The Real Bill Ayers

Here’s what some other critics had to say…

“Like every other Radiohead album except Kid A — still their most famous album, but they only made it once — In Rainbows has uptempo guitar songs and moody acoustic ballads, full of headphone-tweaking sound effects. All of it rocks; none of it sounds like any other band on earth; it delivers an emotional punch that proves all other rock stars owe us an apology.” Rob Sheffield

Lettre à ceux que ça dérange: Paul McCartney a le droit de venir fêter Québec!

Stéphane Laporte

Cyberpresse
Le mercredi 16 juillet 2008

Chers opposants,

C’est quoi le problème? Paul McCartney, l’un des plus grands chanteurs pops de l’histoire, vient donner un spectacle dimanche, dans le cadre du 400ième de Québec. Yeah ! Ceux qui l’aiment vont le voir. Ceux qui l’aiment pas, n’y vont pas. C’est tout ! Laissez vivre. Let it be.

McCartney ne prend pas la place de personne. Tous les artistes québécois participent aux fêtes du 400ième : Vigneault, Charlebois, Dubois, Deschamps, Ferland, Dion. Nommez-les. Ils sont tous là. Ceux qui n’y sont pas, c’est parce que ça leur tentait pas.

Est-ce qu’on peut fêter avec le monde entier ou faut juste fêter en petite gang ? Juste les Québécois de souche. Ouvrez-vous les esprits. Si le chœur de l’Armée Rouge veut venir fêter Québec, qu’il vienne. Si les chanteuses esquimaudes veulent venir, qu’elles viennent. Les danseurs grecs, les joueurs de banjo tchèques, les cracheurs de feu de la Papouasie sont tous les bienvenus.

Déchirez vos pétitions contre le show de McCartney. Réveillez-vous ! C’est une fête ! Je suis nationaliste jusqu’au fond de l’âme, mais faut pas virer fou. Il ne faut pas accueillir avec une brique et un fanal, les étrangers qui veulent célébrer avec nous.

Ben oui, Paul McCartney chante en anglais, c’est sa langue. Pis ? Vaut mieux dire All you need is love en anglais que Crisse ton camp d’icitte en français ! C’est un messager de paix. Son dernier spectacle était pour célébrer la révolution en Ukraine. Les gens de Kiev étaient contents de le recevoir. Ils ne se sont pas dits, nous, ça prend Patof ou rien. Ils étaient heureux que le monde célèbre avec eux leur autonomie.

L’indépendance n’est pas synonyme de fermeture. Au contraire. Être indépendant, c’est aller vers les autres. Sans avoir peur d’eux.

Y’a pas de débat politique à faire avec ça. Mais si vous voulez en faire un, dites-vous que les 400 ans d’histoire de Québec, c’est pas seulement l’histoire des francophones, c’est l’histoire de tous les gens de Québec. Anglais, aussi. Ben oui, c’est du monde. C’est sûr qu’ils nous ont battu sur les Plaines d’Abraham. Mais aujourd’hui, c’est nous qui gagnons, à les inviter à venir voir cette super ville francophone. Voyons donc ! Donnez pas raison à Bouchard-Taylor.

McCartney, ce n’est pas la canadianisation des fêtes du 400ième. McCartney c’est l’universalisation des fêtes du 400ième. Et ça va durer 2 heures d'une célébration qui dure un an. C’est plein de bon sens.

Une programmation qui regroupe des centaines d’artistes francophones et quelques artistes qui s’expriment dans une autre langue, c’est logique.

C’est sûr que McCartney sur les Plaines va attirer plus que ben d'autres shows. Justement. C’est parce que les Québécois l’aiment. Vous voulez empêcher les Québécois d’aimer ? Vous voulez empêcher les Québécois d’aller voir ce qu’ils ont envie de voir, de faire ce qu’ils ont envie de faire. C’est pas du nationalisme, empêcher le peuple de tripper sur ce qu’il veut bien tripper.

