Rousseau was born in 1712 in Geneva and spent a lot of time travelling. He was associated with many female aristicrats and although he never married he had five children with his servant partner, who was deemed not good enough as she had no education and was not particularly attractive. His relationship with her was not understandable and people found it difficult to comprehend why he stayed with her. Despite this, they had five children, each one was orphaned straight after the birth. Ironically, one of his first books was about how to educate children; not a subject he would have thought to be expert on after orphaning all of this children.
Rousseau was seen as the 'father' of Romanticism and typically of Romanticists he thought passionately rather than rationally, whilst believing that scoiety was evil and that we should return to our former 'state of nature'. Rousseau believed that this was when we were born free, we had no language and so were almost animalistic. This was a time before law and Kings and Queens distorted us and as a result damaged society.
Furthermore, Rousseau strongly diasgareed with Locke and Hobbes' views of the 'state of nature'. Lockes' being that people were good as he focused on people's rights and possessions as he believed we had the right to own things and that we get rationality from God. His view was very influential in the US constitution. Rousseau argued that ' The earth belongs to us all. The earth belongs to no one.' Hobbes, however, believed the 'state of nature' was destructive and so a God-like leader had to be elected. This leader was required to do only two things; to protect individuals and to protect the country. As long as theses two requirements were fulfilled, he was allowed to do whatever he wanted.
Rousseau identified society as being the major problem, as with society comes self-esteem; thus meaning that we start to see ourselves form the point of view of others and therefore, self-esteem is the cause of most inequalities and the progression of civilisation becomes responsible for all of our miseries. Despite these beliefs, Rousseau recognises that we cannot return to our former 'state of nature', he declares, 'Taking men as they are and laws as they might be.' This was a clear attack on Hobbes and Locke, but also reminiscent of Machiavelli's, 'Prince
The problem, Rousseau therefore, discovered was to; "find a form of association, which protects and defends, with all the common force, the person and goods of each associate and by means of which each one while uniting with all obeys only himself and remains as free as before." This being a combination of his own, Hobbes and Locke's beliefs. The solution he found to this problem was that of, 'The Social Contract'. The General Will was his main idea for this solution, meaning that he believed there should be a direct democracy with no representation. We all contribute to this 'General Will' as when we obey its laws ,we obey ourselves.
There were, however, criticisms of Rousseau's 'General Will', one of these was that it could turn into a tyranny of law and be seen as a new form of dictatorship. Rousseau said that anyone who refused to obey the 'General Will' will be, "forced to be free"(forced to obey te law).
Rousseau had died by the time the French Revolution began, however, his approaches we still very much influential to the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which was similar to the US Bill of Rights. Rousseau's following statement was a very influential one at this time, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights." Law is the expression of the, 'General Will'. Every citizen has the right to participate personally, or through his representative in its foundation.
Romanticism was the idea of the uniqueness of the individual and the goodness of the primitve man, or 'noble savage'. This movement was a reaction against the enlightenment and believed in the supremacy of emotions. Romanticists preferred aesthetic over the utilitarian standards and rural over urban.