Social contract

To the editor:

I found columnist Tom Tyner’s (8-26) reflection, comparing well-regulated traffic lanes to Rousseau’s “Social Contract,” interesting because I too was thinking of Rousseau — but that was Jan. 6, 2021.

Rousseau’s Social Contract is an agreement between members of a civic society and its ruler that defines the rights and duties and limits of each based on a utopian General Will, and undefined concepts of liberty and independence.

Rousseau writes: “Each of us puts his person and all his powers in common under the supreme direction of the General Will.” Rousseau expected civil society to be obedient to the collective virtues, morals and values of the General Will. He wrote: “The General Will is always right … whoever refuses to obey the General Will shall be compelled by the whole body.” Thus, the Social Contract, depending on its interpretation, could lead to a totalitarian left- or right-wing dictatorship or an Athenian-type direct democracy.

The General Will argument was used during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror to justify the killings and that is what I thought of during Jan. 6, the General Will in action.

And, Rousseau is still on my mind when I read or hear about the stolen election or the “Covid Hoax” because Rousseau questioned the reliance of truth based on reason that the Enlightenment philosophers embraced. He championed feelings, sentiment, intuition and the irrational as the ultimate truth. He wrote: “What I feel is right, is right. What I feel is wrong, is wrong.” How contemporary a belief among some 250 years later…

James Behrend

Bainbridge Island