Si le spectacle de McCartney attire encore plus de touristes à Québec qui vont découvrir ce beau coin de pays, tant mieux !

S’il-vous-plaît, montrez qu’au Québec, on sait accueillir les grands d’où qu’ils proviennent. Pas besoin de se mettre à 4 pattes devant lui. On n’est pas des colonisés, on est juste des citoyens fiers d’accueillir ceux qui ont envie de fêter avec nous. Arrêtez de faire la baboune. Et chantez : Hey Jude, don’t make it bad…

MARK STEYN

June 4, 2008
MACLEANS.CA

Geez, these days I don’t seem able to step out of the house without committing a hate crime

The charge levelled against Maclean’s by the Canadian Islamic Congress is that, in publishing an excerpt from my book, this magazine exposed Muslims to “hatred and contempt.” Alas, at the first day of the Great Maclean’s Show Trial at the British Columbia “Human Rights” Tribunal, the well of my book excerpt’s “hatred and contempt” pretty well ran dry in the first hour. So Faisal Joseph, counsel for the plaintiff Mohamed Elmasry, was forced to bus in a huge pile of miscellaneous generic “hatred and contempt” from all kinds of other sources. And even then much of it seemed less like “hatred and contempt” than “mild offhandedness and the occasional droll titter.” A lot of it was from me, of course. Mr. Joseph started with my article, but quickly moved on to my book, my columns, my sitcom review, my lame jokes, and no doubt (by the time you read this) my casual asides while muttering to myself on top of Mount Logan during a windstorm. At the end of the first day, m’learned friend was complaining that I had been rude to the three Osgoode Hall law students who’ve been fronting for the strangely shy and retiring Dr. Elmasry these last six months. Not rude to them in the article in this space that triggered the complaint. No, apparently I was rude to them at TVOntario last month. Not rude to them on-air (although it was a somewhat raucous show), but rude to them off-camera. Geez, these days I don’t seem to be able to step out of the house without committing a hate crime.

Just for the record (and before it becomes chiselled in the granite of British Columbia “human rights” jurisprudence), I wasn’t aware I was being rude to my accusers after the TVOntario show. The very last words on air were me saying, “You wanna go to dinner?”, and Khurrum Awan yelling back “No!” But, as the host Steve Paikin and his producers reported at some length on their website, Khurrum and I and the two gals stuck around for an hour of relatively civil conversation. In fact, I got the impression one of the ladies was growing rather fond of me, which, to be honest, was the main reason I hung about. But, now I come to think of it, that was the way it went at high school. You figure you’re doing great and then next morning you overhear her telling her best friend by the lockers that she thought you were a dweeby limpet with halitosis. Unfortunately, in today’s fractious legal environment, if Khurrum Awan thinks you’re a dweeby limpet with halitosis who can’t dance and has dried sweat rings under his cheesecloth shirt, he can add it to the long list of actionable “human rights” grievances to be laid before multiple tribunals and commissions.

Even so, after six months of assurances from Canadian “human rights” commissars that if we don’t police hate-mongers like Steyn a new Holocaust will be upon us, I think witnesses were expecting a bit more red meat than the assertion that I can be a bit boorish over the green-room Perrier. As legal scholars who’d attended the “trial” under the misapprehension that it bore some dim resemblance to conventional legal proceedings observed, it was hard to see what the post-show chit-chat after a television broadcast in 2008 had to do with a 2006 Maclean’s cover story, which is, after all, supposed to be the hate crime under investigation. But it’s even harder to see what any of this has to do with British Columbia or the “British Columbia Muslim community,” on whose behalf this “human rights” suit is being brought. TVOntario is, despite its deceptive name, a TV network in Ontario. It is not broadcast in British Columbia. Khurrum Awan, the Osgoode Hall law student on the witness stand, is an alumnus of the Osgoode Hall in Toronto, not some entirely different Osgoode Hall at Fort Nelson. He lives in Mississauga, which is a suburb of Buckinghorse River. Whoops, my mistake. I mean Toronto. He works in Ontario, as an employee of the very barrister examining him in that Vancouver courtroom, fellow Ontario resident Faisal Joseph. Indeed, it is unclear whether Mr. Awan had ever set foot in British Columbia until he and Mr. Joseph and the rest of their vast Ontario delegation flew out to the coast to testify to the pain and suffering of the British Columbia Muslim community they claim to represent. When the Ontarian Mr. Awan and his fellow Ontarians agreed to appear on an Ontario TV show, there were no members of the British Columbia Muslim community present, either in the studio, the makeup room or the men’s toilet (I cannot vouch for the ladies’). As they’d say in Hollywood, no members of the British Columbia Muslim community were harmed in the making of this program.

