Hertzberg: Rousseau and health care

Re.: SDN Oct. 19, “Rousseau and the age of Obama” by Morgan Liddick

This column by Morgan Liddick has many important lessons contained within it. What a great number of lessons we have forgotten … the most recent one being the war in Vietnam, as we proceed to make the same blunders in Afghanistan. We don't remember many lessons except perhaps the ones we over-learn, such as the so-called appeasement of Hitler, supposed to be a major cause of World War II. To me, a retired history professor, the truer statement is: The more things change; the more they stay the same.

Liddick begins with John Locke, an English Enlightenment philosopher who believed that all men are created equal and entitled to life, liberty and property. He also evidently believed in the right of revolution. Our very own American enlightenment philosopher, Thomas Jefferson, copied verbatim Locke's natural rights except he changed the right to property to pursuit of happiness. I suppose you can argue that Locke did not believe in big government; he is more famous as the philosopher of the glorious revolution in England (glorious because there was no bloodshed and a king, James II, was removed.) What we do know about Locke was that he did not like the poor. He blamed them for their own misfortune.

Going on to Baron de Montesquieu, a wealthy, landowning Frenchman, he wrote “The Spirit of the Laws” — a lengthy treatise. Several of our founding fathers including James Madison read it. Baron de Montesquieu is given credit for the idea of “Separation of Powers” as found in the U.S. Constitution.

Mr. Liddick blames Rousseau for the excesses of the French Revolution (1789 -1795 circa). Given that Rousseau was born and died before the French Revolution began he can hardly be blamed for its excesses. Mr. Liddick especially despises Rousseau's concept of the “general will” of the people, i.e. what the people want or need. Today, says Mr. Liddick, you hear the voice of Rousseau when you hear words like “moral,” “right” or “just” applied to health care. Why should they not be used? Shall we do away with the Bill of Rights and the concept of justice too?

Looking at contemporary politics in the U.S. today, I hear the concept of the “general will” coming from the majority of Americans who want a public option in any health reform bill. To me, Rousseau is the most thoughtful and compassionate of the enlightenment philosophers. He wrote “The Social Contract,” which argued that the people make a contract with the government to give up some of their liberties in exchange for protection. He also wrote Emile, a book about raising children which began with stirring words: “Man is everywhere born free; but everywhere is in chains.” Rousseau also glorified primitive man, and is often pictured with a coonskin cap. He deserves a better evaluation from Mr. Liddick.

The Age of Reason was a vital period in Western intellectual history. Certainly at the time it occurred (the 18th century) ordinary people did not know it was happening. Mostly, at least in France, we see a group of wealthy white men sitting in a salon discussing what was wrong with the government and how it should change. Historians have called both the American Revolution and the French Revolution “daughters of the Enlightenment.”

Is this view correct? I don't know; certainly the people involved in these revolutions did not cite enlightenment philosophy or the “general will” except for Thomas Jefferson when he wrote the Declaration of Independence, which I consider our most important document. To bring us up to the present again, it is hard to have life or liberty or certainly to pursue happiness, if one is not healthy and cannot get health care. Since none of those philosophers really addressed the issue of health care, perhaps it is wisest to neither excessively praise or condemn those 17th and 18th century philosophers as we try to solve 21st century problems.