Book Review: Rousseau’s Dog
Dec. 23rd, 2013 10:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI have been reading Rousseau’s Dog: Two Great Thinkers at War in the Age of Enlightenment, which sounds like it might be a philosophical tome about dry intellectual debates, but is in fact about Rousseau’s ridiculous personal feud with the Scottish philosopher David Hume. It’s very entertaining simply for the story, but it also gave me the odd experience of disliking Rousseau intensely and yet feeling terribly sorry for him.
I still don’t like Rousseau: it’s hard to warm to a man who abandoned all five of his children at the Paris Foundling Hospital, on the grounds that their existence would ruin his lover’s reputation, which he could easily have saved by, oh, I don’t know, marrying her. He had all these children by the same woman, La Vasseur, so it’s not clear to me why he so adamantly refused to do so.
Although frankly, I have the impression that Rousseau couldn’t bear keeping his children because it would mean he wasn’t the neediest person in the house anymore. He seems to have loved La Vasseur for much the same reason he loved his dog: she offered uncomprehending and unconditional support and love. Ugh, Rousseau.
However, as Rousseau descends into paranoid delusions about David Hume, I did feel terribly sorry for him, because he was so clearly tormented.
After Rousseau had to flee France, and then Switzerland, and then France again, the Scottish philosopher David Hume - who had never hitherto met Rousseau - offered to help him find asylum in Britain. While Hume was indeed extremely helpful, he apparently found Rousseau incredibly hard to deal with, though he tried to hide his irritation with his protege behind a polite mask.
Normally this mask worked well: Hume was so famously amicable that he was called le bon David. The super-sensitive Rousseau, however, saw the mask at once, although he could not discern what lay beneath. He could not imagine that it hid mere irritation: he began to fret that his supposed benefactor, who had done so much for him, was in fact part of a dark plot to discredit and destroy Rousseau.
The last evening before Rousseau left for his refuge in Staffordshire, he and Hume had an argument (their later accounts differ as to its cause). But then Rousseau flung himself Hume’s shoulder, sobbing his apologies, while Hume attempted to soothe him.
Hume, who had a reputation for being cool and detached, promptly wrote to half of his correspondents to recount the evening: “I kissed him and embraced him twenty times, with a plentiful effusion of tears,” he wrote. He was totally capable of being emotionally responsive, see see!
But Rousseau felt that all his worst fear were confirmed. Rather than entering into the depth and spirit of Rousseau’s agonies and embracing him as a friend, Hume had merely patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and tried to brush away Rousseau’s concerns with light and comforting words! Clearly the only explanation for Hume’s behavior was TRAITOROUS PERFIDY.
And not long after, Rousseau sent Hume a letter detailing all of Hume’s supposed treachery, which so infuriated Hume that he published a pamphlet detailing how deeply wrong Rousseau was about everything. All their friends were like, “I’m not sure whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of Rousseau’s suspicions or cry because he is so clearly unhinged and tormented by his own demons. Why don’t you leave the poor man alone, Hume?”
Hume: “NEVER. He has slandered my name and I will not rest until I have undone the damage!!!!!
Now, on the one hand, Hume is clearly the wronged party here. But at the same time, Rousseau was so tormented by the phantasms in his own mind, I do feel bad for him: it’s hard to imagine a worse punishment on earth than merely being Rousseau, and having to live with such suspicions all the time.
I still don’t like Rousseau: it’s hard to warm to a man who abandoned all five of his children at the Paris Foundling Hospital, on the grounds that their existence would ruin his lover’s reputation, which he could easily have saved by, oh, I don’t know, marrying her. He had all these children by the same woman, La Vasseur, so it’s not clear to me why he so adamantly refused to do so.
Although frankly, I have the impression that Rousseau couldn’t bear keeping his children because it would mean he wasn’t the neediest person in the house anymore. He seems to have loved La Vasseur for much the same reason he loved his dog: she offered uncomprehending and unconditional support and love. Ugh, Rousseau.
However, as Rousseau descends into paranoid delusions about David Hume, I did feel terribly sorry for him, because he was so clearly tormented.
After Rousseau had to flee France, and then Switzerland, and then France again, the Scottish philosopher David Hume - who had never hitherto met Rousseau - offered to help him find asylum in Britain. While Hume was indeed extremely helpful, he apparently found Rousseau incredibly hard to deal with, though he tried to hide his irritation with his protege behind a polite mask.
Normally this mask worked well: Hume was so famously amicable that he was called le bon David. The super-sensitive Rousseau, however, saw the mask at once, although he could not discern what lay beneath. He could not imagine that it hid mere irritation: he began to fret that his supposed benefactor, who had done so much for him, was in fact part of a dark plot to discredit and destroy Rousseau.
The last evening before Rousseau left for his refuge in Staffordshire, he and Hume had an argument (their later accounts differ as to its cause). But then Rousseau flung himself Hume’s shoulder, sobbing his apologies, while Hume attempted to soothe him.
Hume, who had a reputation for being cool and detached, promptly wrote to half of his correspondents to recount the evening: “I kissed him and embraced him twenty times, with a plentiful effusion of tears,” he wrote. He was totally capable of being emotionally responsive, see see!
But Rousseau felt that all his worst fear were confirmed. Rather than entering into the depth and spirit of Rousseau’s agonies and embracing him as a friend, Hume had merely patted him awkwardly on the shoulder and tried to brush away Rousseau’s concerns with light and comforting words! Clearly the only explanation for Hume’s behavior was TRAITOROUS PERFIDY.
And not long after, Rousseau sent Hume a letter detailing all of Hume’s supposed treachery, which so infuriated Hume that he published a pamphlet detailing how deeply wrong Rousseau was about everything. All their friends were like, “I’m not sure whether to laugh at the ridiculousness of Rousseau’s suspicions or cry because he is so clearly unhinged and tormented by his own demons. Why don’t you leave the poor man alone, Hume?”
Hume: “NEVER. He has slandered my name and I will not rest until I have undone the damage!!!!!
Now, on the one hand, Hume is clearly the wronged party here. But at the same time, Rousseau was so tormented by the phantasms in his own mind, I do feel bad for him: it’s hard to imagine a worse punishment on earth than merely being Rousseau, and having to live with such suspicions all the time.
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no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 12:08 am (UTC)… at least, that's my opinion based solely on this entry! Otherwise, my knowledge of Rousseau consists of nothing more than that he was fond of the noble-savage idea and lived in the 18th century, and my knowledge of Hume is that … he was a philosopher. And--grim? Maybe? Or a rationalist? Or… yeah, actually I have nothing. Not without running off to Wikipedia to check.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 12:17 am (UTC)Halp, I'ze blind, blind, ah say!
no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 02:53 am (UTC)Hume was a Scottish philosopher who argued that reason was a limited tool, and that human benevolence or sympathy offered a better guide for morality. He's usually described as a skeptic - he's famous for arguing that we have no rational basis to believe in cause and effect.
But nonetheless he was apparently pretty fun at parties. When he wasn't feuding with Rousseau, everyone commented on his good temper and moderation. The French adored him.
no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 12:13 am (UTC)If someone tried this with a woman I know, they would be having the abandoner's funeral after the second (maybe first) incidence of abandonment...
no subject
Date: 2013-12-24 02:45 am (UTC)La Vasseur never left him and/or tried to kill him over it, though, and I think that the woman actually in the relationship ought to have final say whether something is acceptable, rather than acquaintances stepping in to make the decision for them.