Yet, with the cheerful insouciance one has come to cherish from Canada’s “human rights” regime, the troika of B.C. “jurists” had no difficulty permitting all this extraterritorial evidence from extraterritorial witnesses employed by the extraterritorial lawyer and the extraterritorial plaintiff to be entered in a case allegedly about “human rights” in British Columbia. The “chair” of the troika, Commissar Heather MacNaughton, sits under the coat of arms bearing the ancient motto of the Crown, symbolizing the robust threads of precedent and continuity that tie the Robson Square courthouse to 800 years of legal inheritance: “Dieu et mon droit.” “Dieu” doesn’t seem to get much respect in the system these days, though Allah can still expect a modicum of deference. As to mon own particular droit — to due process, to the presumption of innocence, and to confront my accusers in a fair trial — that seems to have gone by the board.

So, as Faisal Joseph dredged up TV broadcasts from Ontario (which is not within British Columbia’s jurisdiction), obscure blog posts from the Internet (which is not within this tribunal’s jurisdiction), plus reports of his own press conference in Toronto (a well-known city in British Columbia, apparently) and snippets from the Brussels Journal (based in the capital city of the European Union, which British Columbia has presumably joined), Maclean’s counsel Julian Porter, Q.C., pointed out that, whatever the debate in these various fora, they had nothing to do with my article but rather were responses to the various “human rights” suits launched by the Canadian Islamic Congress. At the opening of Tuesday’s proceedings, Faisal Joseph announced that he wanted to devote that day not to me or Maclean’s or the substance of my article but to the media and blogospheric reaction to the complaints. In other words, he was explicitly confirming Porter’s point — insofar as anything has exposed Khurrum Awan to “hatred and contempt,” it’s not the Maclean’s cover story but his own lawsuit. Whether or not it is appropriate (or even legal) for Canadians to be “contemptuous” of the Canadian Islamic Congress’s thuggish assault on ancient liberties, the fact is Mr. Awan’s lawsuit has earned him far more “contempt” than anything in my article. He should be suing himself. Which would be less wacky than most of the admissibility rulings by the B.C. troika.

Obviously I deeply regret that I offended my accusers in the TVOntario off-air banter, even though I thought we were getting along swimmingly. It just goes to show, even when you have no idea you’re committing a hate crime, chances are you still are. On the other hand, it also suggests limited potential for conflict resolution with the plaintiffs. For six months, Mr. Awan and the gals had been telling readers of the Globe And Mail, the National Post, the Toronto Star, the Ottawa Citizen, the Halifax Chronicle-Herald and many other media outlets as far afield as the BBC, that all they wanted was an opportunity to “start a debate” with the Islamophobe Steyn. So we had a debate on TVOntario and now that turns out to be just the latest charge on the indictment. One can’t help feeling that, if Maclean’s had acceded to their demand for their own five-page cover story in the magazine, some perceived slight from the receptionist (“Sorry, we only have two per cent milk”) when Mr. Awan turned up to issue his instructions to the printers could easily have triggered a fresh round of litigation.

