Rousseau's Confessions

From Damrosch:



At the very time
that he struck observers as sadly lacking in self-knowledge, he was
achieving a profoundly original self-analysis whose influence has been
enormous. The Confessions are at once the record of a life, a recreation
of its meaning, and an imaginative space in which the author found re-
lief by recovering what it felt like to be his earlier self. "It's the past," he
wrote at Wootton, "that makes the present bearable."

During the years in Motiers, Rousseau had become aware that others
were discussing details of his life. He received a long anonymous letter
from Geneva that referred to his father's stay in Constantinople and ex-
ile after a street quarrel, his own time at Bossey with the Lamberciers,
his apprenticeship to "a brutal, barbarous master," his flight from Ge-
neva and refuge with la folie de Varrens in Annecy, and his ostentatious
display of feeding "numerous schools of fishes" during his visit in 1754·
Later The Sentiment of the Citizens gave its viciously slanted account of
Rousseau's recent life. He assumed that the information in it came from
Mme d'Epinay (some of it undoubtedly did), and he vowed to clear his
name as well as to exact revenge by giving his own recollections of her
and other ex-friends. Like Augustine, from whom he borrowed his title
(though he never mentions the earlier Confessions), he would acknowl-
edge his sins, but unlike Augustine he would also prove his essential
goodness.

The influence of the Confessions has been so pervasive that it is hard
today to appreciate how original the book really was. To trace formative
experiences, and in particular to take childhood experience seriously,
was virtually unheard-of in Rousseau's day. A few earlier writers had
recounted occasional anecdotes of childhood, but compared with the
Confessions these were thin and unrevealing. When Voltaire drafted an
autobiographical sketch at the end of his long life, he dismissed his early
years with the comment, "Nothing is more insipid than the details of in-
fancy and the time spent at school." As for Diderot, his biographer says
that he was "almost intentionally inscrutable" about his first thirty years
and that he pitied the state of childhood for its helplessness and igno-
rance. When he did mention his early days, it was to congratulate him-
self on precocious brilliance, not to disclose errors and humiliations.
"One of the sweetest moments of my life - it happened more than
thirty years ago and I remember it as though it were yesterday - was
when my father saw me coming home from school with my arms full of
prizes I had won and my shoulders loaded with crowns they had given
me that were too big for my brow and had slipped down over my head
... From the farthest distance that he saw me, he dropped his work,
came to the door, and burst into tears."

Rousseau was well aware that the story of a working-class boy strug-
gling to find himself was in itself unusual. "Many readers will be pre-
vented from continuing by this sole idea. They can't conceive that a
man who needs bread could be worthy of their acquaintance." But that
was the whole point: it was his unusual history that had allowed him to
develop into a challenging and original thinker. However, his outsider
role also explained why people found it so hard to understand him even
after he acquired fame. He had always had a sense of being misunder-
stood, even as a child, and becoming a writer was at first a way of com-
pensating for it. "The course I have chosen," he acknowledged in the
Confessions, "to write and to conceal myself, is precisely the one that has
suited me." But the concealment was all too successful, and he was dis-
covering just how deeply his self-image was threatened by other peo-
ple's perceptions. George Eliot asks, "Who can know how much of his
most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to
have about him, until that fabric of opinion is threatened by ruin?"
Rousseau's English disaster was a classic illustration of that. So now he
proposed to reveal everything. "I must keep myself constantly before
the reader's eyes, so that he can follow me in all the aberrations of my
heart and all the recesses of my life."

By addressing the reading public rather than the deity, as Augustine
had done, Rousseau was inaugurating a modern confessional mode in
which private secrets are exposed to the largest possible audience. At the
very beginning of the Confessions, indeed, he exclaims with ringing elo-
quence that he is certain God will forgive him:

Let the trumpet of the Last Judgment sound when it likes; 1 will
present myself with this book in hand before the sovereign judge ...
Eternal Being, assemble around me the numberless throng of my
semblables; let them hear my confessions, let them groan at my dis-
graceful actions, let them blush at my wretchedness. But let each of
them reveal his heart with the same sincerity at the foot of your
throne, and then let a single one say, if he dares, "I was better than
that man."
The throng are the readers who had bought Rousseau's books and pre-
sumed to stand in judgment, and he demands that they follow his ex-
ample in telling the truth about their own faults.

It might well seem that such a procedure was no confession at all.

