Rousseau's Rediscovered Communion des Coeurs: Cosmopolitanism in the Reveries of the Solitary Walker
| Author | Jason Neidleman |
| Published date | 01 March 2012 |
| Date | 01 March 2012 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00899.x |
| Subject Matter | Original Article |
Rousseau’s Rediscovered Communion des Coeurs:
Cosmopolitanism in the Reveries of
the Solitary Walkerpost_89976..94
Jason Neidleman
University of La Verne
Among his various interventions into the debate between patriotism and cosmopolitanism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s
most direct and forceful statements expressed a preferencefor patr iotism. As a result,there has long been a sense among
his interpreters that Rousseau opposed cosmopolitanism. This interpretation, I argue in this article, is too narrow to
accommodate the breadth of Rousseau’s writings on patriotism and cosmopolitanism. From the Discourses,toEmile,
to the Reveries, Rousseau’s reflections on patriotism and cosmopolitanism were ambivalent. Rousseau defended
patriotism not on its own merits but on the basis of its relative superiority to abstract cosmopolitanism, which
Rousseau dismissed as powerless to motivate moral action. This leaves open the possibility of another kind of
cosmopolitanism – an authentic, heartfelt cosmopolitanism – which,if it could be realized, would be preferable even
to patriotism. In the Reveries, I argue, Rousseau discovered just such a heartfelt cosmopolitanism, one that points
toward an inclusive model of civic affect.
Keywords: Rousseau; reverie; cosmopolitanism; affect
Among his various interventions into the debate between patriotism and cosmopolitanism,
Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most direct and forceful statements expressed a preference for
patriotism. As a result, there has long been a sense among Rousseau’s interpreters that
Rousseau opposed cosmopolitanism. Richard Velkley encapsulates this consensus:
Rousseau ... regards a primary attachment to one’s own society as the necessary foundation for
citizenship at all times and places, and he does not subscribe to Enlightenment doctrines of the
progress of the nations toward a common humanity.Cosmopolitan openness for Rousseau is
therefore an attitude fitting only for philosophers (Velkley, 2002, p.17).1
This interpretation is too narrow to accommodate the breadth of Rousseau’s writings on
the theme of patriotism and cosmopolitanism. From the Second Discourse,toEmile and the
Moral Letters, to the writings on Saint-Pierre, and the Reveries of the Solitary Walker,
Rousseau’s thoughts on patriotism and cosmopolitanism were ambivalent.While he fre-
quently described cosmopolitanism in disparaging ter ms, he just as often gave it a positive
charge. If we read Rousseau as hostile to cosmopolitanism,what are we to make of his deep
admiration for the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, who wrote cosmopolitan works on international
peace?2How will we accommodate Rousseau’s praise in the Second Discourse for what he
called ‘great cosmopolitan souls,who surmount the imag inary barrier s that separate Peoples
and who, following the example of the sovereign Being who created them, include the
whole human race in their benevolence?’ (iii:178; iv:54) This passage, along with others of
a similar if less vociferous tenor,compel a reconsideration of the anti-cosmopolitan reading.
In particular, I develop in this article a cosmopolitan reading of Rousseau’s final work, the
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9248.2011.00899.x
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2012 VOL 60, 76–94
© 2011The Author.Political Studies © 2011 Political Studies Association
Reveries of the SolitaryWalker, and describe how that reading bears on contemporary attempts
to define a role for affect in democratic politics.
Rousseau’s divergent claims about cosmopolitanism are best explained with reference to
his insistence on distinguishing between what is best in theory and what is best for actually
existing societies. In theory, Rousseau revered cosmopolitanism but, in practice, he ques-
tioned its power to motivate moral action in actually existing societies. Put simply,
Rousseau’s critique of cosmopolitanism was pragmatic, not pr incipled. It was one conse-
quence, among many, of Rousseau’s pledge to construct a practicable political theory, one
that, as he put it at the outset of the Social Contract,‘takes men as they are’ and tries ‘always
to reconcile ... what r ight permits with what interest prescribes, so that justice and utility
are not at variance’ (iii:351; iv:131). Virtue, Rousseau held, flour ishes more as a conse-
quence of people having been inspired than of their having been convinced, and he did not
believe that cosmopolitanism could match patriotism’s capacity to inspire. In theory, of
course, a cosmopolitan love of humanity could supply the motivation for virtue, but a more
particulière love of la patr ie is far more likely to inspire self-sacrifice in practice. It was on this
basis that Rousseau defended patriotism and criticized cosmopolitanism. Rousseau
defended patriotism, in other words, not on the basis of its inherent superiority but rather on
the basis of its relative superiority as an alter native to abstract cosmopolitanism.
The ambivalence of Rousseau’s critique of cosmopolitanism has been noticed by writers
such as Grace Roosevelt,TzvetanTodorov,Timothy O’Hagan and Helena Rosenblatt.3This
article extends their insights to Rousseau’s broader corpus, the Reveries in particular, in
order to recover in Rousseau’s writings the possibility of an authentic, heartfelt cosmo-
politanism which, if it could be realized, would be preferable even to patriotism.It was just
such a heartfelt cosmopolitanism that Rousseau discovered in the self-imposed exile
described in the Reveries. Left to himself, ‘alone on earth, no longer having any brother,
neighbor, fr iend or society other than myself’, Rousseau’s quest for communion did not
end (R, i:995; vii:3). Rather, in this most unlikely of circumstances, his desire for com-
munion was reconfirmed and expressed in a newfound cosmopolitanism.4The Reveries
brought together Rousseau’s long-standing theoretical admiration for cosmopolitanism
with his belief in the necessity of a sentimental foundation for a moral community. In the
Reveries, Rousseau discovered what he had previously believed to be highly unlikely: a
sentimental pathway to a cosmopolitan love of humankind. Although reverie began for
Rousseau as an apolitical, if not anti-political, medium, it ultimately became a new path
toward compassion, openness and a ‘communion des coeurs’ (communion of hearts).5This
newfound cosmopolitanism points toward a model of civic affect that attends to concerns
about patriotism’s tendency toward jingoism and exclusivity.
Rousseau’s Anti-cosmopolitanism
For cosmopolitanism, Rousseau had an intellectual and emotional preference, but, as a
political scientist, he doubted cosmopolitanism’s power to sway the hearts of men and
women.‘The love of humanity gives many virtues’,he wrote in a fragment on politics, ‘but
not courage or heroism’ (iii:536). For a few great souls, cosmopolitanism may provide
sufficient motive for the self-sacrifice that virtue requires, but only for those few who, like
Socrates, can extend their affect to all humankind without at the same time diminishing its
ROUSSEAU AND COSMOPOLITANISM 77
© 2011The Author.Political Studies © 2011 Political Studies Association
POLITICAL STUDIES: 2012, 60(1)
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