The Scandal of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Abstract

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the subject of scandal throughout most of his public life but more importantly, he was scandalized throughout his life. The offense he took at reality provides the motor of his theorizing. This is nowhere more evident than his Lettre á d'Alembert sur les Spectacles (Letter to Alembert on the Theater), 1758. In it he accuses d'Alembert of causing harm to the clergy of Geneva by accusing them heresy and of leading young people astray by encouraging the project of establishing a theater in Geneva. The two accusations are not unrelated but united through a concern about how one maintains a republican society. Rousseau is not bothered by the fact that clergy is heretical, he is bothered that this might become known and cause a disruption in society. The church of the time was the spectacle of Genevan society and Rousseau saw that it would not be able to compete with establishment of real theater.
But the problem goes deeper. The established church in Geneva was not in danger of overthrowing the order of society, but great literature, like Molière's play, The Misanthrope, still had that kind of revelatory power. Therefore, it too had to be expelled.