The concept of progress is extremely appealing in modern life. The traditional opinion in the 18th century, as European cultures grew more prosperous and sophisticated, was that humanity was firmly established on a good trajectory from barbarism and ignorance to wealth and civilisation. However, one 18th century philosopher vehemently disagreed, and his ideas are still controversial today.

Rousseau was of the belief that civilisation and progress had not improved people rather has had a devastating influence on morality of people who had once been good. In 1762, he published the ‘Social Contract,’ at a time when the moral authority of kings and the church was being called into question, and the world was becoming less feudal and more global and economic.
He starts with his famous line, “man is born free, but everywhere is in chains.”
The innate qualities of a man, that is self love and pity for the suffering in the process of civilisation is fast changing into self comparison to others, which diminishes his pity for others and engages him in competition. So the only way a good society can be formed is by a pact, a covenant or a social contract. An association where an individual, while uniting himself with others, obeys no one but himself, and remains as free as before.

He further goes on to organise The Social Contract based on the General Will. He makes a distinction between two types of Wills:
• Particular Will: One that is dominated by passion.
• Real Will: One that is dominated by reason.
The latter taken in social context who is what would be the General Will.
However it is important to note that the underlying idea of General Will is reason and hence General Will does not necessarily depend on majority or commonality but the ‘righteousness’.
It is more than just a sum of individual wills and hence a reflection of common good and not interests of a particular group.
There may be a difference between General Will and collective wills of citizens. General Will is the residue left after the pluses and minuses have cancelled themselves out. ‘Right’, he argued in an allusion to Hobbes, can’t be forced. Force never gives rise to morality.
No one can be placed under another’s subjection without consent. Sovereignty can neither be represented nor alienated. Any law not ratified by the people is not a law at all. This indicates his inclination to words democracy which sees the people as the source of sovereignty.
History of General Will:
The notion of General Will precedes Rousseau and has its roots in the Christian Theology. Nicholas Malebranche attributed General Will to God, who mostly acts through a set of general laws. These laws correspond to God’s General Will.
Rousseau’s understanding of the General Will emerges from a critique of Denis Diderot, who transforms Malebranche’s understanding of the General Will into a Secular concept but believes in its universality.
Diderot Argues that morality is based on General Will of humankind to improve its own happiness. He believes General Will is necessarily directed at the good since its objective is betterment of all. For Rousseau however, the General Will is not an abstract ideal. It is instead the will actually held by the people in their quality as citizens. Rousseau’s conception is thus political and differs from the more universal conception.

In a society where a man cannot be free of all dependence, can substitute one form of dependence for another. Personal dependence on others is to be avoided by the dependence on the law or the General Will.
In his ‘Second Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality among Men’, He attributes the loss of freedom to the inequality produced by the emergence of private property. Primitive people had no property, says Rousseau and hence each was as equal and free as everyone else. Political liberty is destroyed because the propertied classes possess the power to dominate others; Rousseau argues, because it produces competition for economic goods, the struggle for political power, and striving is for owner and status. All these are natural social desires that create conflict rather than cooperation, envy and beefs rather than love and affection. Human beings began to calculate their own self interest rather than thinking first of their fellows, and in the process they became what the sociologist David Riesman has termed ‘other directed’. Rather than being true to themselves, they act in ways calculated to gain praise or to elicit flattery. They do anything to raise themselves above others. With the emergence of inequality, reason itself becomes perverted. Not only do people begin to use their reason to calculate their own advantage at the expense of others, reason becomes the merely another source of vanity. Civilised people use their reason to produce philosophy that actually justifies loss of political and personal liberty.

According to Rousseau clearly, European society and polity had to be reconstituted such that the political liberty and enough freedom is returned to the people. Indeed, the two must be united says Rousseau. Political liberty must be made a reality so that people can shape their social order to encourage the expression of that natural goodness that is the essence of inner liberty. The state must be so constructed that both liberty and social control a possible. The act of contracting must involve the total alienation of each associate and all his rights. Each individual must contract with all others to turn over their natural rights to each other individual. The legislative power must belong to the entire community of citizens. This is the only way in which the individual can be made subject to the sovereign power of the community, at the same time all share a proportion of that part in their capacity as citizens.
In this every person, while uniting himself with all, shall obey only himself and remain as free as before.

Although certain members of the society may disagree to a specific legislation, this does not preclude them from gladly and freely following it. Dissenters will see that the rules were established for their own welfare if a community and government are properly organised, and they will voluntarily provide their obedience. And if the citizen should refuse to obey the General Will, he shall be compelled to do it by the whole body!

This might seem as the arguably the most controversial statement ever made; that only forces him to be free! However this further gets clear when Rousseau answers that who shall be forced to be free are those who refuse to obey the General Will. The concept of the General Will is Rousseau’s major contribution to the Western political thought. The General Will is Rousseau’s term for the sovereign power. When the community as a whole meets in the legislative assembly, says Rousseau, it expresses in law the will or moral sense of the general or whole community. By moral, of course, Rousseau means that which is in the public interest. And what makes the General Will a moral will is precisely its generality. The establishment of the General Will necessitates the alienation of each individual’s rights from all others. Because everyone’s situation is similar, it is not in anyone’s best interests to offend others. The simple expedient of vesting sovereign legislative authority in the entire society, in other words, makes it in everyone’s self-interest to promote the common good. This fusion of justice, or public interest, and utility, or self-interest, is the core of the general well, and might be considered to constitute Rousseau’s ideal state’s primary organisational principle.

Aishwarya Says:

I have always been against Glorifying Over Work and therefore, in the year 2021, I have decided to launch this campaign “Balancing Life”and talk about this wrong practice, that we have been following since last few years. I will be talking to and interviewing around 1 lakh people in the coming 2021 and publish their interview regarding their opinion on glamourising Over Work.

If you are interested in participating in the same, do let me know.

Do follow me on Facebook, Twitter  Youtube and Instagram.

The copyright of this Article belongs exclusively to Ms. Aishwarya Sandeep. Reproduction of the same, without permission will amount to Copyright Infringement. Appropriate Legal Action under the Indian Laws will be taken.

If you would also like to contribute to my website, then do share your articles or poems at adv.aishwaryasandeep@gmail.com

We also have a Facebook Group Restarter Moms for Mothers or Women who would like to rejoin their careers post a career break or women who are enterpreneurs.

We are also running a series Inspirational Women from January 2021 to March 31,2021, featuring around 1000 stories about Indian Women, who changed the world. #choosetochallenge