihilism.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this mindset has taken an even more disturbing turn. Its adherents had to either give up the utopian collectivist dream or deny reality. They chose the latter. In other words, postmodernism is the result of using a skeptical epistemology to justify the leap of faith that is required to continue believing in the failed god of socialism. The unhinged hatred of the West in general, and the USA, Israel and traditional religion in particular, is the latest manifestation of the malignancy.
Collectivism was a disastrous failure both empirically and theoretically, but because the idea makes the tenured termites feel good, it can now only be justified by denying reality. Hicks poses the quesion, If there is no right or wrong, then why are all the postmodernists committed leftists? It is because they hate Western values and use their meaningless slogans as a means to pursue power.
And it has gotten worse in its irrationality, incoherence and contradictions. As a fusion of leftist politics and selective skepticism, postmodernism now boldly proclaims falsehood without even trying to hide it. If logic and objective fact do not exist, why the slavish adherence to political correctness? Ultimately, it is all about the preferences of power to these intellectual traitors.
One can also ask why Europe, infested with relativism and the multiculti cult, prides itself on its Anti-Americanism and criticism of Israel, but is too cowardly to protect its own artists from the onslaught of radical Islamism. This continent had better wake up because its current false religion of postmodernist secularism will be no match for what it harbours in its midst.
Explaining Postmodernism is a lucid examination of the pathologies of leftist thought and its roots. For an illuminating look at leftist hate, I recommend Unhinged by Michelle Malkin. Other informative books on postmodernism include Fashionable Nonsense by Alan Sokal & Jean Bricmont and The Illusion Of Postmodernism by Terry Eagleton. A cure for this intellectual cancer may be found, inter alia, in the work of the great Michael Polanyi, in a book like Science, Faith and Society.
Average customer rating:
- A very odd book.
- Still a Timely Study on Liberty
- Social cohesiveness
- A masterpiece of political thought
- Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains
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The Social Contract (Penguin Classics)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Manufacturer: Penguin Classics
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On Liberty
ASIN: 0140442014 |
Book Description
Censored in its own time, the Social Contract (1762) remains a key source of democratic belief and is one of the classics of political theory. This new translation is fully annotated and indexed. The volume also contains the opening chapter of the manuscript version of the Contract, together with the long article on Political Economy, a work traditionally between the Contract and Rousseau's earlier masterpiece, the Discourse on Inequality.
Download Description
THE first and most important deduction from the principles we have so far laid down is that the general will alone can direct the State according to the object for which it was instituted, i.e., the common good: for if the clashing of particular interests made the establishment of societies necessary, the agreement of these very interests made it possible.
Customer Reviews:
A very odd book........2007-09-06
I don't see how someone like Rousseau could ever write a book with "social" in the title. The woman lived alone on the island for over 16 years. She is clearly disturbed.
Still a Timely Study on Liberty.......2007-01-29
Immanuel Kant had one portrait hanging in his house in Konigsberg. The portrait was of Rousseau. What an honor, to be memorialized while alive by THE leading figure of the enlightenment!
Rousseau never coined the term 'noble savage'. This is a popular misunderstanding and outright lie. He was himself though, a seeming savage. He carried on love affairs, abandonded children, spoke of heresy, and so on.
But on to 'The Social Contract'. It is the houses, no matter how prettily and well built they be, that make up the town, but it is the citizen, gloriously free citizen who makes up the city.
So Rousseau to me ironically leaves the countryside behind and sets himself up in the city.
Here, man, at least enlightened man, democratically chooses his leaders and magistrates and allows them to rule by choice. This enlightened man is subject to the law and not to the magistrate, and Liberty, Sweet Liberty, is the penultimate Virtue of the now ennobled citizen.
Death is to be preferred to loss of it.
It can be won.
It cannot be won again.
Once you lose it, it's gone forever, this Liberty.
Timely indeed.
Social cohesiveness.......2007-01-27
From page 186:
"It is impossible to live in peace with people one believes to be damned"
From page 187:
"But anyone who dares to say `outside the church there is no salvation should be expelled from the state unless the state is the church and the Prince the Pontiff"
The Social Contract was written in 1762. It is my understanding many of the Founding Fathers of the United States had read the book and this work certainly had a major influence on French thought, therefore on the French Revolution. French society suffered many wrongs because of religious intolerance and it had a major effect on the author's thoughts. In my Faith, in my thoughts those who do not accept Jesus Christ as their Savior are damned to Hell. I believe there is one true Universal church. A church not made bricks and mortar, but of souls. While this definition of church does include a denomination, the theology is in disagreement with what Rousseau believed to be of a benefit to social cohesiveness. He be believed people should only have positive dogmas which did include earthly punishment for sin, that people should seek to do God's will; God has a watchful eye over people and government. The author certainly had a problem with one believing that God damns those of other Christian constructs. He wanted to outlaw or redefine the Catholic Faith and Protestantism to fit into his idea of social cohesiveness. His idea of religious tolerance gets a more sympathetic ear today then when written.
