French Essays Egalitarian Political Regimes

French Essays Egalitarian Political RegimesExplain and Discuss the Fragility of Egalitarian Political Regimes, as Represented in BOTH the Lettres Persanes AND the Contrat Social.Though The drift of Laws is probably the best-known work of Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, his Lettres Persanes (Persian Letters) is another famous work in which he explores, with perhaps to a greater extent depth, the concept of equality and egalitarian political rule. A generation later, John Jacques Rousseau would appear on the political landscape and present his own ideas on the same topic. chief(prenominal) to be explored among his writings allow be the Contrat Social (Social Contract) in which Rousseau lays out with some detail a discussion of the nature of egalitarian political regimes and explores divers(a) strengths and weaknesses of them.Montesquieu and the Fragility of EgalitarianismIn the beginning of the 89th letter, Montesquieu claims that A Paris rgnent la libert et lgalit. Bi rthrights, social ranks, and even military victories did not set work force apart (in terms of class distinctions) in Paris during his writing. This was a thing to be praised by Montesquieu. He saw too much in the man that lent itself away from egalitarianism, at least insofar as the right of persons to be equal is concerned. It will be beneficial here to take a moment to set up Montesquieus views on the republic to burst lay a foundation for his comments on equality. In Book 11 of the Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu explores the (then) unique situation in England of a monarchy controlled, to an extent, by a constitution, and it that portion of the Spirit of the Laws Montesquieu is chiefly impressed by and concerned with the Englishmans liberty. As regards the actually nature of a republic, Montesquieu argues in the Spirit of the Laws that there atomic number 18 three basic types of governmental systems. The despot rules by inculcating fear in the people. The monarch does better and rules by a sense of honor and by fixed established laws. Both of these types of governing are fairly stable. One does not need to inevitably think of them as inbredally fragile in the sense in which, say, the last political option (i.e., the republic) may be thought to be fragile. The despot, so long as he maintains fear amongst the peoples, has nothing to fear himself.Apparently for Montesquieu, it is the monarchy which is the first and primary type of government. He writes in Letter 131 of the Lettres Persanes, Les premiers gouvernements du monde furent monarchiques. Coming on the heels of this original type of government would be both the despotic rule and the republic, the latter of which comes by chance, he indicates. Apparently, despotism amounts to little more than a corruption of an original monarchy. But, the republic is a genuine advancement of the Greeks. However, this advancement brings with it an intrinsic tendency toward reversion to that which preceded it, eit her monarchy or despotism, and this fact may be ascribable to the complexity of the republic in both its nature and principles.For Montesquieu, one of the things that may typify the fragile nature of the republic is that it cannot survive without what Montesquieu calls political virtue. It is this requirement that the citizens moldiness embody this political virtue (without which the republic could not endure) that lends to the fragile nature of republics. If the people cease persisting in this virtue, the republic could not endure, for the republic exists and continues just now so long as the habits and eventual character of political virtue are exemplified in the people. In the republic, there is no one-to-one correspondence with what exists in despotism or a monarchy a strong central authority. Therefore, the people must, by loving egalitarianism and the laws, arrange a situation for themselves wherein the needs of the proficient are served, even if at the expense of the needs of the many. This is exactly what Greece did, he argues, and it is incumbent upon any subsequent attempts at a republic to do the same. Lamour de la libert, la haine des rois, conserva longtemps la Grce dans lindpendance, et tendit au loin le gouvernement rpublicain.Rousseau and the Fragility of EgalitarianismOne could simply resist beginning the discussion on Rousseau with his famous opening to chapter one of the Contrat Social. Lhomme est n libre, et partout il est dans les fers. How this particular situation came to be, Rousseau does not attempt to answer. Rather, he focuses his trouble on how it is that man can get back to his original (or perhaps primal) state of freedom. If man in a state of servitude obeys his masters, he does well. However, if he can break free from that state, he does better still because