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Towards a Politics of Nostalgia: Nostalgic Memory and Nascent Community in Later Rousseau Martin Mccallum Department of Politica

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Towards a Politics of Nostalgia: Nostalgic Memory and Nascent Community in Later Rousseau Martin Mccallum Department of Politica TOWARDS A POLITICS OF NOSTALGIA: NOSTALGIC MEMORY AND NASCENT COMMUNITY IN LATER ROUSSEAU MARTIN MCCALLUM DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE MCGILL UNIVERSITY, MONTREAL August, 2016 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy © Martin McCallum, 2016 i ii Abstract This dissertation reconstructs Rousseau’s philosophy of individual nostalgic memory in order to understand the nostalgia for lost community and nature that pervades Rousseau’s political works. Critics of Rousseau often accuse him of a dangerous and passive nostalgia in the face of the uncertain perils of critical thought, moral action, and political negotiation. They argue that Rousseau invites his readers to be nostalgic for forms of homogeneous community, and transparency with nature, that are possible only in fantasy – a fantasy that may only be realized through fanatical violence and the suppression of difference and dissent. Drawing from Émile, Confessions, and Rêveries, this dissertation argues that Rousseau displaces the common understanding – common both in his time and our own – of nostalgia as passive and unthinking. I argue that he develops his phenomenology of nostalgic memory from the philosophy of his (onetime) close friend, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. For Rousseau, as for Condillac, we remember and enjoy the products of our own activity: sensations and ideas that we compared and evaluated. And our comparisons and evaluations (or sentiments) responded to the pleasure, examples, and language of other people. Later nostalgic recollection thus may follow pleasure to return us to memories in community and in the physical world. Nostalgia is an invitation to compare and judge our past judgements and sentiments anew. This Condillacian philosophy of individual memory informs Rousseau’s political rhetoric and political ideals. The rhetoric of Rousseau’s political works, like that of his later autobiographical and literary works, at once attempts to recall us to our lost capacity for moral and political judgement, and to our dependence on other people. And his political texts describe ideals of political communities that, like his ideals of intimate community, are premised on our identification with the different, but consonant, activities of other people – both within the present generation, and across time. In later Rousseau, nostalgia opens us to our capacity for thought, virtue, and community. His imagined citizens, self-presentations, and literary characters think and act through their nostalgia, rather than despite this passion. iii Résumé La présente thèse reconstitue le parcours philosophique de Rousseau qui a trait à la mémoire nostalgique individuelle. Le but est de comprendre la mémoire nostalgique par rapport à la perte du sens de communauté et de nature, concept qui s’étend à toute l’œuvre politique de Rousseau. Ses détracteurs l’accusent souvent d’une nostalgie passive et dangereuse en face des périls incertains de la pensée critique, de l’action morale et de la négociation politique. Ils prétendent que Rousseau incite le lecteur à ressentir de la nostalgie envers les notions de communauté homogène et de transparence avec la nature, choses qui ne sont possibles que dans l’imaginaire – un imaginaire qui ne peut se concrétiser que par la violence fanatique et l’élimination des différences ainsi que de la libre expression. Puisant dans les œuvres Émile, Les Confessions et Les Rêveries, la présente thèse avance l’idée que Rousseau altère la notion commune – autant celle de son époque que de la nôtre – de nostalgie qui se veut passive et réactive. Je soutiens qu’il élabore sa phénoménologie de la mémoire nostalgique à partir de la philosophie de son (jadis) ami intime, Étienne Bonnot de Condillac. Pour Rousseau, comme pour Condillac, nous nous souvenons des résultats de notre propre activité et en tirons plaisir: sensations vécues et idées que nous avons comparées et évaluées. Nos comparaisons et nos évaluations (ou sentiments) sont tributaires du plaisir, des exemples et du langage des autres. Le souvenir peut ainsi se fonder sur le plaisir et nous rappeler à la mémoire des activités en communauté et dans le monde physique. La nostalgie se veut une invitation à évaluer nos jugements de valeurs et nos sentiments du passé et à les voir sous un jour nouveau. Cette philosophie condillacienne du souvenir individuel est à la base des discours et idéaux politiques de Rousseau. Le discours que tient Rousseau dans son œuvre politique, tout comme il le fait dans ses ouvrages autobiographiques et littéraires de la