Youthfulness and Rousseau’s Anti-Pluralist Realism about Political Pluralism

• Author: Antong Liu
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211017230
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/10659129211017230

Political Research Quarterly

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129211017230

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Jean-Jacques Rousseau claims the following in the Social

Contract (SC) on the conditions of successful

legislation:

A thousand nations on earth have been brilliant which could

never have tolerated good laws, and even those which could

have tolerated them could have done so only for a very brief

period in the course of their entire lifetime. Peoples, like

men, are docile only in their youth, with age they grow

incorrigible. (72 [3:385])1

This claim signals the vital role of “youth” in determining

the prospect of legislation: Peoples cannot preserve their

integrity without good laws, but good laws will not be

accepted by peoples not “in their youth.” Successful leg-

islation depends on this youthful moment.

Rousseau is undoubtedly interested in images of youth-

ful individuals, such as the one in Emile, but the above

passage is noteworthy for its focus on youthful societies or

peoples. He also states in the Second Discourse (SD) that

the pre-agricultural time during which savages live

together is “the genuine youth of the world” (167 [3:171]),

and in Considerations on the Government of Poland

(Poland) that, despite numerous unfavorable conditions,

legislation remains possible for the Polish people who

“still displays all the fire of youth” (178 [3:954]). Although

Rousseau scholars seldom deny that youth is a meaningful

concept, the implications of the youth of a people are

rarely appreciated. For some, such an “organic metaphor”

betrays Rousseau’s totalitarian tendency (Berlin 2002,

179). For more sympathetic interpreters, Rousseau’s “per-

sonifications” are intended as tools for “Everyman” to

diagnose his personal psychological diseases that society

inflicts on him (Shklar 1969, 165–167), not as ways for us

to understand society. Unsurprisingly, then, the relation-

ship of the youth of a people to legislation has been noted

only in passing (Gildin 1983, 74; Masters 1968, 369–370;

Schaeffer 2010, 381–382; Villa 2017, 25), and some con-

clude that, since legislation must take place when a people

is in its youth, a time period that has gone forever, the

failure of legislation is “all but inevitable” (Shklar 1969,

159) and “testif[ies] to the depth of Rousseau’s rejection

of contemporary society” (Ellenburg 1976, 235).

1017230PRQXXX10.1177/10659129211017230Political Research QuarterlyLiu

research-article2021

1Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

Corresponding Author:

Antong Liu, Political Theory Project, Brown University, 25 George

St., Providence, RI 02906, USA.

Email: antong_liu@brown.edu

Youthfulness and Rousseau’s

Anti-Pluralist Realism about

Political Pluralism

Antong Liu1

Abstract

Rousseau’s attitude toward political pluralism is receiving renewed attention. Against the traditional portrayal of the

utopian, anti-pluralist Rousseau, scholars today either explore how his theory of peoplehood supports an agonistic and

pluralist vision of democracy or defend his realist willingness to accommodate the plurality of factions within a polity.

Challenging both interpretations, I explore the oft-ignored relationship between legislation and what I call youthfulness

in Rousseau’s work. The youthfulness of a people is the subconscious and unsophisticated national bond among its

members. It is an outcome of their spontaneous interactions rather than an artificial creation. Unlike other conditions

of legislation, which only determine how legislation should be carried out, youthfulness is the essential precondition for

successful legislation. It determines if legislation can be carried out and thus sets limit to the Legislator’s creativity. This

relationship between youthfulness and legislation reveals Rousseau’s anti-pluralist realism. It not only confirms that

inevitable political pluralism need not undermine the unity of a society, but also questions our capability of sustaining

the peoplehood of a society whose members refuse to recognize one another as compatriots.

Keywords

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, youthfulness, legislation, the Legislator, political pluralism

2022, Vol. 75(3) 607–619

Article