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Rousseau and the Authority of Opinion

This chapter considers how Rousseau’s thinking about authority differs from Locke’s. Rousseau did not reject the possibility of sovereignty, but like Locke, he concluded that sovereign power could never extend to the government of public opinion, which could not be controlled by the impersonal, indirect form of government necessary to preserve liberty and equality. Even in virtuous republics, only highly personal authorities like the Lawgiver, the censors, and public educators can regulate opinion. But in modern, commercial societies, such public authorities are impotent or even dangerous. Under such conditions, the private authority of parents and especially mothers was the last hope for fortifying children against the social and intellectual corruption that modern political arrangements had created.