‘Romantic’ is a word that is usually associated with love, passion and the heart. So surely that is to be expected of the Romantic Period? Umm. . . No, not really. A major theme of the Romantic period that I gathered from the lecture was the idea of being free, or having ‘pure’ freedom. A main contributor to this idea, or theory if you like, was Jean- Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau’s main inspiration for his theories came from his love of nature. He believed that was the answer to everything that humans searched for. Whilst spending a lot of his time at the mountains in Switzerland, he developed the idea that the ‘real’ cannot be found in books, it can only be found in nature.
Rousseau was completely anti-reason. From his experiences with nature he believed true reason and real truth was developed from emotion and feeling. Also from his experiences with nature, he believed civilisation has corrupted people and people need to lose traits like manners, fashion and manufacturing of items to achieve true freedom, innocence and beauty. People without civilisation or the influence of these things are pure and fully human. This, to Rousseau was what people or human kind should be like.
In order to have his theories and ideas heard, he sent his book to Voltaire. Voltaire was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion and free trade. Voltaire responded by saying “After reading your book, one feels as if one should walk on all fours”. The idea of having no civilisation would send me down the same trail of thought. Becoming primitive sounds like my idea of hell but Rousseau believed that this was true freedom and it was the only way he would be happy.
Although he believed all this, he understood and accepted that there was no going back to this original, almost Neanderthal state of being. It takes a lot for someone to admit when they are wrong, but Rousseau pointed out flaws in his theory as well as suggesting that this was the way people should live. He said the major flaw in his theory was self-esteem. Self-esteem is what stops us from walking about naked without feeling a sense of embarrassment. He says self-esteem is responsible for constantly putting us down therefore not giving us the confidence to accept who we are naturally.
I think Rousseau’s theory meant well and possibly could work in small areas of the world such as tribal parts of the Amazon etc, but people are far too comfortable with civilisation, they won’t want anything other than what they consider as ‘normal’.