Rousseau contributed to the thoughts of man. That man gives up certain rights in a civil society. That only through government does anyone truly has his rights protected. That it is only through some sort of social agreement that ones civil rights and property rights are protected. My physical security is no longer just dependent on me. It is through the organization of men I can own, I can do without fear that another will deny simply because of my absence or more might.
Partiality and equality. Equality is not to have a right beyond that of another individual Partiality is to have more rights then another individual because who your Father is, wealth, friendship with the Prince, or any other reason. Rousseau did not dismiss partiality from society, but he did ask it only be set up through the general will of the people. He therefore argued that people should associate together for the purpose of forming a political argument. He wanted each person to come to conclusions based on the strength of argument. How debate could not be obtained without alliance and organization of debate is not dealt with. Freedom of association is not dealt with in the book.
The General Will is determined by the majority. Rousseau recognizes the particular will of the individual is often in disagreement with the general will. Compromise is needed and an individual is generally better off because of government action then if no action were taken. The author decries sectionalism ( beliefs or ideas that grow out of living in a different geographic area and beliefs coming forth from other associations). He does not have an idea how this can be eliminated.
The author speaks on many topics on the determination what is the best form of government. The author makes a distinction between the prince as the one who enforces the law and the lawmaker. Rousseau discusses how population, climate, geographic landscape, beliefs of the public and education effect the form of government and the ability to be governed. This book I believe made a major contribution on how we think about government and society.
A masterpiece of political thought.......2007-01-10
The issues of liberty and democracy, monarchy and legitimacy, are never better explained that in The Social Contract by Rousseau. Rousseau explains every thought on to the page, from the most abstract thoughts of the ideal society to every day issues of Lobbying (which he finds a major detriment to society) and Suffrage (which Rousseau demands of society). The book is wonderfully written, every word is deliberate (I must pay my respect for the translator on such a splendid job) and shows how important understanding language is in order to understand the great ideas that are discussed by language. Liberals will see this book as a beautiful light of democracy, conservatives might see this book as proof of authoritarian beliefs. The truth is that both can be read in the book. Because the book not only conveys to the reader what Rousseau thinks, it inspires the reader to think for him or her self.
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.......2006-12-18
Jean Jacques Rousseau born (1712-1778), in Geneva mother dies in childbirth, he was an engravers apprentice. Stayed out too late one night and locked out of the city, knew he would get in trouble for it so he takes off for France, and meets Madame De Warrens becomes his lover and she converts him to Roman Catholicism. He had a lifelong mistress had 5 kids which he left with an orphanage, which is amazing considering he wrote the book "Emile," which was a guide to raising and educating young children. He neglected the opportunity to put theory into practice. To begin at the beginning, famous lines of book "The Social Contract," "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
The question he asks, how do we find a way to get people to live together in groups? To live together in society and yet still make it true that each person only obeys himself that leaves us as free as when we were in the state of nature. He thinks he has the answer, he thinks he can legitimate, a kind of society, where people have this much freedom. There are certain things that he thinks are necessary for this, first, it has to be a society with general laws. It can't be that whoever is in charge of the government gets to do whatever they feel like doing. There has to of been laws made that authorize this. Second, there has to be universal consent to the laws, everybody has to accept the laws. Now this may be a little unclear, because there is a point that Rousseau talks about majority rule. It does make sense though there is a sense that he believes that the people have to consent to all of the laws, it has to be unanimous, it is just going to take a little while to get to that point. We will see how he reconciles these ideas. Third, there has to be unlimited Sovereignty, people have no rights against the laws you can't say the laws are illegitimate because they violate your rights the way that Locke would say for example people completely give up their rights to the collective. Therefore, there is no worry that a law might trespass on somebody's rights. For Rousseau, be sure to understand that this idea of sovereignty means the power to make laws. Therefore, it is a little bit different say than what you got out of Hobbes were he talks about the sovereign's power. For Hobbes, sovereign power is the power to say what goes. There is no real distinction between what we would call legislative power and executive power. You know the power to make the law and the power to enforce the laws. For Rousseau, sovereignty means the power to make the laws. Therefore, that's the power that is unlimited. Everything the state does has to be done in accordance to the laws. However, there is no limit on what the laws can be. At least no limits coming from the idea of violating individual rights. The only limit on the power of the state is the laws. There is this kind of notion that periodically there would be an assembly of people to come together to decide on the laws and make new ones. The power like a monarchy or oligarchy has power to enforce the laws and they do what ever the assembly tells them to do. The general laws are there and then the executive power is in charge of applying those general laws to specific cases. However, all they can do is apply those general laws. They cannot freelance and do stuff on there own.
