Rousseau and Mill on the Corruption of the Individual by Society
Rousseau’s discussion of the ways in which social life affects the individual begins with a description of man in a natural state that is almost prehistoric. In this state, man is driven primarily by amour de soi, or “unenlightened self-interest,” which is expressed by the fulfillment of hunger and other animal appetites. Man is confronted by natural obstacles, such as competition for food with other animals, and over time man develops his natural capacities and is able to surmount these obstacles. This betterment of man’s natural capacities increases his chances for survival and enables accelerated population growth, and with this growth comes greater natural disparities among men as they spread out geographically and become adapted to particular regions of the earth. This differentiation engenders “in man’s mind the awareness of certain relationships [among men:] great, small, strong, weak, swift, slow, fearful, bold,” etc.. Accompanying this awareness are “gross ideas of mutual undertakings,” and this gives way to the formation of family groups and the first social roles of wife, husband, mother, children, and others. Although these family groups are initially formed for both individual and collective advantage, over time these social arrangements lead to interdependence, which continues to increase collective advantage, but begins to weaken the individual:
From living a softer life, both sexes also began to lose something of their strength and ferocity: but, if individuals became to some extent less able to encounter wild beasts separately, they found it, on the other hand, easier to assemble and resist in common.
Familial cooperation leads to the formation of tribal groups as the individual becomes more comfortable with and dependent on social cooperation. This leads to ever increasing social interdependence, and correlating decreases in individual independence. As the demands on the individual decrease, opportunities for previously unimaginable lifestyles arise:
The simplicity and solitude of a man’s life in this new condition…left him a great deal of leisure, which he employed to furnish himself with many conveniences unknown to his fathers: and this was the first yoke he inadvertently imposed on himself, and the first source of evils he prepared for his descendants.
Living together in larger and larger social groups, men begin to spend more time considering the “conveniences” of others, and come to want their own possessions, property, and other riches to be considered by others in turn. This amour-propre, or desire on behalf of the individual for social recognition, soon becomes “petulant” and corrupted as more efficient means for acquiring wealth, such as industry and the division of labor, are used to produce even greater riches than before. Social vices appear and become more pronounced as men are impelled by corrupt amour-propre to seem as wealthy as possible:
It now became the interest of men to appear what they really were not. To be and to seem became two totally different things; and from this distinction sprang insolent pomp and cheating trickery, with all the numerous vices that go in their train. …they were now, in consequence of a multiplicity of new wants, brought into subjection…
Rousseau finishes his description of the development of society and the corruption of the individual with this dismal finale:
Such was, or may well have been, the origin of society and law, which…for the advantage of a few ambitious individuals, subjected all mankind to perpetual labour, slavery, and wretchedness.
Mill’s account of the ways in which social life can corrupt the individual does not require as much historical apparatus as Rousseau’s. Instead, Mill discusses the social influences on the individual that originate within a political society. Mill begins with the observation that within a democratic republic, the will of the people and the will of the ruling party are aligned considerably. By “will of the people,” Mill means the will of “those who succeed in making themselves accepted as the majority”, not some hypothetical, unanimous will. There is often a tendency for the majority to oppress those of dissenting opinions. Mill calls this oppression “the tyranny of the majority”. This tendency to suppress dissenting opinions arises as a network externality of the majority—what we might call the “bandwagon effect:”
The rules which obtain among [the majority] appear to them self-evident and self-justifying. This all but universal illusion is one of the examples of the magical influence of custom, which is not only, as the proverb says, a second nature but is continually mistaken for the first.
The opinions of the majority are perceived as customary by the majority (and others), and custom in turn sustains an illusion that the opinions of the majority are true. This vicious circle fuels the imposition of the views of the majority upon the minority “under the penalties of law or opinion”. Mill calls this influence the “yoke of opinion”, and explains that this coercion interferes with the liberty of opinion of the individual. This interference with liberty of opinion strikes at the heart of Mill’s Greatest Happiness principle, which Mill alludes to in On Liberty:
If [the individual acquiesces in the will of others, against his inclinations,] it dulls and blunts the whole nature. …individuality is the same thing with development, and…it is only the cultivation of individuality which produces, or can produce, well-developed human beings.
Liberty of opinion and individuality are inseparable, so when one is suppressed, so is the other. Therefore, the tendency of the majority to impose its views on others is directly opposed to the cultivation of individuality and the full development of individuals. Tyranny of the majority also damages the development of individuals composing the majority; by suppressing dissenting opinions, the society becomes credulous and “truth itself ceases to have the effect of truth”.
The greatest similarity between these accounts is a tension between social equilibrium and individual development. Rousseau’s social equilibrium is an economic equilibrium, where each member of society has possessions, property, and other riches comparable to those of every other member of society, and each member recognizes and is recognized by every other member. This equilibrium is unstable, for when any individual is impelled by corrupt amour-propre to deviate from the equilibrium and acquire more possessions, property, or riches than other members of society, the delicate symmetry of social status is destroyed, and it is only restored when all other members of society similarly increase their wealth. As the stakes are raised higher and higher, individuals must participate in certain vices, such as exploiting the poor, just to “stay in the game.”
Mill’s social equilibrium is idealogical in nature. It arises when everyone is as certain as possible that their opinions are correct, and no one can be as certain as possible about their own opinions as long as someone else holds a dissenting opinion. This gives us a desire to persuade others that our opinions are correct, and in a democratic society where the will of the majority exerts the greatest legal and social influence, systemic coercion of opinion—tyranny of the majority—occurs unless we take certain precautions. Just as with Rousseau, we see a tension between social equilibrium and individual development—Mill calls his equilibrium “custom,” and claims that it opposes individual development on nearly all fronts.
The essential differences between Rousseau and Mill on the issue of the corruption of the individual by society is that Mill’s argument is much more forceful. Firstly, Rousseau seems to be going out on a limb with a lot of Romantic conjecture—“I see [early man]…slaking his thirst at the first brook: finding his bed at the foot of the tree which afforded him a repast; and, with that, all his wants supplied”. Mill, on the other hand, describes the corruption of the individual in terms that we still use to describe ourselves in contemporary social situations. In On the Subjection of Women, Mill substantiates his claims about custom and coercion with examples from his society of the tension between customary opinions of women and the development of women as individuals.
More importantly, Mill’s account is much more forceful because he shows how social life can corrupt individuals at the idealogical level, ruining the individual to such an extent that truth loses its meaning. For Rousseau, social life can turn strong, courageous individuals into indolent, dependent, covetous fools, but this indicates more of a value imbalance than a loss of truth itself. For these reasons, I find Mill’s account more persuasive.
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