Robert Frost once said that writing “free verse” was like playing poetry with the net down. The relationship of “human rights” tribunals to real courts seems to be like that: Julian Porter can whack some legalistic ace down the middle, but Faisal Joseph hurls back a box of golf balls he’s flown in from Nunavut, and the umpires award him the point. By the way, I see I’ve been nominated for a National Magazine Award, to be handed out later this month. By then, Mr. Joseph will have succeeded in getting the B.C. troika effectively to ban me from Maclean’s and from all Canadian journalism. An impressive achievement. My book was a No. 1 bestseller in Canada, and the new paperback edition was at No. 4 the other day, and President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Governor Mitt Romney, Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator Jon Kyl and (at last count) six European prime ministers have either recommended the book or called me in to discuss its themes. But in Canada it’s a hate crime.

One thing I’ve learned these last few months is that it’s always worse than you expect. The willingness of the B.C. troika’s social engineers to trample over every basic rule of English law has embedded at the heart of Canadian justice a soft beguiling totalitarianism. I’ll be the first No. 1 bestselling author and National Magazine Award-nominated columnist to be deemed unpublishable in Canada.

But I won’t be the last.

"People are listening to a Xerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting."

The following is an excerpt from an interview with music producer T Bone Burnett (Robert Plant & Allison Kraus, O Brother Where Art Thou, Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello, Counting Crows, and more) on WNYC that aired June 9, 2008.

Between 1949 and 1952, the NAB and the RIAA – which were these sound organisations – finally published the RIAA equalization curve, which equalized all recorded music. … Before that, every manufacturer had its own set of standards. So, broadcasters and the listeners were constantly having to adjust their sets to try to guess what the artist intended. And from about 1950 until the mid-1980s, everybody was speaking the same language. The audience and the artists were speaking the same language. And this extraordinary musical culture developed out of it; you know Elvis Presley came very shortly after that and the Beatles and on and on.

So you know everyone had two speakers and a turntable and an amplifier, and we were all plugged in. We were all together. With the advent of digital sound, all those standards were thrown out the window, and the inertia from those old days of making things louder to get over surface noise and brighter to mitigate the effects – not just the effect, the characteristics – of tape or vinyl caused people to make things brighter and louder and brighter and louder and more compressed until really music’s gotten to a place that’s difficult to listen to. A lot of records are hard to listen to for more than a song or two. And then, it’s stepped down and stepped down and stepped down from tape to digital to compressed digital… ’til now, people are listening to a Xerox of a Polaroid of a photograph of a painting.

Gather around, high school and college graduates, and listen good -- real good. What I am about to tell you will help you immensely throughout the rest of your lives if you commit to practicing Uncle Ted's proven modus operandi for a quality of life.

Work

Nobody owes you a thing. Everything you will get out of life will be based solely on what you put into it.

As humorist Mark Twain said, "Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first."

The only free lunches are at the homeless shelter. If you want to dance, you have to pay the band. And you will get what you pay for.

Get a job. If you work hard, real hard, at your favorite craft, you will ultimately succeed. If you are lazy, you will not succeed. Expect to be fired over and over again and aimlessly drift from job to job, your soul as empty as your bank account.

Find your passion in life, your calling, something you crave, that special thing that makes you giddy. Set a goal and never, ever quit. When you get close to the brass ring, move it farther away from your grasp.

Do not complain. Any spineless whiner can do that. Instead, look for solutions to tough problems. This will earn you respect from your boss and get you promoted.

Never do anything for money. Do what you do exceedingly well and thoroughly enjoy, and money will come looking for you.

Be frugal. Live responsibly within your means. Bling-bling is not making ends meet.

Values

Never be afraid to let yourself go and exhibit unbridled raw emotion and enthusiasm. Emotions need exercise. March to the beat of making your own loud and obnoxious guitar breeding noises no matter how many times they tell you to turn down and stop the feedback. Following trends and peer pressure is for mindless sheep that are never happy.

