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Similarities Between The French Revolution And The Enlightenment

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What is a revolution? Revolution is when one form of government is overthrow, which than is replaced with a new government. I am sure most of us are familiar with how history repeats itself. That pretty much how the American revolution and the French revolution was approach to us as kids in school. They both ended in very different situation but both revolution had something relate to the Enlightenment. What is the Enlightenment? The Enlightenment was a period of time when people developed new ideas, which include people’s rights and what level of control they had. The Enlightenment large population of the people plus the rights, and equality, which led to many changes in society. The Enlightenment thinkers did not always agree on the same …show more content…

He was known as one of the most original writers of the Enlightenment. Rousseau looked at both man and woman as having the same identity. Often time women were known as the caretakers of the house and children in the family but Rousseau allowed the women to have some kind of input on ideas but it was never address that it came from a woman. Rousseau as an enlightenment thinker came up with the social contract. The social contract gave the people the right to some freedom. Like the freedom to rod and kill people and not have to suffer any consequences of breaking any laws. The social contract was an agreement that all the enlightenment thinker had to agree on but when the citizens wanted to obey the set of rules. Then the government agree to protect citizen rights. The enlightenment thinkers had the responsibility to keep the social contract intact. If the citizen obeys it than the government failed and the citizens wound no longer agree to any more of the laws. Which than leads to all the citizens revolting the rights. ‘The problem was to find a form of association in which will defend and protect with the whole common forcing the people. The citizen may still obey it and remain as free as before. This is the fundamental problem of which the social contract provides the

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The revolution was led by Maximilien Robespierre who was one a liberal thinker but after awhile he became a radical thinker and when he took control of France he was ineffective incorporating enlightenment ideas. This is shown when Robespierre tried to justify terror as being an effective way to lead a nation. The idea of terror goes against enlightenment ideas because it takes away the freedoms and power the people of society have and give most of their rights back to the leader and allows him to do what he thinks is right and gets rid of what the law states. The radical revolution went against ideas of Locke and other philosophers who believed in a democracy which would allow the citizens under the government to have equality and power in the government. Secondly, the radical revolution failed at utilizing enlightenment ideas because they took away people's rights which goes against the idea of giving people more rights.

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The Social Contract Theory stemmed from the time of the Enlightenment. This was a time of thinking outside of the forced social construct; for an individual to have their own thoughts and ideas about what was being instructed upon them. It was a time to contemplate the orders and laws given by strict verbatim. The Social Contract Theory can be defined as the authority of the government over that of the people and how the rights of an individual is threatened in return to some protection over other rights. This product even has prevalence in today’s society.

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The Social Contract is written in 4 different books by Rousseau. In general, there are issues such as how to establish the ideal political order in general, the role of ideal governments and the political role of the society. For an ideal political order, Rousseau is aiming at the social contract in his work. The work of the Society Agreement has made a great impact both in France and in Europe. So much so that Rousseau's ideas in the book used the new order to be established in his country.

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On the later enlightenment, Jean Jacques Rousseau is said to be the most famous new generation philosophe for his contribution that made the enlightenment critical, reforming and revolutionary. Some of his works were Discourse on the Inequality of Mankind, The Social Contract and Emile. In the Discourse on the Inequality of Mankind, it is said that Rousseau argued that laws and government had adopted by individuals to protect and preserve their property rights and in the process, they had been controlled by the government. According to him, the primary source of inequality was the private property. In the Social Contract, it is stated that the society agreed to follow and be governed by the general will that, in turn, forced to follow, would

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Conclusion: In Jean Rousseau’s, “The Social Contract” he states that people are willing to give up individual freedom and be ruled by others but only if their rights, happiness, and property would be better protected under a formal government rather than an anarchic. We are here for this. We want to separate from Great Britain and be independent. We want to provide you with a government that provides you with all this. All we need is your help in fighting this war.

