Jean Jacques Rousseau 's ' Let Them Eat Cake '

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an Enlightenment thinker during the eighteenth century and is most noted for his work The Social Contract. The Social Contract published in 1762 and is a philosophical document that expresses the ideas of popular sovereignty. Popular Sovereignty is a form of government in which “the doctrine that sovereign power is vested in the people and that those chosen to govern, as trustees of such power, must exercise it in conformity with the general will.” This is basically a fancy way of saying that the people have the power of authority of their government and the people should decide how they are governed. Like The Social Contract, the Declaration of Independence is a document that sets out to explain the relationship between a government and its people based on an an understanding of that relationship. The Declaration of Independence was composed by Thomas Jefferson in 1766, and shares many of the same ideals as The Social Contract. The Social Contract and the Declaration of Independence are more similar than different because Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced John Locke, whose Social Contract Theories directly influenced Thomas Jefferson during the writing of the Declaration of Independence.

When Jean Jacques Rousseau wrote his Social Contract, the idea of liberty and freedom were not new theories. Many political thinkers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes had already evolved with their own clarification of liberty and freedom of mankind, and in fact John Locke had already publicized his views and ideas on the social contract as well. In Rousseau’s case, what he did was to transform the ideas incorporated by such substantial words, and present us to another method to the social contract dilemma. What would bring man to leave the state of nature, and enter into a structured civil society? Liberals believes that this was the assurance of protection - liberty to them implied being free from destruction and harm towards one’s property. Rousseau’s concept of freedom was entirely different from that of traditional liberals. According to Rousseau, liberty is meant to voice out your opinion, and participation as human being. “To renounce liberty is to renounce being a man” (Wootton, 454).

“Let them eat cake” is a very popular quote that you may have heard before. It was supposedly said by the Queen of France, Marie-Antoinette, during the late 18th century in the middle of an outbreak known as the French Revolution. There were many causes that lead to the Revolution, including the third estate´s predicament. They struggled with being denied basic rights, over taxation, and neglect from the monarchy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss-born French Enlightenment thinker most famous for the 1762, “The Social Contract.” “The Social Contract” is Rousseau’s most valued work due to its ties within the French Revolution.

She gleefully adds in her first passage: “We are all going to heaven…in other words, how good life seemed, how sweet its rewards, how trivial this grudge or that grievance, how admirable friendship and the society of one‘s kind, as, lighting a good cigarette, one sunk among the cushions in the window-seat”. Her tone came off as if she was stunned by the environment in the men’s dining hall. The environment was so joyful and lush that she even began to think of how good her life was, merely based on the food that was given in this dining hall. It is a different story for the women’s dining hall when she murmurs: “That was all. The meal was over. Everybody scraped their chairs back; the swing-doors swung violently to and fro...”. She promptly shifted her tone from a thankful and happy person to monotone and dull, and because of this, readers can detect the attitude of hers towards the two very different meals. In the dining hall of the men's her tone gave off that the environment was almost heavenly, where everyone was joyful and they came to eat the delicious food together in a vivid environment. In the dining hall of the women's, her tone gave off that the women came together to eat because they had no choice, as if it was just another annoying task they had to do before resuming their

While many people may be familiar with the story of the French Revolution and history of Marie Antoinette, they may not fully comprehend the lively debate that continues to exist around Marie Antoinette. A debate over how Marie Antoinette should be remembered exists, with some arguing that Antoinette was spoiled and careless and others taking the stance that Antoinette was a victim of her harsh circumstances. Before delving into this controversy, background knowledge of Marie Antoinette’s life can assist in understanding the controversy. In 1770 at the age of fourteen, Marie Antoinette, daughter of Austrian empress Maria Theresa, was married to Louis XVI of France to strengthen French and Austrian relations. In 1774, Louis XVI became king and Marie Antoinette became queen. Dissatisfaction toward Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and economic turmoil led the French Revolution to begin in 1789, with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette eventually being guillotined in 1793 (Covington 56-65).