Avoid negative people and slobbering hippies like the plague. They never accomplish anything. Surround yourself with positive people who are better than yourself and will mentor, help and guide you honestly.

If you want to know how others perceive you, look around at whom you associate with. In the end, all you have is your character and integrity. Do not ever compromise or sell them.

Take care of your precious, sacred temple. Eat smart and stay clean. Do not smoke, use drugs, eat or drink too much or chew on glass sandwiches. Partaking in these mindless misadventures will shorten your life.

Find a relaxing hobby to recharge your batteries that has nothing to do with your profession. I have found that peaceful time with family, friends, loved ones and my dogs, fishing, hunting, shooting, setting rocks on fire, giving birth to brass rainbows by shooting machine guns till barrels burn up, and killing sacred protein with sharp sticks recharges my batteries beyond redline. I cleanse my soul as I cleanse the good mother earth by eating her surplus.

Take the time each day to show love and affection for your family and loved ones. The smallest gesture goes straight to the heart.

Never miss an opportunity to say thank you to the men and women in our military and law enforcement. They are the defenders of freedom putting their lives on the line for you so you can reach your American Dream.

Politics

Be intelligently and effectively defiant. Defiance is the very spirit that gave birth to this country when our forefathers fought against overwhelming odds, signed the Declaration of Independence and fired the "shot heard 'round the world." Lock and load. Really.

Remember Rosa Parks. Be prepared to defy stupid laws and regulations wherever you find them. Raise hell. Vote smart.

If you have not made a few well-deserving idiots boil over in anger by the time you are 25, get busy. We live in a target-rich environment of liberal denial.

Famous philosopher and legendary San Francisco police detective, my hero Dirty Harry, once said, "A man has got to know his limitations." This is good advice.

Stand up for what you believe. Remain polite and courteous, but never back down. You have an obligation to leave America in better shape than when you arrived. Work to ensure that future generations of America have a better shot at the American Dream as well as more freedom, more liberty and more pursuits of happiness than you did.

Trust your gut feelings. Only trust people who have earned your trust. Trust but verify. Never trust the French.

Have fun. Life is not a dress rehearsal. Live smart, live good. Rock hard.

The Nuge is a lengendary rock guitarist, who also runs a safari and hunting operation and is a board member of the National Rifle Association.

“In the history of rock 'n' roll, Rock Band may just turn out
to be up there with the rise of FM radio, CDs or MTV.”

Alex Rigopulos & Eran Egozy
The rock god’s latest prophets

Steven Van Zandt
TIME.com
Tuesday, Apr. 29, 2008

The record business is over! there's no new rock 'n' roll on the radio! Kids couldn't care less about music! Quick, somebody call Alex and Eran. Yes, I mean Alex Rigopulos, 38, and Eran Egozy, 36, the Batman and Robin of Harmonix, who, with the video games Guitar Hero and now Rock Band, may have saved classic rock for generations to come. And before you make a snide comment, remember, some of my best friends are Classic Rockers.

Face it, folks, Rock Band is one of the ways kids will find music in the future, and the future is now. And I love that Rock Band allows people to act like real-life dysfunctional rock groups—you play either together or against one another. The game breaks down walls, allowing friends and family to rock out to punk, alternative, hard rock or whatever in a living room, or four strangers to connect from four different countries. In the history of rock 'n' roll, Rock Band may just turn out to be up there with the rise of FM radio, CDs or MTV. Taking a break from the wall-to-wall violence of most video games can't hurt either.

Best of all, while becoming an expert at matching the rhythm of a guitar or bass line won't make you able to really play (although you'll appreciate the role of the bass guitar for the first time), the game will actually create new drummers. Let this be the deathblow to those evil drum machines hanging around from that bloated era of musical horror we refer to as the '80s. Just when it looked as if a generation of teenagers might grow up without falling in love with Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Who or the Rolling Stones, Rock Band has pulled them back into the musical gumbo that ate their parents (and perhaps their grandparents). Vive la Rock Band!

