Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
Julie, a novel
This week – Rousseau. I am in the last books of the semester with a paper and presentation due next week – plus three books left to write journal reflections on. This being one of the three – Julie, or the New Heloise – a fairly hefty novel of 450 pages (that’s the abridged version) penned in 1761. Now considered somewhat of a slow read, this epistolary book was perhaps the best-seller of the 18th century and fanned the emotional flames of its readers who were enchanted by the doomed love affair of the main characters – Julie and the so-nicknamed lover Saint-Preux – which echoes the historical figures of Abelard and Heloise.
Purporting to be the letters between, and concerning the two lovers (lovers meet and fall in love/lust, match is deemed unsuitable by father, lover is sent away, letters between the lovers discovered by mother and all communication is cut off, Julie enters an arranged marriage with a man of perfect reason, lover returns to her side as tutor to children and family friend, Julie dies in tragic accident) Rousseau uses the novel to dig at deeper philosophical observations about the nature of emotion and reason, the human character, the relations between the sexes, and individual autonomy within society.
In the text emotion and reason are characterized by the different characters and their relationships to each other. Julie in the earlier chapters and St. Preux representing emotion, Julie’s cousin Claire and Monsieur de Wolmar (Julie’s husband in later chapters) representing reason with other characters supporting these roles. Through their travails, the characters demonstrate that while emotions bring out the beauty and heightened feeling for life, reason must always trump them eventually in order to bring about domestic harmony and a peaceful existence. In some ways this is considered to be a transition of age (Julie partially makes this transition after her marriage), but it is also a matter of central character (Monsieur de Wolmar asserts that he has never felt much passion and believes himself an observer rather than much of a participant in life). The measured detachment of Monsieur de Wolmar is depicted as mature and more desirable to the fevered state of melancholy the lovers exist in prior to his arrival on the scene. The cousin Claire also plays this counterpoint throughout, admonishing Julie regularly on being the author of her own heartache and being too attached to the sway of her emotions. We are to understand the ecstasy of the lovers only through the framework of their agony – thus paving the rational road for the more mature characters to lead us down.
It follows in the tale that it is in this maturity we may find the autonomy in ourselves and allow it in others – for to be held in the emotions is to be prey to jealousies and possessiveness which Julie and St. Preux both exhibit in their affair. By contrast we have Monsieur de Wolmar – who, with secret understanding of Julie’s former affair with St. Preux – allows St. Preux into his home and then encourages a close and affectionate relationship between the two former lovers. This is presented as the only truly honorable option – and it relies on the true nature of goodness that all characters possess once freed from their frenzied emotional states. There is a definite paternalism in Monsieur de Wolmar’s position — he refers to the two as his children at one point during a speech– as we are to understand that this reasoned approach is not without great feelings of affection even as the lovers are diminished by it. St. Preux is reduced to the status of Julie – a pet, a possession – of de Wolmar’s, even though he is returned from his own process of maturing abroad. Perhaps this is a nod to the castration of St. Preux in homage to the story of Abelard?
The women in Julie are strange objects, indeed – the stone-faced Claire contrasted against the virtuous and excitable Julie – which makes one wonder about Rousseau’s own relationships. Being dominated by women, my professor says, turned Rousseau on – so that would explain the strong female characters. That is, strong to a point, because Julie’s virtue is severely challenged when her lover returns under her roof. Thus, the only resolution for Julie is her death by drowning – otherwise the temptation of St. Preux in her home might prove too great. This really is the happy ending for everyone – St. Preux is left to tutor Julie’s children thus retiring from social life into a solitude in which he can nurse his past memories, de Wolmar is never betrayed by his wife, and Julie is released from the conflict between her emotions and reason eternally. It is made clear that because she is so tortured about her repressed love for St. Preux, she wishes to die, though it is undoubtedly an accident which takes her.
I quite enjoyed this work, even though the plot itself is a simple veil for Rousseau’s moral message – though the characterization of the voices behind the letters is sometimes so weak as to confuse the reader. But it’s the lives I enjoy, the details of life in 18th century Switzerland, the moral dilemmas that seem somewhat alien in the modern era – and these Rousseau gives us in great detail. The letter format brings an intimacy even as it also seems at times artificial – and I admire Rousseau’s inventiveness at pretending the letters to be “real”, found in a trunk somewhere and printed for the edification of the reader.
I am winding down on this semester – my books have now arrived for next – so we will be switching the Required Readings up soon which I am looking forward to!
Another holiday conspiracy
Perhaps it is too early – but since Christmas shopping starts long before Christmas, I direct your attention to this important holiday conspiracy. I know that many of you aren’t religious, but recognize that this subversion of American Christianity and consumerism for what it is – a message of hope and liberation:
Insert lumberjack joke here.
I have a post on Rousseau coming, but in the meantime here is a shirt that I finished last night. It was supposed to be made out of a light, summery material but instead I experimented with a cotton flannel that I bought on sale since it’s so the wrong weather for summer blouses. Worn with a thermal undershirt, this is super-warm and weather appropriate. Paired with the Daytons? Well that’s just ridiculously Pacific Northwest.