Grimm rather snidely remarked, "If Monsieur Rousseau were ever to
become pope, he would delete penitence from the list of the seven sacra-
ments," and another writer saw even the most shaming revelations as
self-serving: "He seems to have formed the plan of depicting himself in
the mire in order to show that he escaped from it. There is a kind of
vanity in saying, 'I was nothing and 1 became famous; 1 was a liar and I
chose the motto vitam impendere vero.'" As Blake trenchantly put it long
afterward, "The book written by Rousseau called his Confessions is an
apology and cloak for his sin and not a confession." But even if Rous-
seau denied other people's right to judge him, he never stopped judg-
ing himself. Un appeasable guilt for actions long past - the abandoned
children, the stolen ribbon -lay at the heart of the Confessions. Rous-
seau got rid of original sin and held that man is naturally good, but
much of his own behavior remained bafflingly bad, and when he set out
to penetrate the inner darkness he invented modern autobiography. He
probably believed at first that by reviewing his life he could explain
clearly who he was and why. But the more he probed his recollections,
the more he was brought to a halt by incidents that made no sense and
yet seemed profoundly significant. And although he was convinced that
he possessed an essential integrity to which he must be true, he was
forced to acknowledge, as he says when narrating his encounter with
Mme de Larnage during the journey to Montpellier, "There are times
when 1 seem so little like myself that one would take me for another
man of completely opposite character."

Montaigne, Rousseau's great predecessor in self-analysis, pursued an
intellectual quest, with a genial skepticism and the motto Que sais-je,
"What do I know?" Rousseau's quest was more visceral, as Trousson
says: "the anguished and contradictory 'Who am I?' of modern con-
sciousness." Pondering the strange vicissitudes of his life, Rousseau
came to believe that he was most himself when he was acting most
unpredictably. He repeatedly tells of moments that he describes with
words like "caprice," "intoxication," "extravagance," "delirium," and
"madness," moments that are pressure points in what Marcel Raymond
calls "a psychology of rupture and discontinuity." Instead of singling
out typical episodes, he focuses on atypical ones, strange and unsettling
occasions when he seemed to act totally out of character and yet was
profoundly himself. It is as if his true and deepest self is released by
these ruptures, like volcanic vents.

There is a double perspective throughout the Confessions, and the
tension between the two angles of vision gives it a kind of stereoscopic
depth. On the one hand, Rousseau never abandoned his conviction of a
fundamental core of self. But on the other hand, he understood that the
self is profoundly shaped by life experiences. To probe the ones that
seemed most hauntingly peculiar became his method for finding out
who he was, and in seeking to detect hidden patterns in them he was
starting out on a path that would lead eventually to psychoanalysis.

From Julian by Gore Vidal

 Admittedly their worship of corpses did not appeal to
him, but he was later to find manifestations of "the One'
in even odder places. Had Julian been what he thought b
was-a philosopher in the tradition of Plato-One might haw
understood his dislike of the Christian nonsense. He would
have been like you and me. But Julian was concerned
finally, with the idea of personal immortality, the one obsession
Christians share with those who are drawn to the old mystery cults.

Despite everything Julian wrote on the subject, I have never
understood precisely why he turned against the religion of
his family. After all, Christianity offered him nearly everything
he needed. If he wanted to partake symbolically of the bod
of a god, why not remain with the Christians and eat their
bread and drink their wine instead of reverting to the bread
and wine of Mithras? It is not as if there was anything lacking
in Christianity. The Christians have slyly incorporated mos
of the popular elements of Mithras and Demeter and Dionysos'
into their own rites. Modem Christianity is an encyclopedi
of traditional superstition.
I suspect the origin of Julian's disaffection is in his family.

Constantius was a passionate Christian, absorbed by doctrinal
disputes. With, good reason, Julian' hated Constantius.
Therefore, he hated Christianity. This puts the matter f
too simply, yet I always tend to the obvious view of things since
it is usually the correct one, though of course one can never,
get to the bottom of anything so mysterious as another man's
character, and there is a mystery here.