to be free is mans natural and original state, seen most evidently within the rites of passage intrinsic to family life.Although it could not be rightly said that Rous seau takes no points of departure from the thought of Montesquieu, there are nevertheless significant points of agreement amongst them on the idea of the republic. Rousseah offers as his main contribution to the discussion over the republic that a return to the ancient (i.e., Greek) polis is the most advisable course of action. Yet, an intrinsic tension to this suggestion is that Rousseau simultaneously advocates the idea of the natural law quite strongly. According to Helena Rosenblatt, for Rousseau the natural law is a very self-interested concept, which is at least prima facie at odds with the republican ideal of each person being grounded in virtue and community as that which adheres the republic together and maintains it. The more refined concept of the general will complicates the matter further and makes egalitarianism a la republicanism an even more fragile thing.Rousseaus General go outIn his writings prior to the Social Contract, Rousseau had explicitly indicated that he denied that man was naturally and easily a sociable creature. No, mans first inclinations are not toward the public good, but in the direction of particular self-interests and this is evident by the historical facts that les longs dbats, les dissensions, le tumulte, annoncent lascendant des intrts particuliers et le dclin de lEtat. So, what takes place amidst the social contract is the necessity of all citizens when laying down public policy to not act in merely self-interested ways. The good of the many, the universal good, was to be the overriding concern of all citizens in this regard, and this is the general will of Roussea, which he explores and elaborates in great throughout the Social Contract. But, what makes this concept of the general will even more tense and lending to the creation of a fragile situation for egalitarianism is the paradoxical idea related to literally enforcing that citizens act in accord with the general will.The general will is not merely reducible to the will of all people combined. No, it is the right will which ever seeks the good of the integral State and never acts in a merely self-interested way. It is basically the will of God then, which must ever be right and, since God is omnibenevolent and always has the interests of everyone in mind, this is in line with the general will as Rousseau explicates it here. He writes, Afin donc que le pacte social ne soit pas un vain formulaire, il renferme tacitement cet engagement qui seul peut donner de la force aux autres, que quiconque refusera dobir la volont gnrale y sera contraint par tout le corps ce qui ne signifie autre chose sinon quon le forcera dtre libre. This is the key to the whole enterprise. It prevents the social contract from becoming, as he says, un vain formulaire (an empty formula). But, of course, although such an aspect of the overall contract is sure enough sensible, how it is appropriated lends itself to fragility. The line is not always so clear when one is acting merely in his own self-interest and when he is acting in respect to the common good (or both simultaneously, which would apparently not violate the general will). It is not necessarily contradictory in its premise, but it is certainly paradoxical, as Rousseau surely felt.ConclusionBoth Montesquieu and Rousseau in their individual days were vastly aware with the attending problems associated with the reintroduction of the ancient ideas of the republic and egalitarianism. However, they each firmly believed that whatever problems may adopt the advent of such in Modernity, it would certainly be worth it. For both of them, as most Westerners today would greatly sympathize, any form of egalitarianism via a republic, whatever fragility may accompany it, would be greatly preferable to either a monarchy or (especially) a despotic State.Works ConsultedKrause, Sharon. The Politics of Distinction and Disobedience Honor and the Defense of indecorousness in Montesquieu, Polity 31, 3 (1999) 469-99.Grant, Ruth Weissbourd. Hypocrisy and Integrity Machiavelli, Rousseau, and the Ethics of Politics. Chicago University of Chicago Press, 1999.Morris, Christopher W. The Social Contract Theorists Critical Essays On Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau. Lanham, Md. Rowman Littlefield, 1999.Riesenberg, Peter N. Citizenship in the Western Tradition Plato to Rousseau. Chapel Hill, NC University of North Carolina Press, 1992.Rosenblatt, Helena. Rousseau and Geneva From the First Discourse to the Social Contract, 1749-1762. Cambridge New York Cambridge University Press, 1997.Shklar, Judith. The Spirit of the Laws necessity and freedom. In Montesquieu, pp. 93-110. Oxford Oxford University Press, 1987.