Steve Van Zandt: guitarist with Bruce Sprinsteen & the E-Street Band, radio-host of “Little Steven’s Underground Garage”, and cast-member of The Sopranos

OK, so it reads like it was written by a young exec eager to show off what she learned in Epistemology-101, but I like the message. — E.

The following appears on the homepage of http://www.brinkmann-usa.com/.

Audio, no matter what components you choose to purchase, no matter at what price point, and no matter if you choose your speakers to be driven by vacuum tubes or solid state components, should be fun. Fun means that when you sit down after a long day at work (consider if you are a psychotherapist, a school crossing guard, or even a chef) and when you finally put away the work of the day, you want to listen to music that captivates you, music that gives you pleasure, music that is realistic and involving.

Helmut Brinkmann has been designing and making audio components for 19 years and in those 19 years has developed circuit topologies and has designed equipment that allows you to discover what good audio production is. His designs cross that ill-defined bridge of accuracy and musicality and provide satisfaction whether you listen to CD, SACD or vinyl sources.

Music. Sound. It is not only with our ears we hear. We hear with a mind that organizes the information received by our ears. Mind structures reality. Data has no life separate from the software that organizes it. There are no observers, only participators. Music is heard through a set of filters which are your personal mental images and concepts that shape your hearing. These focus on rhythm, focus on harmony, focus on melody. If you set these filters too narrow, you won't hear music. Let the music rain on your brain and fall through the cracks. Let it take you. Non-verbal communication. Sub-consciousness to sub-consciousness. Achieve resonance. This resonance is an awesome power and it can happen live, at a classical music concert, and it can happen in your home listening room.

Music is the most mystical experience many people will have in their lives. People can experience something other through music. Music is that touch of other world-ness, universal-ness. Call it divine if you would like. Music is life. Give in to it. Let it take you on a trip. Loud or soft. Let it seduce you. Play it over and over again. Turn it on and come tune in. Rinse. Repeat.

Audition Brinkmann Audio designs for yourself and if you listen to a recording you know well, a recording of music that when you are daydreaming you find yourself humming, and through that audition you find yourself with goose bumps... your search is over.

. . .

In the end of ethics, ethical judgments, decisions about what to do in concrete or “factical” life, are buffeted and beset by two difficulties. (1) They are not derived from a theoretical premise upon which they depend for their “justification.” It is not as if, were the theoretical premise challenged or refuted, the existing individual would have to be sent home, thoroughly disheartened and disillusioned, knowing now that the ethical life and practice is over, refuted, shown to be a sham. Among other things, that would leave the existing individual with the further or intensified embarrassment of still having to live. (2) Ethical judgments occur in the singular, in the unprecedented and unrepeatable situations of individual lives. That means that we can never say a law or a principle is just, for that would be too sweeping and pretentious, the manifestations of its injustice being just around the corner, and certainly not that a human being at large is just—the more just the individual the less likely he or she is to make such a claim. At most, we might say, with fear and trembling, that a singular event was carried out with justice. But we would want to underline the “fear and trembling,” lest the ethician standing in the crowd watching the proceedings rush out and phone his editor with the latest “principle,” which will soon enough prove to be too sweeping. Such a principle will make good copy for the next guide to ethical theory, which will be published any day now, revised and updated, taking into account everything that has happened recently. It will of course fail to note what has not happened yet, which will be treated in the next revised and updated edition. That at least makes for a profitable business for the authors and publishers of such guides.

. . .

