{"id":860,"date":"2025-07-04T15:44:18","date_gmt":"2025-07-04T21:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=860"},"modified":"2025-07-04T15:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T21:44:18","slug":"rousseau-tries-to-dig-himself-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=860","title":{"rendered":"Rousseau Tries to Dig Himself Out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading has-text-align-center\">Rousseau&#8217;s <em>Social Contract<\/em>, part 5<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<iframe id=\"odysee-iframe\" style=\"width:100%; aspect-ratio:16 \/ 9;\" src=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/%24\/embed\/%40MarginalNonHermit%3A3%2Frousseau-pt-5%3A9?r=8gvoByECHNgc2BfQ5o91oxf89bpi1Ui4\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Book 2, Chapters 4 and 5, we&#8217;re covering &#8220;The Limits of the Sovereign Power&#8221; and &#8220;The Right of Life and Death.&#8221; Rousseau has finally seemed to realize that the framework he is building is incredibly totalitarian, and has started to backpedal FURIOUSLY.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Full show notes <a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/part-5.pdf\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The problem is that his backpedaling doesn&#8217;t actually fix anything. He ends up creating a bunch of distinctions that can never be measured, since they supposedly dwell in the will of a phantom. He tries coming up with a tricky and weird definition of Law, which he fails to carefully explain. He makes arguments about universality of the general will that can easily be sidestepped by a clever tyrant. He puts forward a surface-level interesting concept for justice, then immediately contradicts it. He even fails again to treat man &#8220;as he is,&#8221; arguing that &#8220;good&#8221; governments won&#8217;t have much crime without realizing that inequality is not the only rationale for criminals, and without explaining how there can be &#8220;good&#8221; and &#8220;bad&#8221; governments if the State is infallible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Plus, he starts to get really desperate with a bunch of statements that are basically, &#8220;Let me cook! It&#8217;ll totally make sense eventually!&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It&#8217;s not very effective\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This video is available on <a href=\"https:\/\/odysee.com\/@MarginalNonHermit:3\/rousseau-pt-5:9\">Odysee<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/1iFTxwRU6OU\">YouTube<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bitchute.com\/video\/2qm240VS0e3b\/\">BitChute<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Return to the <a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?page_id=769\">table of contents<\/a> for this series.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Reference links<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First two chapters of Locke&#8217;s Second Treatise, including a link to Richard Hooker&#8217;s book:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=663\">https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=663<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Locke&#8217;s Essay Concerning Human Understanding:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/10615\n\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/10615<br><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/10616\">https:\/\/www.gutenberg.org\/ebooks\/10616<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">George Orwell&#8217;s 1984:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/1984novelbygeorg0000eric\/page\/4\/mode\/2up\">https:\/\/archive.org\/details\/1984novelbygeorg0000eric\/page\/4\/mode\/2up<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Critique of Chapter 12 of Kropotkin&#8217;s Conquest of Bread:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=754\">https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/?p=754<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intro quote is from Human Action, which you can read here:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/book\/human-action\">https:\/\/mises.org\/library\/book\/human-action<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Intro music by Egor Gandukhin, courtesy Pixabay:<br><a href=\"https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/sounddelicious-44481665\/\">https:\/\/pixabay.com\/users\/sounddelicious-44481665\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rousseau&#8217;s Social Contract, part 5 In Book 2, Chapters 4 and 5, we&#8217;re covering &#8220;The Limits of the Sovereign Power&#8221; and &#8220;The Right of Life and Death.&#8221; Rousseau has finally seemed to realize that the framework he is building is incredibly totalitarian, and has started to backpedal FURIOUSLY. Full show notes here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[82,4,2],"tags":[246,86,269,60,19,85,236,72,270,199,202],"class_list":["post-860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy","category-political","category-video-link","tag-critique","tag-freedom","tag-jean-jacques-rousseau","tag-libertarian","tag-liberty","tag-philosophy","tag-political-philosophy","tag-politics","tag-social-contract","tag-study-guide","tag-voluntaryism"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marginalnonhermit.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/thumb.png?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=860"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/860\/revisions\/862"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/858"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marginalnonhermit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}