Julian was Christian in everything except his tolerance of
others. He was what the Christians would call a saint. Yet
he swung fiercely away from the one religion which suited'
him perfectly, preferring its eclectic origins, which he then
tried to systematize into a new combination quite as ridiculous
as the synthesis he had rejected. It is a strange business and
there is no satisfactory explanation for Julian's behavior. Of
course he claimed that Bishop George's partisanship disgust,
him as a boy, and that Porphyry and Plotinus opened his:
eyes to the absurdity of Christian claims. Well and good. But
then why turn to something equally absurd? Granted, no
educated man can accept the idea of a Jewish rebel as god.
But having rejected that myth, how can one then believe that
the Persian hero-god Mithras wasbom of light striking rock,
on December 25th, with shepherds watching his birth?
am told that the Christians have just added those shepherd
to the birth of Jesus.) Or that Mithras lived in a fig tree which
fed and clothed him, that he fought with the sun's first
creation, the bull, that he was dragged by it (thus symbolizing'
man's suffering) until the bull escaped; finally, at the command
of the sun god, Mithras stabs the bull with a knife and from
the beast's body come flowers, herbs, wheat; from the blood,
wine; from the seed, the first man and woman. Then Mithras
is called up to heaven, after celebrating a sacramental last
supper. Time's end will be a day of judgment when all will
rise from their graves and evil will be destroyed while
the good will live forever in the light of the sun.
Between the Mithraic story and its Christian sequel I
see no essential difference. Admittedly, the Mithraic code of
conduct is more admirable than the Christian. Mithraists
believe that right action is better than contemplation. They
favor old-fashioned virtues like courage and self-restraint.
They were the first to teach that strength is gentleness. All
of this is rather better than the Christian hysteria which
vacillates between murder of heretics on the one hand and
a cringing rejection of this world on the other. Nor can a
Mithraist be absolved of sin by a sprinkle of water. Ethically,
I find Mithras the best of all the mystery cults. But it is absurd
to say it is any more "true" than its competitors. When one
becomes absolute about myth and magic, the result can only
be madness.
Julian speaks continually of his love of Hellenism. He
honestly believed he loved Plato and reasonable discourse.
Actually, what he craved was what so many desire in this
falling time: assurance of personal immortality. He chose
to reject the Christian way for reasons which I find obscure,
while settling on an equal absurdity. Of course I am sym-
pathetic to him. He dealt the Christians some good blows and
that delighted me. But I cannot sympathize with his fear of
extinction. Why is it so important to continue after death? We
never question the demonstrable fact that before birth we did
not exist, so why should we fear becoming once more what
we were to begin with? I am in no ,hurry to depart. But I
look on nothing as just that: no thing. How can one fear no
thing?
As for the various ceremonies and trials the Mithraic initiate
must undergo, the less said the better. I understand that one
of the twelve tortures is the pulling out one by one of the pubic
hairs, a most spiritual discipline. I was told that part
of the ceremonies are conducted while everyone is roaring
drunk and trying to jump over ditches blindfolded, a symbol
no doubt of the bewildering life of the flesh. But men are
impressed by secret rites, the more gruesome and repellent the
better. How sad we are, how terrified to be men!

Libanius: It is not often one finds a philosopher so entirely
lacking in the religious sense. It is like being born unable to
perceive colors which are plain to everyone else.

on Rousseau

what was truly original

was his claim that each person has a unique temperament that

needs freedom to flourish. His concern was not with methods of instruction

but with its purpose. Plenty of writers had criticized the

mindless memorization and brutal discipline of conventional teaching.

The historian Gibbon, for example, wrote bitterly, "A school is the cavern

of fear and sorrow. The mobility of the captive youths is chained to

a book and a desk ... They labor, like the soldiers of Persia, under the

scourge." But the usual solution was only palliative, recommending reforms

whose goal was still to produce docile members of society. John

Locke in his influential Thoughts Concerning Education stressed the

malleability of young minds, which resembled "white paper or wax, to

be molded and fashioned as one pleases," and he placed heavy emphasis

on discipline. "Those that intend ever to govern their children should

begin it whilst they are very little, and look that they perfectly comply

with the will of their parents. Would you have your son obedient to you

when past a child? Be sure then to establish the authority of a father as

soon as he is capable of submission, and can understand in whose power

he is." Recommendations like these seemed self-evidently correct not

just to conservatives but to progressive thinkers too, including Mme

d'Epinay, who wrote a didactic treatise of her own called Letters to My

Son, in which she argued for rigorous discipline.

In Rousseau's view it was a disastrous mistake to teach children to

fear authority. He held that the only power they should face was brute

necessity, the obstacles to freedom that are inherent in the very nature of

things. They would then choose their actions because they understood

what needed to be done, not to please adults or to escape punishment.

Locke recommended influencing children by alternating doses of "esteem

and disgrace," but Rousseau wanted to protect his imaginary child

from the pressure of other people's expectations. His intention was to

show how a person might prepare for life in society without sacrificing

integrity, "seeing with his own eyes, feeling with his own heart, and

governed by no authority except his own reason." In another formulation,

"He is a savage made to live in cities"; or again, "He is not the man

of man but the man of nature."

As for the usual content of education, Rousseau held that it was

worth having but was not an end in itself, and he challenged conventional

pedagogy with insights that have been renewed and forgotten by

every subsequent educational estabiishment. Like Socrates, he believed

that true knowledge flowed from asking questions, not from memorizing

answers. "I am teaching my pupil an art that is very long, very painful,

and assuredly not what your pupils have, the art of being ignorant

... You impart knowledge, well and good; I am concerned with the

means of acquiring it." Underlying the entire work was the insight that

had burst upon Rousseau on the road to Vincennes. As he ringingly declared

at the beginning of Emile - all of his books are remarkable for

memorable opening sentences - "Everything is good as it comes from

the hands of the author of things; everything degenerates in the hands

of man."