Rousseau really praised Sparta as a model democracy. So, here's the kind of society that Rousseau thinks that makes it possible for us to enjoy freedom and social life. We give up all power to the state; we claim no individual rights to ourselves against the government. We give up complete power to the state we do not think we have any individual rights that can limit what the state can do but we insist that the state only act in accordance with general laws and these be laws everybody consents and agrees to. Now you ask, how in the world can we have unanimous consent to the law? With any size or group, how do you get unanimous consent? Rousseau's answer is that in a proper society, one where everyone has been brought up properly and so on, they think of them selves as a community there will be two different choices that people can make about the laws that they want. Two different standpoints, for which they will choose what the laws should be. 1. Their individual wills, which will be a choice about what is best for each persons point of view, 2. However, each citizen will also possess a "General Will." There will as a citizen. The general will of every citizen will be the same. Their general will, will from each of them will be in favor of the laws that will be best for the community. Even if it is not best for them as an individual, sometimes it will be. Just like Kant thinks that everybody's Numinal self is in favor of the same law, Rousseau thinks that in a proper political community every bodies general will is in favor of the same laws each citizens general will, will be the same. Even if from your own perspective, you do not like some of the laws that are passed, if in fact they are laws that are best for the community, you will consent to them from the standpoint of your general will. Therefore, everybody does consent to whatever laws there are that are best for the community. Now ideally, people will think of themselves as citizens first and individuals second that they will have no hesitation in obeying the laws that the general will is in favor of, but people being what they are sometimes people will not obey the laws even when their general will has consented to the laws. Rousseau says people will be acting in accordance with their general will as a citizen rather than their private or individual will. That if one should be tempted or inclined to act on the basis of their individual will in a way that is contrary to their and everybody else's general will, then they ought to be forced to obey the general will and the laws it endorses. Not just be forced to obey, but in being forced to obey you are actually being made more free than you would be if you did in a sense what you think you want to do. You can call this Rousseau's "paradigm of positive freedom."
Rousseau does not think that any group of people can form this kind of society. Before a society can form a government under this kind of basis, it will already be a society that exists under illegitimate rule. Therefore, even though Rousseau talks about the state of nature the way Hobbes and Locke does, he does not really have the expectation that groups of people are going to go from the state of nature straight into a legitimate society. They are going to start out with some kind of illegitimate rule, and that is going to give them enough cohesion, this kind of shared experience they have had, that then they are going to be able to form a legitimate government. They are going to be similar enough in outlook and have enough of a bond to the society, that they have the general will. This can only happen in a relatively small community. They must have shared values and experience. He thought that the only place in his time in Europe that could do this was the island state of Corsica. Once the laws are already in place you are agreeing to them, it is tacit consent. He believes that when the society is first formed legitimately, people have to give expressed consent.
There is not some kind of disconnect that you would get in say some kind of fascist political philosophy like what is good for the community and what is good for the people. There is almost no connection between those things. Somehow for Rousseau there seems to be some kind of connection that what's good for the community is some kind of function of what is good for the individual people in the community. But, the nature of that function to me is just opaque, he doesn't get whatever he is trying to say across there.
In practice obviously this is hard to do. Because Rousseau is hostile to the idea that you could have just a select group of people to make the laws, this means he has to be against representative democracy. The only societies that are this democratic that have worked are societies that have had slaves (Greek and Roman). Because how much time does citizenship take without representatives, we have to be in assembly all the time so you need slaves to cook and raise crops. So, you should have this picture in mind that every so often the citizens get together to develop laws, what they should be doing of course is trying to vote in a way that the general will tells them to vote, whatever is best for the community. Rousseau is not so naïve to think that they are all going to unanimously and spontaneously put their hands up at the same time. People are going to disagree, abut what the law is. Majority rule he says in that case. However, it is not the majority rule in the spirit that we think of it, where the side with the most votes wins and the losers are disappointed because their way didn't prevail. No, what Rousseau says is the minority should look at this as they were wrong about what the general will was in that case, and so they should be happy that what they wanted didn't get adopted because that would have been a mistake. The majority essentially knows best. It is as if they are all trying to get to the same place, some will get there some will be misled and they should be grateful to be straightened out. One can see how totalitarian's can embrace some of Rousseau's writings.
I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, history and, psychology.
Book Description
GAIN A BETTER UNDERSTANDING OF CHEMICAL PROCESSES
Material that's presented in a very clear and accessible way... frequent use of examples...case studies based on commercial processes...a CD-ROM with instructional tutorials, a powerful equation solver, and a visual encyclopedia of chemical process equipment... These are just a few of the features of this text that help provide a realistic, informative introduction to chemical processes.
Key Features of the Third Edition
* Nearly every section in the third edition has been revised to provide increased clarity.
* Hundreds of new and revised problems and new case studies cover a broader spectrum of chemical engineering applications.
* Some problems require spreadsheeting, and others call for using equation-solving software.