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The Enlightenment and all the whole hopefulness that it brought began to attract deadly enemies when the peace that Kant had envisaged did not materialize. First came the wars of the French and the American republics and then the Napoleonic wars. The French revolution is considered as the first reason for the Anti Enlightenment thinkers. These wars provided a chance for notions such as mechanism, materialism and atheism to be used. Counter-Enlightenment soon emerged, which is a conservative movement which existed between the 18th and 20th centuries, doubted the outcome of a secularized science, independent from religion and materialistic view of the world.

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And so, what would happen if the people violated the social contract was the question that brought the creation of a civil society. The people also consented, unanimously, the creation of civil society and therefore leaving the state of nature also consented to allow his property to be governed by the government of his choice, and those who did not consent where left in the state of nature against the rest of society. Under the social contract, Locke explains that we must obey government that we our born under, bringing us to the concept of express consent and tacit consent. Express consent, consent given in writing or by voicing it, is binding but can never be taken away. Tacit consent is consent given silently and based more on one’s actions

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The Enlightenment changed man’s understanding of society, what started as men just questioning the world around them led to ideas that would shape countries, discredit the church, and introduce a free market. All in all, the human thought process change from “everything came from God” to “now, try to reason that”. Politically, the Enlightenment gave way to the idea of enlightened despotism, introduced by Voltaire. It described a rational form of absolutism, where the ruler was there to keep peace, provide protection. and not undermine the peace or the people.

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According to another article about John Locke it states, “In the “state of nature” that exists when there is no political authority, he claims, the law of nature (which obliges people not to harm others) tends to be inadequately obeyed and enforced, and so people agree to create a government through a social contract” (Locke, John”, 2008, para. 2). The social contract published in 1762 is a more detailed version of the two treatises of government; It focuses more on the rights of the people and the way it had an impact on the U.S. government including the people who are apart of the U.S. The purpose of the contract is to make sure that the government protects the right for the people. People give up their authority or their power to the state and they got protection. Although, people don’t actually sign this contract it is still something everyone has from birth.

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Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote the social contract in 1763, making this document a primary source however it was translated by Henry Myers so it would be considered a primary source with some secondary knowledge. This document along with Rousseau himself and John Locke played a big part in the enlightenment. Jean Jacques Rousseau built his ideas for The Social Contract off of John Locke’s ideas of a social contract being the basis of a society. In The Social Contract Rousseau keeps coming back to one major theme, the general will. He expresses throughout the document that “the first and most important conclusion from the principles we have established thus far is that the general will alone may direct the forces of the State to achieve the goal

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Any persons were not adhering to the social contract, acknowledging the state laws were threatening and not considered to be participating persons of society. CW. Mills concludes that the social contract was a method of keeping the privileged

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He was born in Switzerland on June 28, 1712, and died in France on July 2, 1778. Rousseau’s ideas of society were different than other Enlightenment thinker’s ideas. He believed in the general will; the general will is the expression of the community. He argued that Men are selfish and they do not know how to control their impulses. Although, by following the general will men would "nevertheless obey only himself..."

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In addition, it is important for a social contract to eliminate inequality to its best ability because a legitimate government is to treat its citizens fairly. This is because in a regime where different peoples are unequal in the eyes of their government, rights are allocated unequally to discriminated groups. For example, groups that are seen as lesser or minorities are not given

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Rousseau began his Social Contract with the revolutionary idea “Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chain” meaning that men are born free in their natural state but everywhere they go laws of government are restricting them from freedom. Which anger the people and made them question whether they actually live in an Enlightened age. “This danger is not so great, for by falling a few times they would finally learn to walk alone.” (Immanuel) He states that when people of the Enlightenment Age disobeyed laws, they were punished until they learn to “walk alone” or live by the laws set out for them.

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Socialization and progress are the idea that there can be an improvement in the societies through political, social and economical structures. The socialization and progress concept developed at the beginning of the 19th century in the social theories particularly through social evolutionist like Hebert Spencer and Augusta Comte. In the Enlightenment, social commentators and philosophers people began to realize they had ability to change their culture and way of living. Besides being created totally from gods, more ideas formed that people made their society. Additionally Giambattista Vico claimed that since people made their society, they also had ability to understand and appreciate it.

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