Reconciling irreconcilable ideas – in response to Qian’s essay

Thank you, Qian, for allowing me to publish your essay. This is one more step towards our intellectual discussion, so I hope it can be made the norm in the future.

Your standpoint is very clear – defending that the idea of “general will” is not a threat to individuality, but rather, a blessing. According to Rousseau’s theory, “general will” is unanimous, infallible, wisest, and therefore the best thing that can happen to human society. After all, who doesn’t want to get all the benefits (positive freedom), and be “as free (negative freedom) as before”?

Well, Rousseau, like all other political philosophers, is a brilliant story teller. His description of “general will”, and the society directed by it, is really appealing. The problem is whether such an all-appealing thing exists?

The problem is, Just like all utopian-tellers, Rousseau is speculating – yes, speculating – about something that we do not know. In real life, such general will does not exist, nor does the “superman-state” of Fascism or the “all-distributor” of Communism. And here comes Isaiah Berlin’s argument: when such a thing doesn’t exist and you pretend that it does, you are probably using a false “general will” to oppress people.

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Since people created states, the relation of “general will” and “individual will” has always been an unsolved question. The state is a creation, and it does not think for itself; thus its creator, people, wants to enable it to think. Democracy proposes that the general opinion be generated from summing up individual ones. And a new question, a question that excited theorists for ages, arises: Is the conglomeration of ideas smarter than its constituent ideas, just like a beautiful piece of music created out of a sea of senseless notes or a poem created out of a bunch of boring letters? Or is it the contrary, that the democratic output be nothing more than a collection of personal interests? Or even worse, like in Isaiah Berlin’s view, that it be a potential justification for tyranny? Or, in Mill’s argument, that it be conducive to mob rule and stifling of originality?

Or, it is neither too great nor too lousy, and be somewhere between the extremes?

It is interesting to compare Berlin and Rousseau, who are both a bit paranoid in their extremist belief in positive and negative freedom. I can envision them arguing furiously if they happen to meet, especially when neither of them has an agreeable character.

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But things tend not to be like that, and compromises have to be achieved – in this sense, Mill’s argument seems very useful, that all proclamations of truth are just “half-truths”. It is a bit sad that most thinkers tend to be biased, even when they are thinking of things that are not arbitrary. Say capitalism. Adam Smith, being a strong defender of it, sees only its benefit of profit maximization; Marx, a strong critic, sees only it’s drawback of wealth polarization. They all passed away now, and history gave its answer: a balance is achieved by combining welfare equality and market efficiency. Looking back, it seems so amazing that such great minds can be so biased, but that’s the case. And it not only applies to those two people. It applies to all philosophers.

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I’ve digressed too much, and sorry for that. Coming back to your essay – if I’m given topic you wrote on, I would spend half of the time defending Berlin and the other half championing Rousseau. They are both brilliant in some sense, and blind in other areas. A balance between their arguments is the best answer for the question they are trying to address, and our project is trying to find the balance point.

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I’ve been babbling on without a thesis for more than six hundred words – they are all random thoughts, and it’s better to cease such activity. Qian, I do think your essay merit more than the grade you received. Helene is simply being critical. &