* The INTERACTIVE CHEMICAL PROCESS PRINCIPLES (ICPP) CD-ROM provides an active learning environment. With this software, students respond to questions and receive immediate feedback, explore variations in process parameters and se e the effects of their changes on process operations, and more.
Customer Reviews:
not for novice chem engineers.......2006-12-18
okay first off, this book is NOT for 1st or second year students. the examples make sense(some of the time) until you get to the problems in the back of the book and then you wonder why you picked chemical engineering as a major in the first place because these problems really makes you feel sort of dumb. im taking the materials and energy balance class and in my school it's used to weed people out. let me say this again, if you are taking a materials and energy balance class and you need a text, do not get this one. i hear a lot of great things from the text basic principles and calculations in chem eng by D.M Himmelblau and J.B Riggs so get that one instead unless your teacher demands you get this book. truly a horrible book to start out a chem eng major.
Abolsutely Horrible.......2006-08-29
I'm taking the class that goes along with this book at my school and I have to say this is the worst book I have ever seen. Yes it presents material and all that but it does so with very little explanation. If you don't understand it right away this book won't help at all, it won't explain any more, do any detailed examples, or help you with homework solutions. The only thing that could save this book is an answer solutions book because then you could learn from all of the homework problems. Without that, the homework is a complete mystery because most of it is never even taught in the chapter they just expect you to know it from somewhere else. In conclusion, DO NOT but this book unless you have no other option.
From an Industrial Practitioner of Process Measurement & Control.......2006-07-10
This book is an excellent reference on Chemical Processes Principles and Calculations for any engineer or practitioner working in the process industries. I am an Electronic Engineer, but I have been working for the last 16 years as an Instrumentation, Automation and Process Control Engineer for the Oil & Gas Industry. As a result I have been involved with Chemical Engineering issues in a day to day basic.
I have found this book to be an ideal self-study guide. The book includes a A CD-ROM that provides an active learning environment. If a non Chemical Engineer can learn Chemical Engineering Principles from this book, I guarantee that any Chemical Engineering student or practitioner will find this readable textbook very useful.
Another great reference is David Himmelblau's Book "Basic Principles and Calculations in Chemical Engineering"
Great First Chemical Engineering Book!.......2006-03-17
This book has an excellent overview of basic chemical engineering principles. It is perfect as a first chem eng text.
Little conceptual explanation.......2006-03-16
I'm currently using this book for my Process Calculations course. The book has many example problems and covers unit conversions, material balances, energy balances, single phase and multi-phase systems, etc. Yet, the theory is almost non-existent and the reader is presented with a lot of facts and formulae crammed in with very little conceptual emphasis.
I do not recommend this book, as an introduction to a process calculations course
Customer Reviews:
Decent, but by no means great........2007-10-17
The book itself was in good condition. However, the media that came with the book was damaged/unusable.
Excellent coverage of process engineering principles.......2005-08-18
I am a senior chemical process engineer, and I found this text an excellent reference and aid for keeping current on the broad
breath of information that comprises chemical process engineering.
Customer Reviews:
Lush, remarkable Pulitzer prize-winning volume..........2005-03-08
...continues the excellence of the series. Originally intended as the final book of the series, "The Story of Civilization", in ended up being the penultimate volume.
The Durants lucidly and eloquently summarize the philosophy, life and influence that Rousseau had on the 18th century and, indeed, continues to have to this very day. Rousseau may be regarded as the creator of the Left-wing sensibility. This may seem anachronistic and, in a sense, it is. Rousseau died before the French Revolution, which created the modern political division of Right and Left. Nevertheless, it is accurate to see him as the Fountainhead for relativism, communism, and the worship of feeling as opposed to reason (debased and emptied of all intellectual content this is now called building "self-esteem" by the modern leftist).
Rousseau created most of the modern ills of political fanaticism and airy, absurd idealism as the Durants so ably note.
The rest of the period is not neglected and vivid portraits are made of Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, the Elder Pitt, Diderot, D'Holbach, Samuel Johnson and many, many others help this book to shine.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize--which should have gone to the entire series as opposed to just this volume--this book gives the reader a complete (if necessarily synopsized) account of the End and Failure of the Enlightenment and how what Rousseau and Voltaire intended in their attacks on the social structure (Rousseau) and religion (Voltaire) lead to disastrous consequences in the French Revolution.
The writing sparkles with vivid wit, pith and lucid beauty. It is a book to be read for a lifetime and bequeathed to children. In an age where smarmy, intellectually empty, political fanaticism is attempting to erase the past in favor of the PC fantasies of the moment, the Durants offer a vivid account of the Truth. European civilization is presented here in all its glory and with all its warts. Slavery, religious fanaticism, exploitation and the horrors of the penal system and warfare are all presented here, in their proper place and in context. The modern academic community has attempted to destroy the ideal of context and balance. As long as these books are around, REAL history and historiography are available to anyone who simply opens a copy and reads it.
