11 - Rousseau’s Challenge to Locke (and to Us)

Summary

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and John Locke both take up the daunting task of educating free individuals, a task whose success is threatened by a parent's or tutor's need to rule over children who cannot rationally consent. Rousseau's objection to Locke centers not on Rousseau's demand for something better than sobriety and moderation but on his considered view that Lockean man has neither of those things. The trouble with Lockean man is not that he is inauthentic or insufficiently inner-directed, but that he is a would-be tyrant who in his heart of hearts despises reason and morality. This chapter explains how esteem and disgrace fit into Locke's Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Rousseau's attack on Locke, then, far from depending on an appeal to newer and higher political goals, like authenticity, imply that Lockean education undermines very old and modest political goals.