seconde moitié de sa vie, tente de nous ramener vers notre potentiel – perdu – de jugement moral et politique, et notre dépendance envers autrui. Ses textes politiques décrivent des idéaux de communautés politiques qui, à l’instar de ses idéaux de communautés intimes, sont fondés sur le fait que nous nous identifions aux activités différentes d’autres personnes, mais qui sont en accord avec les nôtres, tant à notre époque qu’à travers les âges. Dans ses œuvres de la seconde moitié de sa vie, la nostalgie de Rousseau nous ouvre sur notre potentiel de pensée, de vertu et de société. Les citoyens de son imaginaire, les personnages au travers desquels il se représente lui-même, et ses personnages littéraires pensent et agissent en fonction de leur nostalgie plutôt que malgré elle. iv Acknowledgements Many people contributed to the success of this dissertation. I would like to thank my supervisor, Arash Abizadeh, for his ongoing support during my degree. Dr. Abizadeh has pushed me to argue more rigorously, to articulate my ideas more explicitly and clearly, and to follow and trust my own academic desires and intuitions. My academic instincts and methods are immeasurably better for being his student. I would also like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Jacob Levy and Yves Winter, for helping me to conceive of the dissertation as whole, and to address larger literatures in political theory and philosophy. In addition, I would like to thank my defense committee, and external examiner, Elizabeth Wingrove, for their questions and suggestions. I am a better academic for having been part of stimulating intellectual communities in the Research Group on Constitutional Studies (RGCS) and the Groupe de recherche interuniversitaire en philosophie politique de Montréal (GRIPP). I am grateful for the financial and institutional support of RGCS, GRIPP, the Abner Kingman Fellowship, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). I also wish to thank Dr. Abizadeh and Dr. Levy for their financial assistance through research assistantships and conference funding. More personally, I would like to thank Alan Surkis for helping me to address academic questions more simply and directly; my colleagues Ryan Griffiths, Michael Nafi, and Robert Sparling, for reading draft versions of several chapters; and Maude Desjardins, for assisting with French translation of the abstract. I am indebted to my wife, Rebekah, my mother-in-law, Elizabeth Sheppard, and my mother, Anne McCallum, for their fine editing and proof-reading. I thank my family for their emotional and practical support throughout. My children, Juliet and Thomas also contributed indirectly to this work; their love, glee, and play balanced my writing life, and continually impressed on me the joy and activity of childhood memory. Finally, I thank Dr. Margaret (Peggy) Heller, whose undergraduate classes in history, philosophy, and literature opened my eyes to another world. This dissertation is dedicated to her memory. v Table of Contents Introduction: From Political Nostalgia to Individual Memory .............................. 1 Nostalgia for Patrie ...................................................................................................... 2 The History of Interpretation ...................................................................................... 6 Methodology ................................................................................................................. 9 Chapter One .......................................................................................................... 13 Thinking Nostalgia in Rousseau: Secondary Literature ...................................... 13 Psychological Approach ............................................................................................ 17 Reconstructive Approach .......................................................................................... 19 Structural Approach ................................................................................................... 26 Chapter Two.......................................................................................................... 40 “Eyes Turning Towards the Light”: Childhood Memory and Nascent Community in Émile ............................................................................................................................... 40 Image and Idea: Descartes and Nostalgia for Childhood Passivity .................... 42 Helvétius, Condillac, and the Threat of Materialism ............................................. 45 Active Childhood, Memory, and Judgement .......................................................... 51 Child, Man-child, Statue ........................................................................................... 65 The Nostalgia of Identity-Formation ......................................................................
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