By Jean Jacques Rousseau
This is not a review.
Those who have read the confessions or a little about him know he gave his children out to be raised by others. As such, we could easily dismiss him to be unqualified in telling us how to raise children. But since I didn’t dismiss him, I can say a few things about his lessons.
On practicality in this day, almost impossible. You would need to be homeschooling and doing nothing else.
Some of the ideas I fully agree with. Don’t introduce religion until they have arrived at the age of reason. Wherever possible use demonstration and not empty words. Expose them to the less fortunate, just enough for them to learn pity but not too much to make them indifferent. Keep them, if possible, away from bad influence. Encourage them to be confident in their teacher, that way they are free to be themselves and not learn early to deceive.
His sentiments about women on the other hand deserve criticism. For example he writes
Unless a beautiful woman is an angel, her husband is the most miserable of men; and even if she were an angel he would still be the centre of a hostile crowd and she could not prevent it.
He continues to write
But ugliness which is actually repulsive is the worst misfortune; repulsion increases rather than diminishes, and it turns to hatred. Such a union is a hell upon earth; better death than such a marriage.
Elsewhere he writes
Your honour is in your keeping, hers depends on others.
The last example I will provide, and there are many more where he tells us the duties of women are tied up with their husbands or fathers. He writes for example
Her honour is to be unknown; her glory is the respect of her husband her joys the happiness of her family.
He asks his readers who between a woman busy with household chores or an author of poems and books will you address with most respect?
Well, even the very, very bright can be very, very dumb.
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Like all of us to one degree or another, Rousseau was a person of contradictions as well as a product of his times. When looking back on history, it is incumbent upon us to separate the enduring qualities of one’s life from the transient mores of the times in which they lived. For example, Thomas Jefferson both owned slaves and wrote a foundational document establishing basic human rights in government (“All men are created equal”). Was he a “good” man, a “bad” man, or just a man?
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I agree with you that we should take into consideration the times one lived before we judge them too harshly.
Since no person is wholly good or bad, can we say he was just a man, great at times and susceptible to the faults of our nature
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Yes, we can.
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You are right about that
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I believe it was in South Park, there was once a statement, which I paraphrase:
We should do what he said not what he did.
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Whoever said that, made an important truism
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I like how you summed up the reading. Do you make notes or are you able to remember all the points. I have to make notes about the points I want to explore. I tend to wonder off topic and ramble. Be well , Hugs
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No, I don’t make notes. In my reviews I mainly write what caught my attention. Maybe I have long term memory
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I concur with John.
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