Was this review helpful to you?
The Tenth Volume in The Story of Civilization!.......2004-09-02
In this, the tenth volume in the critically acclaimed series "The Story of Civilization," Dr. will & Ariel Durant have compiled a masterful dramatic exploration of the European climate and the events which paved the way for the French Revolution.
The reader will be exposed to a vivid recount of the acts of: Rousseau, who confessed his most embarassing sexual and emotional episodes. England and the rise of her overseas empire. Catherine The Great of Russia. Frederick The Great of Prussia. The German Enlightenment. Marie Antoinette. France's impotent and frustrated King Louis XVI. And much, much more including plates and maps.
Written to stand alone or within the series, the Durants have composed an unparalleled historical prose in smooth flowing narrative that is easy to read and understand by both professional and layperson alike. In short, this book is for everyone. I rate it as five stars. Bravo!
Lush, remarkable Pulitzer prize-winning volume..........2002-01-29
...continues the excellence of the series. Originally intended as the final book of the series, "The Story of Civilization", in ended up being the penultimate volume.
The Durants lucidly and eloquently summarize the philosophy, life and influence that Rousseau had on the 18th century and, indeed, continues to have to this very day. Rousseau may be regarded as the creator of the Left-wing sensibility. This may seem anachronistic and, in a sense, it is. Rousseau died before the French Revolution, which created the modern political division of Right and Left. Nevertheless, it is accurate to see him as the Fountainhead for relativism, communism, and the worship of feeling as opposed to reason (debased and emptied of all intellectual content this is now called building "self-esteem" by the modern leftist).
Rousseau created most of the modern ills of political fanaticism and airy, absurd idealism as the Durants so ably note.
The rest of the period is not neglected and vivid portraits are made of Frederick the Great, Catherine the Great, the Elder Pitt, Diderot, D'Holbach, Samuel Johnson and many, many others help this book to shine.
Awarded the Pulitzer Prize--which should have gone to the entire series as opposed to just this volume--this book gives the reader a complete (if necessarily synopsized) account of the End and Failure of the Enlightenment and how what Rousseau and Voltaire intended in their attacks on the social structure (Rousseau) and religion (Voltaire) lead to disastrous consequences in the French Revolution.
The writing sparkles with vivid wit, pith and lucid beauty. It is a book to be read for a lifetime and bequeathed to children. In an age where smarmy, intellectually empty, political fanaticism is attempting to erase the past in favor of the PC fantasies of the moment, the Durants offer a vivid account of the Truth. European civilization is presented here in all its glory and with all its warts. Slavery, religious fanaticism, exploitation and the horrors of the penal system and warfare are all presented here, in their proper place and in context. The modern academic community has attempted to destroy the ideal of context and balance. As long as these books are around, REAL history and historiography are available to anyone who simply opens a copy and reads it.
Book Description
Rousseau, the great political theorist and philosopher of education, was an important forerunner of the French Revolution, though his thought was too nuanced and subtle ever to serve as mere ideology. This is the only volume that systematically surveys the full range of Rousseau's activities in politics and education, psychology, anthropology, religion, music, and theater. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Rousseau currently available, while advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Rousseau.
Customer Reviews:
Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.......2006-12-18
Jean Jacques Rousseau born (1712-1778), in Geneva mother dies in childbirth, he was an engravers apprentice. Stayed out too late one night and locked out of the city, knew he would get in trouble for it so he takes off for France, and meets Madame De Warrens becomes his lover and she converts him to Roman Catholicism. He had a lifelong mistress had 5 kids which he left with an orphanage, which is amazing considering he wrote the book "Emile," which was a guide to raising and educating young children. He neglected the opportunity to put theory into practice. To begin at the beginning, famous lines of book "The Social Contract," "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
The question he asks, how do we find a way to get people to live together in groups? To live together in society and yet still make it true that each person only obeys himself that leaves us as free as when we were in the state of nature. He thinks he has the answer, he thinks he can legitimate, a kind of society, where people have this much freedom. There are certain things that he thinks are necessary for this, first, it has to be a society with general laws. It can't be that whoever is in charge of the government gets to do whatever they feel like doing. There has to of been laws made that authorize this. Second, there has to be universal consent to the laws, everybody has to accept the laws. Now this may be a little unclear, because there is a point that Rousseau talks about majority rule. It does make sense though there is a sense that he believes that the people have to consent to all of the laws, it has to be unanimous, it is just going to take a little while to get to that point. We will see how he reconciles these ideas. Third, there has to be unlimited Sovereignty, people have no rights against the laws you can't say the laws are illegitimate because they violate your rights the way that Locke would say for example people completely give up their rights to the collective. Therefore, there is no worry that a law might trespass on somebody's rights. For Rousseau, be sure to understand that this idea of sovereignty means the power to make laws. Therefore, it is a little bit different say than what you got out of Hobbes were he talks about the sovereign's power. For Hobbes, sovereign power is the power to say what goes. There is no real distinction between what we would call legislative power and executive power. You know the power to make the law and the power to enforce the laws. For Rousseau, sovereignty means the power to make the laws. Therefore, that's the power that is unlimited. Everything the state does has to be done in accordance to the laws. However, there is no limit on what the laws can be. At least no limits coming from the idea of violating individual rights. The only limit on the power of the state is the laws. There is this kind of notion that periodically there would be an assembly of people to come together to decide on the laws and make new ones. The power like a monarchy or oligarchy has power to enforce the laws and they do what ever the assembly tells them to do. The general laws are there and then the executive power is in charge of applying those general laws to specific cases. However, all they can do is apply those general laws. They cannot freelance and do stuff on there own.
