Critique of Rousseau’s Social Contract, part 19
We’ve finally reached the conclusion of this mess of a book, and guess what? It gets even worse right at the end. Book 4, Chapter 8 is about “Civil Religion” and while you might be unsurprised that religion clashes with Rousseau’s concept of a State, it actually gets much worse.
Written show notes here.
Rousseau declares that States should produce another type of law called “dogmas” that link obedience to the State with divinity. I do not believe it to be exaggeration to say he strips freedom of conscience from citizens.
After that, Chapter 9 is simply a statement that he hasn’t carried his ideas onward to international relations, so we can breathe a sigh of relief.
Then, I wrap things up with an overview of what we’ve seen through these last five months. It’s not great for Rousseau.
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Return to the Table of Contents for this series.
Intro quote from “The Trouble with the Constitution and the ‘Social Contract'” by Lew Rockwell:
https://mises.org/mises-wire/trouble-constitution-and-social-contract
Intro music by Dvir Silver, courtesy Pixabay:
https://pixabay.com/users/sonican-38947841/