This is the shirt I learned how to do french seams on – another bonus besides the warmth!
I would like to make another version of this for summer – but that will have to wait until the cold winds stop blowing.
My nephew and Duplo!
My two-year-old nephew Nicholas playing with the Duplo firestation set that I bought for his birthday. He’s finally old enough for some of the cooler toys! Super-cute 🙂
Hume and Kant with video back-up
I am at a loss with this week’s reading – not that I can’t understand them – but I’m not feeling inspired to write much about them. For the time-being I think I am simply going to post a brief synopsis of both – hoping that after class discussion I can muster something more insightful. As a salve to an otherwise uninspired post I’ve ferreted out some video clips that are entertaining and useful. In particular, I highly recommend the RSA Animate at the end – it’s really uplifting from a potential for human thought perspective (not unlike the 18th century Enlightenment which we are exploring this week).
Before we get underway – pause for a moment to enjoy this clip of past commentary by the Simpsons on the nature of grad school:
David Hume – An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals
Out of the Scottish Enlightenment, Hume wrote this treatise as a way to explain social agreement on morals and their origins in nature, in reason and in feeling. Essentially he argues that reason alone is not a motive and that the passions have great influence on shared feeling, that moral distinctions are not derived from reason alone, but are derived from feelings of approval and disapproval, and that at least some of our virtues arise from “nature” because they in some way have utility. As much as I have difficulty with the “nature” aspects of Hume’s argument (such as – women must naturally be more chaste because of their role in child-rearing), I do appreciate his position that humans have an innate recourse to virtue and good behaviour in opposition to predecessors like Hobbes who don’t have a lot good to say about human nature.
The utility to which Hume ascribes virtues is that which arouses sentiments of sympathy in the spectator – thus we look up to those who are rich because we like the sight of abundance, the monkish attributes on the other hand are vices because no one wants to be around a monkish-sort. There is no arousal of fellow-feeling there after all – who wants to be taciturn or inwardly-reflective anyway? This is an example of Hume’s radical empiricism at work – that is, his belief that we can only know something as true if we can witness it firsthand. Since we can witness the benefits of being cheerful and its impact on those around us, we know that this is a virtue. Because we can not witness a benefit in being meditative, it is a vice. This leads to a strange morality in which the accumulation of wealth is virtuous, whereas an ascetic life is villainous. I’m not sure there are many moral philosophers who take such a position (though I am aware that some new-age thinkers advocate wealth accumulation as a positive energy in order to justify their own riches).
Of course there are problems with the empiricist approach, not to mention an approach that attempts to deal in universals. While Hume’s empiricism supports the rise in the scientific method, not to mention the eventual splintering between church and state, and is thus important – it demands that everything be seen in order to be true and it leaves little room for the notion that what is seen depends on the eye of the beholder and that gender, class, race, culture, sexuality – may prompt a different perspective on what is a virtue and what is a vice. Likewise, any attempt at describing a universal morality is hopelessly trapped in the culture from which one makes the argument. Where chastity is considered a virtue of the highest order by Hume, we know that this is not the case in many of the world’s cultures where polygamy, sex outside of marriage, polyandry and other practices have evolutionary or economic utility and are thus promoted by the society. Of course, this gets to the heart of Enlightenment universalism and its exclusive nature – so-called universal truths in actualy fact applied only to a small percentage of the world population. *Sigh*.
Here’s a little 3-minute philosophy on Hume that talks about some of his other ideas:
Immanuel Kant – What is Enlightenment?
Immanuel Kant was a German Enlightenment philosopher who was awakened in disagreement to Hume’s empiricist perspective. Rather than accept an empiricism that necessarily lead to Hume’s atheism, Kant attempted to strike a balance between empiricism and rationalism – arguing that we could know things not only because we *saw* them but because we *thought* them. In this essay, Kant argues that the Enlightenment was man breaking free of his immaturity – his self-imposed tutelage – and the dawn of a new era in which “Dare to Know” was the principle motto. He argues that superstition should be replaced by reason, tradition is to be challenged, and intellectual laziness (one grown accustomed to things the way they are) overcome.
Freedom, he claims, is key to the process of human enlightenment – the freedom to make use of one’s reason at any point. And while he is clear to point out that some rules exist to the benefit of the whole society and we must be careful to obey orders within our social roles – he maintains that the freedom to speak out in critique of social institutions and customs is imperative to transforming them.
This essay is brief, and mainly gets to the roots of the liberal democratic concept that we enjoy today – that of freedom of speech and freedom of thought. In this he relies on the concept of autonomy in thought from institutions, while at the same time acknowledging that society presses roles and responsibilities upon us which bind us to our greater community.
Here is another 3-minute philosophy piece on Kant:
And finally, the best video of all – an RSA Animate exploring the possibility of a 21st Century Enlightenment – one that shifts the parameters that Hume, Kant and others set for us and explores a world beyond radical individualism (self-aware autonomy anyone?). I’ve been on the “ideas matter” kick for the last couple of months and again, this speaker approaches our future with the kind of optimistic ideals I would love to see our world shaped by:
Red Cedar 