Rousseau really praised Sparta as a model democracy. So, here's the kind of society that Rousseau thinks that makes it possible for us to enjoy freedom and social life. We give up all power to the state; we claim no individual rights to ourselves against the government. We give up complete power to the state we do not think we have any individual rights that can limit what the state can do but we insist that the state only act in accordance with general laws and these be laws everybody consents and agrees to. Now you ask, how in the world can we have unanimous consent to the law? With any size or group, how do you get unanimous consent? Rousseau's answer is that in a proper society, one where everyone has been brought up properly and so on, they think of them selves as a community there will be two different choices that people can make about the laws that they want. Two different standpoints, for which they will choose what the laws should be. 1. Their individual wills, which will be a choice about what is best for each persons point of view, 2. However, each citizen will also possess a "General Will." There will as a citizen. The general will of every citizen will be the same. Their general will, will from each of them will be in favor of the laws that will be best for the community. Even if it is not best for them as an individual, sometimes it will be. Just like Kant thinks that everybody's Numinal self is in favor of the same law, Rousseau thinks that in a proper political community every bodies general will is in favor of the same laws each citizens general will, will be the same. Even if from your own perspective, you do not like some of the laws that are passed, if in fact they are laws that are best for the community, you will consent to them from the standpoint of your general will. Therefore, everybody does consent to whatever laws there are that are best for the community. Now ideally, people will think of themselves as citizens first and individuals second that they will have no hesitation in obeying the laws that the general will is in favor of, but people being what they are sometimes people will not obey the laws even when their general will has consented to the laws. Rousseau says people will be acting in accordance with their general will as a citizen rather than their private or individual will. That if one should be tempted or inclined to act on the basis of their individual will in a way that is contrary to their and everybody else's general will, then they ought to be forced to obey the general will and the laws it endorses. Not just be forced to obey, but in being forced to obey you are actually being made more free than you would be if you did in a sense what you think you want to do. You can call this Rousseau's "paradigm of positive freedom."
Rousseau does not think that any group of people can form this kind of society. Before a society can form a government under this kind of basis, it will already be a society that exists under illegitimate rule. Therefore, even though Rousseau talks about the state of nature the way Hobbes and Locke does, he does not really have the expectation that groups of people are going to go from the state of nature straight into a legitimate society. They are going to start out with some kind of illegitimate rule, and that is going to give them enough cohesion, this kind of shared experience they have had, that then they are going to be able to form a legitimate government. They are going to be similar enough in outlook and have enough of a bond to the society, that they have the general will. This can only happen in a relatively small community. They must have shared values and experience. He thought that the only place in his time in Europe that could do this was the island state of Corsica. Once the laws are already in place you are agreeing to them, it is tacit consent. He believes that when the society is first formed legitimately, people have to give expressed consent.
There is not some kind of disconnect that you would get in say some kind of fascist political philosophy like what is good for the community and what is good for the people. There is almost no connection between those things. Somehow for Rousseau there seems to be some kind of connection that what's good for the community is some kind of function of what is good for the individual people in the community. But, the nature of that function to me is just opaque, he doesn't get whatever he is trying to say across there.
In practice obviously this is hard to do. Because Rousseau is hostile to the idea that you could have just a select group of people to make the laws, this means he has to be against representative democracy. The only societies that are this democratic that have worked are societies that have had slaves (Greek and Roman). Because how much time does citizenship take without representatives, we have to be in assembly all the time so you need slaves to cook and raise crops. So, you should have this picture in mind that every so often the citizens get together to develop laws, what they should be doing of course is trying to vote in a way that the general will tells them to vote, whatever is best for the community. Rousseau is not so naïve to think that they are all going to unanimously and spontaneously put their hands up at the same time. People are going to disagree, abut what the law is. Majority rule he says in that case. However, it is not the majority rule in the spirit that we think of it, where the side with the most votes wins and the losers are disappointed because their way didn't prevail. No, what Rousseau says is the minority should look at this as they were wrong about what the general will was in that case, and so they should be happy that what they wanted didn't get adopted because that would have been a mistake. The majority essentially knows best. It is as if they are all trying to get to the same place, some will get there some will be misled and they should be grateful to be straightened out. One can see how totalitarian's can embrace some of Rousseau's writings.
