Autor: Manent, Pierre

Buch: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Titel: An Intellectual History of Liberalism

Stichwort: Rousseau 6; R.: Paradox: Natur - Freiheit; Widerspruch d. Menschen -> von Natur zu Freiheit; erst mit R. totale Freiheit d. Individuums; zgl.: Autonomie als Bedrohung liberaler Gesellschaft -> Motiv d. Freiheit -> Revolution

Kurzinhalt: ... a new definition of man: man's nature is not to have a nature, but to be free... With Rousseau, freedom becomes immediate to the individual, it is a feeling, both experienced and required, of autonomy.

Textausschnitt: 77a The ultimate paradox of Rousseau's thought could be formulated in this way. On the one hand, society is essentially contrary to nature; on the other, it comes near to conforming to nature only insofar as it imposes the greatest unity possible on its members, identifying each person with everyone and the whole—in short, only insofar as it changes man's nature. Because society is contrary to man's nature, it is in being most contrary to him that it conforms most closely to him. (Fs; tblStw: Politik) (notabene)

77b Such an expression is of course "contradictory." But it ceases to be so if we add that it is in man's nature to be contradictory, that this expression only reflects man's inner contradictions: it is natural for man to change his nature because man, at bottom, is not nature but liberty. And liberty is that power by which man gives orders to his own nature, or changes his nature, or is a law unto himself. The striking "contradiction" of Rousseau's political doctrine indicates and requires the implementation of a new definition of man: man's nature is not to have a nature, but to be free. By this very fact, Rousseau's antiliberal thought is going to provide content to the hypothetical being on which liberalism constructed itself, the individual. Liberalism reached its principle, the individual, only indirectly, by the roundabout means of the state of nature. It can even be said that the individual reached in this way was hardly "free" since his behavior was, so to speak, mechanically determined by the necessity to flee from evil, to preserve his life. With Rousseau, freedom becomes immediate to the individual, it is a feeling, both experienced and required, of autonomy. Liberalism's individual was not inwardly free; Rousseau is not a liberal but his individual is free. Thus he is going to provide liberal societies with the inmost and immediate feeling by which the individual becomes aware of himself, by which man feels himself to be, or tries to be, an individual. (Fs) (notabene)

77c At the same time, this inmost and immediate feeling of freedom, an essential ingredient of liberal societies, is also a danger for them. If man is liberty, autonomy, if he is the being who makes his own laws, he cannot derive his motives from nature without demeaning himself. Faced with the new definition of liberty, the old liberal liberty based on the natural necessity of self-preservation appears pathetic, weak, and vulgar. Determined by nature, liberal liberty is already no longer liberty. And since liberty, whether ancient or new, cannot act without a motive, the new liberty is going to seek a motive commensurate with its own sublimity. The Revolution will be the act by which liberty supplies its own motive, by which man raises himself above the dictates of his nature. (Fs) (notabene)