Disorganized responses-
This is the first time I've read anything by Rousseau in ten years.
I'm not sure I understand what he means by 'alienated...' between the influences of marxism and the x-files, I am a bit confused. Perhaps that all persons are equally alienated from the resources of community, i.e. no single person has privileged access over others? In this case, society is built on reciprocal compromise from all parties.
If that is what he means, then how can property be an inalienable right, considering that property is one thing that creates the circumstances of inequality in the first place?
Also, a general interest - towards the end of the 19th, excavations within Paris began to reveal some of the oldest architecture in the city, for instance, les Arenes de Lutece, which was a 1st - 3rd century Roman ampitheatre that existed only in stories until it was rediscovered by somebody who was trying to build a tramway: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ar%C3%A8nes_de_Lut%C3%A8ce). Characters such as Victor Hugo led a cultural movement to preserve these sites, which otherwise may have been destroyed for the sake of developement. Hugo, I believe, was also involved in the recuperation of Notre Dame...anyway I'm interested in the considerable influence artists such as Hugo were able to have in terms of recuperating the remains of the gothic and classical.
Thanks Tim!
ReplyDeletePutting this together was the first I'd read Rousseau in a decade too, and yeah, I tend to associate the term 'alienation' with Marx more than anything. The whole passage about alienation is a bit odd. It reminds me of Hegel's writing about freedom and the State in his Philosophy of History, which is rather ominous. Even if we give the term Alienation a kinder gloss than the Marxist sense, it sets up an essential dichotomy between the individual and the state, and defines 'freedom' in a way--total renunciation on behalf of the citizen--that's strangely susceptible to totalitarianism (not as much as in Hegel, though... at least Rousseau posits representative government).
In Vol. II of the reader, which I'm putting together now, there will be a passage from Proudhon where he directly refutes Rousseau's defense of property. Until then, we can see how property is a constant theme in all of the political documents until the Paris Commune (the Charter, and Napoleonic Code in this vol., and others later on). In the Declaration, point 17: "Property is an inviolable and sacred right."
The preservation activism of the Romantics is something that I've been looking forward to talking about. My understanding (I'd like to find more info on this) is that Hugo's 'Notre Dame de Paris' (Hunchback...) was primarily designed as propaganda to prevent the scheduled demolition of the cathedral as a public eyesore. Tomislav is reading 'Notre Dame' right now (I haven't read it yet), he may have some more info or ideas... I didn't know about Hugo's involvement with saving the Arena, but it makes a lot of sense. Few people in the 19th Century could mobilise public opinion like Victor Hugo!
Have you been to the Arena in person yet, Tim?
This issue leads in all kinds of interesting directions: Romanticist historians were the first to affirm that Medieval culture was anything but worthless barbarism, the first to systematically catalogue medieval architecture and compile and reproduce its art and literature; Romanticist architects were the first in centuries in France to be influenced by Gothic architecture.
And there was a whole sub-sub-culture within the avant-garde during the 1830s called Medievalist Romanticism, for whom Hugo's book was the battle standard. This community included a number of architects, sculptors, historians, book designers, etc. who dressed in Medieval and Renaissance clothing, explored arcane texts on mysticism, etc. and who I suspect were leaders of the activism in preserving these buildings.
Gautier wrote a great fictionalized portrait of this micro-culture, mostly based on his friend Célestin Nanteuil, which starts at page 271 here:
http://www.archive.org/stream/jackandjillthewo028371mbp/jackandjillthewo028371mbp_djvu.txt
Some of it may end up in the reader for next quarter.
I've already started an anthology of Medievalist Romanticism, that we can funnel texts and images into as we go along (we can do the same with all kinds of topics, just make a suggestion...)
i have been to the arena...the pit, the stage, and the first few rows of seats are still intact and today it has the atmosphere of a nice park. its hard to tell how much of it is restored, or how much has been added on and how much is 'original' architecture, but i guess the interesting thing with sites like that is how they change over time and not how they stay preserved.
ReplyDeletei don't know much else about Hugo and to be honest have never read anything by him, so it will be fun to learn more.
when i first read rousseau it was presented as one of these 'pure' texts, a founding text or whatever, and it's interesting to read it now and see how fractured and vague it appears.
Nice!
ReplyDeleteAre there any plaques or anything talking about the preservation effort?
I just started reading Hugo about a year ago, I've read 'Hernani', a fair amount of his verse, and some scattered essays, but I'm just beginning his fiction--a few chapters into his Gothic novel 'Han of Iceland'. His range and his gigantic impact on the culture are huge enough to be baffling. There will be a lot of Hugo in the readings, in addition to what we dig upto post here. Some of Les Miserables in the current book, and later on there will be stuff from Hernani, Cromwell, Han of Iceland, History of a Crime, Notre-Dame of Paris, and more...