I read this book for a graduate class in Philosophy. Recommended reading for anyone interested in philosophy, political science, history and, psychology.
Average customer rating:
- It is a work of a genius!!!
- A classic autobiography
- 'Feelings can only be described in terms of their effects'
- How to understand your life-- the best autobiography ever written
- The authenticity of a personal fiction
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Confessions (Oxford World's Classics)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0192822756 |
Book Description
'No one can write a man's life except himself.' In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence.
Download Description
An autobiography of tortured honesty that set the stage for Romanticism and revolution.
Customer Reviews:
It is a work of a genius!!!.......2007-04-08
There will never be another Jean-Jacques Rousseau and since he lived in a period without radio and television, he is talking to us through his books. While being hailed as one of the intellectual fathers of modern democracy, Rousseau also has a very interesting personality.
I highly recommend Confessions, many lovely short stories are so vivid that a reader almost feels being there with Rousseau.
A classic autobiography.......2007-03-11
Prior to the appearance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'Confessions,' there existed very few real autobiographies. The few that did exist were like St. Augustine's 'Confessions,' designed to impart a religious or moral lesson instead of to exhibit or try to justify one's life. By the time Rousseau came along, however, people had begun to see themselves as individuals, not members of a society governed based on religious or monarchical precepts. So though writing one's autobiography may be old hat now, this was a revolutionary thing in the 18th century. This autobiography is also special in that Jean-Jacques reveals himself warts and all. He doesn't gloss over faults or embarrassing incidents; he exhibits all of himself, both the good and the bad.
This book was highly recommended by the wonderful History of the Enlightenment professor I had my senior year of college, and I was thrilled to find a copy (for only 50 cents!) about 5 years later. I'd been eager to read it based on the professor's lurid descriptions of it. He told us that, among other things, Rousseau revealed that he liked to be spanked, he described his sex life, and he had a very interesting problem centered in his midsection, manifested in how he had urinary problems that always seemed to crop up whenever he was about to be integrated into society, such as one time when he was going to be given some money by the king to further his writing, but his problem struck, and he excused himself and went out into the hall, where he ended up urinating on the floor, unable to hold himself, and was laughed at by the servant-women. I was kind of disappointed that the book didn't turn out as spicy as my professor had made it out to be, but I still loved every moment of it just the same. My professor's teasers of what the book contains were just the tip of the iceberg. Among many other fascinating stories and tidbits, we also learn about such things as his extreme shyness with women he was attracted to, how he was a late bloomer who didn't lose his virginity till he was in his early twenties, how several of the women he was attracted to and had relationships with were older women (among them his first lover, Mme. de Warens, who was far more than just a lover but also his teacher, his mentor, and his patron), how he was beaten horribly by the man he was apprenticed to in Geneva as a teenager, the real story behind why he gave all 5 of his kids away to foundling hospitals, the increasing persecutions and exiles he endured, how he engaged in self-gratification, and how, as a young man, he had advances made to him by two other men (one of them a priest). Although one wonders how much paranoia might have played into these growing conspiracies against him he laments. While there is ample evidence that a number of his former friends turned against him (to say nothing of how he was thrown out of a lot of places he tried to find refuge in after 'The Social Contract' and 'Émile' were banned), it also seems kind of weird that so many people would form all of these vast far-reaching conspiracies against him out of nowhere. Still, Jean-Jacques comes across as such an interesting likeable person, whom just about anyone can relate to, that this obsession with these alleged conspiracies can be overlooked. One wishes that the book covered his whole life and not just from 1712 to 1765, since he's just such an interesting character!
My translation is the one by J.M. Cohen, which is over 50 years old now, but gets the job done in spite of a few dated spots. The basic story remains the same in spite of some dated phrases and language (e.g., does anyone under the age of 100 still use diminutive words like "authoress" or "patroness" anymore?). I also wish there had been an index, particularly since what with so many people coming and going in Jean-Jacques's life (he knew so many famous and prominent people in Enlightenment Europe!), it can be kind of hard to keep track of just who's whom. Still, minor quibbles aside, he was a truly fascinating person, and this classic work of autobiography and the Enlightenment is not to be missed.
'Feelings can only be described in terms of their effects'.......2007-01-04
My feelings when reading this unusual autobiography was one of identification with the writer - I suspect that there are behavioural and biological reasons for this, not ones that can be explained by psychology. The effect on me of the feelings Rousseau generated are indeed strange. I have immense sympathy with the man and yet I have a total lack of understanding of how he could give up his five children shortly after their births - and impose that on his partner too! He certainly fails to provide a satisfactory explanation for me. (Unless, of course, there simply weren't any children but he was unable to confess to that!)