Her writings were intended on the pleasures of others, not her own. She also uses sarcasm when stating "I have never deemed myself one who has any worth in letters or the wit necessity demands of one who could write; and thus my customary response to those who press me, above all in sacred matters, is, what capacity of reason have I? what application? What resources? What rudimentary knowledge…" "Leave those matters to those who understand them, I wish no quarrel with the Holy Office, for I am ignorant." (p.11)

According to Rousseau 's “Discourse on Inequality”, there are four stages to the social evolution in humans; it 's natural state, family, nation, and civil society. There are two types of inequalities, natural (or physical) and moral. Natural inequality stems from differences in age, health, or other physical characteristics. Moral inequality is established by convention or consent of men. One of the first and most important questions Rousseau asks is "For how is it possible to know the source of the inequality among men, without knowing men themselves?” (Rousseau, Preface) To answer this question, man cannot be considered as he is now, deformed by society, but as he was in nature. The problem is that as knowledge increases man’s ignorance. This essay, using Rousseau’s “Discourse on Inequality” as a backbone will try and identify the origins of inequality within race, class, gender and sexuality, and establish how these inequalities were brought out and maintained.

Topic #1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau makes the provocative claim that the transfer of sovereignty involves in the election of representatives signifies a loss of freedom: "The instant a people chooses representatives, it is no longer free." (On the Social Contract, p.103) Do you agree with Rousseau?

"Let them eat cake" is probably one of the most recited quotes around the world, which is known to be spoken by the last Queen of France, Marie Antoinette. Although often reffered to as "The Party Queen" or in other words, the Queen who danced while her people starved. But what many fail to recognize is the fact that Marie Antoinette was the Queen who cared for her people. The only think she cared for more than the welfare of her people, was the welfare of her children. In order for one to understand and have the ability to fully understand the French

because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to

Over the course of history this idea of freedom has been developed and defined by many famous political and philosophical thinkers. Many of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas are acknowledged in the “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and more notably the “The Social Contract”. John Stuart Mill’s major points originate from a book called “On Liberty”. All of these works are still read today and taught in schools around the world. In particular, their ideas on freedom and liberty have drawn a considerable amount of attention. For instance, Rousseau is well known for his idea of “forcing citizens to be free”, while Mill claims that freedom can be found in “pursing our own good in our own way”. Therefore, it is evident that fundamental differences occur between Rousseau’s and Mill’s ideas on liberty and freedom. Rousseau’s rejects this classical liberal idea of freedom of the individual, and instead argues that the highest quality of freedom is achieved through a social contract where collective decisions represent the law and people have a duty to the state, while Mill sees freedom as not being constrained by the government (freedom from laws) and pursuing one’s own good as long as it does no harm to others.

day she decided to eat pasta from a bowl in front of the television. The nuns were not accepting of this and began insulting her for being Iranian questioning why iranians are “uneducated.”

Eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau influenced many French revolutionaries with his ideas. In the time of the Enlightenment, people believed that humankind could progress and improve through the use of reason and science. One of them was French artist Jacques-Louis David, who was official artist to the French revolution (p158, Blk 3). Just as Rousseau had used his publications to reflect on his ideas, David had used art as a media to reflect the ideas and values of the society in the eighteenth century. In this essay, we will be examining the influence of Rousseau’s views on the relationship between the state and the individual in David’s painting “The Oath of the Horatii”.

Rousseau starts his discourse with the quote, “What is natural has to be investigated not in beings that are depraved, but in those that are good according to nature” (Aristotle. Politics. II). It is this idea that Rousseau uses to define his second discourse. Rousseau begins his story of human nature by “setting aside all the facts” (132). Rousseau believes the facts of the natural state of humanity are not necessary to determine the natural essence of human nature, and adding facts based on man’s condition in society does not show man’s natural condition. The facts don’t matter for Rousseau because to understand the essence of human nature requires looking to how man is in a completely natural state. Since man is no longer in this state,