Years after Emile became a success, Rousseau restated his position

more fully: "This book ... is simply a treatise on the natural goodness of

man intended to show how vice and error , are foreign to his constitution,

invade it from outside, and imperceptibly alter it." Traditional religious

teaching held that each person enters the world already infected

by sin and needs to be forcibly shaped into a moral agent. Enlightenment

theory held that each person enters the world a blank slate-

Locke's famous tabula rasa - waiting to be written on by sensory experience

and by parents and teachers. Rousseau believed that each person

enters the world with a disposition that needs to grow according to its

own nature. The child has much to learn, but only if he learns it in his

own way, and most of what usually passes for education is counterproductive.

"Dare I expound the greatest, most important, and most useful

rule in all of education? It is not to gain time but to lose it."

Most compelling of all in Emile is the deep note of sadness over the

waste in life and the insistence that education shouldn't make it worse.

"How rapidly.we pass our time on this earth!" Rousseau exclaims. "The

first quarter of life flows away before we know what to do with it, and

the last quarter after we have ceased to enjoy it. At first we don't know

how to live, soon we're no longer able to, and in the space that separates

these two useless extremes, three-quarters of our time is consumed by

sleep, labor, pain, constraint, and distress of every kind. Life is short, not

so much because it lasts such a short time as because we have almost

none of that time to enjoy it." Close to half of the children born in the

eighteenth century died before reaching adulthood, and their all too

brief existence was being poisoned by needless constraint and beatings

(a tutor in Fielding's Tom Jones is expressively named Thwackum).

"Even ifI were to suppose that this education had reasonable objectives,

how can one see without indignation the poor unfortunates subjected to

an intolerable yoke and condemned to continual labor like galley slaves,

with no assurance that so much effort will ever do them any good? The

age of gaiety goes by amidst tears, punishments, threats, and slavery."

To encourage Emile to think for himself, the tutor presents him with

a series of covertly orchestrated challenges. When he figures out how

to grow beans, he is in raptures over his achievement, but is thunderstruck

afterward when the family gardener rudely wrecks hishandiwork.

Robert, the gardener, then explains that when Emile was digging

he unknowingly ruined a crop of melons, and from this blunder he

learns the value of private property. The point is that children need to

grasp ethical principles through concrete experience, something very

different from memorizing verbal formulas. "It is easy to put into their

mouths words such as kings, empires, wars, conquests, revolutions, and

laws, but when it becomes a question of attaching distinct ideas to these

words, it will be a long distance from the conversation with Robert the

gardener to all of these explanations."

On another occasion Emile is astounded when a conjurer gets a

floating wax duck to follow a piece of bread in his hand. After he returns

home, the tutor helps him make a duck of his own and explains

the mystery by demonstrating what happens if a magnet is hidden inside.

There must have been a magnet in the duck and a piece of metal in

the bread. Swollen with pride at his own cleverness, Emile hurries back

to the conjurer, whom he publicly embarrasses by duplicating the trick

with some bread of his own that contains metal. "The boy cries out and

shivers with pleasure. The clapping and acclamation of the crowd make

him dizzy and he is beside himself." But the lesson is not over. The next

time Emile shows up, the duck inexplicably recoils from his bread, but

responds with alacrity to the conjurer's bare hand and even to the sound

of his voice. The crowd jeers, and Emile returns home baffled and humiliated.

Invited by the tutor, the conjurer drops by to explain how it

was done: he had an accomplice hidden under the table with a powerful

magnet of his own. The experience teaches Emile "how many mortifying

consequences are attracted by the first movement of vanity," and he

has thus learned two things at once, the principle of magnetism and the

principle that pride goes before a fall.

When Emile learns to reason, then, it is in the context of immediate

self-interest. Whereas writers on education normally thought of children

as rational beings, Rousseau put emotions first, suggesting that the

age of nature lasted until the age of twelve and that the age of reason

did not begin until then. Since children are necessarily self-centered,

they keep on pushing until they get what they want, and they need to

learn that limits are imposed by existence itself, not just by the arbitrary

decrees of adults. Rousseau describes another boy, more willful than

Emile, who would insist on going for walks whenever it was most inconvenient

for his tutor. The solution was to let him go off by himself,

whereupon he got lost, was jeered at by passersby, and became seriously

scared. An accomplice of the tutor's, following to make sure the boy

came to no harm, then brought him home chastened and repentant.

Such a scenario is obviously manipulative, especially when Rousseau

adds that the neighbors had all been coached to play their parts. At

times the tutor's satisfaction at his power almost deserves to be called sadism;

Starobinski does call it that. But manipulativeness is the point.

Growing up in society, no one can possibly live as a natural man, and

the tutor's role is to create artificial situations in which Emile will develop

properly without realizing it, just as the servants at Clarens believe

they are following their own wishes when they carry out Wolmar's.