How much coverage has there been in the state-corporate media in the West about the protests in Paris? Not much, I suppose. But I run across the story in the alternative-media.
My initial reaction is pure disgust when watching militarized police -- with every conceivable layer of protection -- bashing unarmed protestors with their clubs. Of course I don't know how heavy and hard those clubs are. Hopefully somebody designed them to hurt and bruise, but not to break bones.
Still, what do those goons think of themselves when they go home at night? "Did you have a good day at the office, Dear?" their wife asks. "Well not too bad. But I did have trouble with this one white-haired grandma. So I took her down with one perfect smash to her face."
There is an irony to the French culture of street protests and the overly-armed police goons. The French usually get credit for being a well-organized state. Don't the French yearn for a lifetime of government employment, rather than private sector jobs? Isn't the French government's slice of the GDP pie wider than in most European countries?
And what do they do with their big slice? They beat the shit out of unarmed taxpayers. I guess nobody should be surprised.
But still, what would Jean-Jacques Rousseau think? The police or the protestors -- who is best expressing the mysterious "General Will" of his book, "The Social Contract," which was supposed to be so influential before the French Revolution?
It seemed like a good time to get reacquainted with Rousseau's famous book again. Many a school kid recognizes the beginning:
It is appealing language, but does it make any sense? If he means it literally, he is completely wrong: what could be less free and more dependent than a human baby?
I struggled with the book and couldn't even finish it. Perhaps the explanation of that is in the Introduction by GDH Cole:
"The Social Contract is the book of all books that is most talked of and least read.Neither the French monarchy nor the Genevese aristocracy loved outspoken criticism, and Rousseau had always to be careful what he said.
...he was forced continually to moderate his language and confine himself to generalization instead of attacking particular abuses.
In the eighteenth century it was, broadly speaking, safe to generalize and unsafe to particularize."
Indeed, maybe this is the explanation for the book being so annoying to read. Ahh well, it was a good idea anyway. I will work on it a little more before consigning it to the dustbin of brilliant ideas that didn't quite work out. Good thing I'm not keeping track.
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