I also felt (feelings again!) that at times Rousseau was quite paranoid. Repeatedly the disasters he presaged were less troubling than I had feared. Over and over we come across what he describes as some of his best times of life. He did have a remarkable way of holding on to the light, even when regrets and threats existed, which tended to lighten some of the darkest times.
His love of women was truly extraordinary - perhaps it was generated by his own childhood experience of being propositioned by a man; perhaps not. It was certainly love - if we believe these are true confessions - and not lust, despite what was going on in the French high society he hovered around.
Perhaps the most interesting thing for me is that a very gifted philosopher can be wracked by self doubts and uncertainties.
Other recommendations:
'Diaries' - Alma Schindler (Mahler-Werfel)
'Memoirs' - Hector Berlioz
'Memoirs of a Revolutionist' - Peter Kroptkin
'Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman' - William Godwin
How to understand your life-- the best autobiography ever written.......2007-01-01
Maybe you read Rousseau in college and your teacher mentioned EMILE. If you were lucky, he or she mentioned this, perhaps the greatest autobiography ever written. I read it when I was in my early twenties; it helped me to understand my feelings of loneliness, helplessness, and alienation. Years later, when I went to work for a large corporation, we had weekly meetings nominally about legal and regulatory issues, but the real "issues" on the participants' minds were the things they were talking about with each other before and after the meetings. I started reading excerpts from this book at our meetings. Everyone wanted to know what I was reading from. This was way before "book groups" became fashionable.
Rousseau was one of the most influential philosophers of the "Enlightenment", but he was also a humanitarian in the sense that he always looked for the good in others. Sometimes he found it. You will feel this when reading this wonderful book. My copy from thirty years ago has my handwritten notes in the back that I have trouble reading now,
but I know what the notes refer to, still recall the feelings I had when I made those notes, and remember how I wondered if I would ever understand how to live my life, how to relate to friends and family, how to figure out what is going on, most importantly how to deal with feelings. This book will not give you the answers, but it will give you the reassurance that your wonder and bewilderment are normal for thinking, sensitive persons. And that helps a lot. All this from one of the greatest literary artists since Plato.
You will want to read passages to your friends. Just as I did all those years ago. And compared to some celebrated "coming of age" novels, this is
the "Holy Bible".
The authenticity of a personal fiction.......2006-11-30
In his essay "On Rhetoric", Stanley Corngold addresses the rhetorical signs of autobiographical elements, and the use of language to create disruption, confusion, clarity or a sense of authenticity in the text, whether or not it actually is autobiographical or "a fictive chronicle of memory". Written elements of fiction can still function as an authentically constructed memory, and here Corngold makes a distinction between the lie and the fiction; an all important distinction for reading autobiographies like Rousseau's The Confessions. Figurative writing that refers to certain authentic emotions or personal imaginations of the writer, is considered fiction, whereas the conscious addition of a written element that does not belong to the memory or experiences of the author, is a lie.
Corngold considers the imagination to be superior over fulfillment. However, when a text is confessional in nature, the justification of the own identity and self by showcasing its sincerity and integrity, and thus its contrast to the imagination, is at stake. Corngold states that the rhetoric as Rousseau uses it in his Confessions, promises a truthful description of emotions. Corngold points out that abstractions like emotions and sensations are impossible to accurately describe in words, especially when one considers the possibility of the narrator's own memory deceiving him. He discusses the Rousseau's intent when he wrote his autobiography, and concludes that the question of whether this was a cognitive or confessional intent is problematic but can be analyzed by studying Rousseau's use of rhetoric.
Rousseau focuses mainly on his memories of moods in his autobiography The Confessions. One of the defining personal aspects that guide him in this is a sense of self-loss, and Rousseau seems to attempt to find and present himself by as accurately and truthful as possible describing his past actions and the sensation that caused and were caused by them.
An air of a self-indulgent narcissitic, yet apologetic and insecure personality surrounds Rousseau's autobiography, but nevertheless it is this underlying sense of this personality that the reader gets from this work that may very well be the most truthful autobiographical element of The Confessions.
Rousseau makes a distinction between his moods at the time of writing his autobiography and the past emotions he describes in his work, but doesn't openly acknowledge the likely possibility of the present mood influencing the memory of past sensations. However, I do value Rousseau's autobiography as authentic, as the emotions that he describes in his work were indeed descriptive of the sensations he must have felt while writing down his memories. In this regard, I think that the authenticity I perceive in Rousseau's work may not be the authenticity he intended to be perceived by a reader. In my opinion, it is impossible to narrate one's memories and past emotions as they actually were, without any influence of the present perceptions and moods of the narrator, and without taking into account that moods and moments sometimes last only seconds. However, I do agree with Corngold when it comes to prioritizing the imagination over the actual fulfillment and am convinced that Rousseau's imaginations about himself were not lies, but authentic fictions of and about himself.
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