—excerpted from John D. Caputo, “The End of Ethics,” in The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory (2007)

The 30-year-old iPod?

by Steve Guttenberg (The Audiophiliac)
April 15, 2008 6:54 AM PDT

A good friend of mine plays his 30-year-old Linn LP-12 turntable almost every day. It was an expensive turntable in 1978 when it sold for around $1,200. But he's gotten 30 years of use out of the thing, and even now listens to a lot more vinyl than CD. So his $1,200 investment works out to around $40 a year to own the thing. Can you imagine anybody buying an iPod today still using it in 2038? 2028? OK, how about 2018? Hmm, I don't think so.

Linn still makes the LP-12 turntable, the model has been in continuous production since 1972, and most parts are readily available. How's that for customer service? My Linn LP-12 is almost brand new, it's just 13 years old.

OK, iPods aren't high-end devices, they're disposable technology. Fair enough, how much do you imagine you'll spend on iPods or their equivalents over the next 30 years? There was one guy who responded to my "How many iPods have you owned?" poll who has already bought 26. So he's already made Steve Jobs richer by many thousands of dollars. Over the next three decades he'll spend a lot more, and still wind up with a closet full of useless junk.

I get it. Convenience trumps quality in most things. Fast food vs. slow food; fresh ingredients vs processed, which is pretty much the same deal with music. CDs, once the height of convenience and advanced tech are now viewed as archaic. CDs are too big, too easily damaged, and cost too much—so lower-fi MP3s and iTunes have put the CD on the road to oblivion. But to vinyl loving audiophiles LPs still sound better than any digital format. Everyone else couldn't care less about the sound quality their music, it's just not all that important to them.

Or is it that people are so busy now they simply don't have time for quality. Strange, our affluence makes us go for the quickest, lower quality option every time. Back in the day writers would use the same typewriter for decades, but now we have to toss out our computers every three or four years. We're living in a disposable culture, so we need to keep buying new, ever cheaper stuff, but if you have to keep rebuying it, is it really cheaper? High-end audio can be expensive to buy, but not to own.

…

– Steve Guttenberg has worked as a producer and writer for Chesky Records, and as a writer for Chesky subsidiary HD Tracks. He is a frequent contributor to a number of magazines and websites including Home Theater, Stereophile, Robb Report Home Entertainment, and he does audio reviews for CNET.com.

Ah ! encore moi

Discovering Rousseau in Jean-Jacques
Autobiographical Considerations in Émile

Although Émile ou De l’éducation did not get the kind of initial response that most authors would hope for, this should not surprise anyone. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was not like most authors, and even he was aware of that. While it puzzled him in 1762,[1] a few years later, he wrote: “Moi seul. Je sens mon cœur et je connois les hommes. Je ne suis fait comme aucun de ceux que j’ai vus; j’ose croire n’être fait comme aucun de ceux qui existent.”[2] When considering the philosophe’s legacy and his project in Émile, it can be difficult to appreciate the work after a single read, as what immediately strikes the reader is how much of it seems to contradict conventional wisdom and even, at times, to conflict with itself. Straddling the border between exposition and anecdote, the book recounts an imagined scenario in which a first-person narrator, Jean-Jacques, raises a boy, Émile, from birth according to Rousseau’s principles of ideal education.[3] By this time, Rousseau had already established his position that civil society colludes in the corruption of human beings, interfering with what was perfect and natural to begin with.[4] In Émile, Jean-Jacques’s mission is to describe the ideal man, by providing Émile with the education that he believes will enable a man to enter society successfully and without falling victim to that degeneration. This essay will argue that he fails to accomplish an important part of this mission, first by examining some of the author’s motives and concepts, and then by suggesting their attribution to the author’s discomfort with his own socially awkward circumstances.

In his preface, Rousseau warns readers that to appreciate the aim of this work, they must approach it from a novel perspective. He avoids writing a traditional treatise on education (as he acknowledges John Locke had already done,[5] however inadequately), and opts instead for “a visionary’s dreams about education.”[6] “Je ne vois point comme les autres hommes,” he explains, and “il y a longtems qu’on me l’a reproché.”[7] So he demands that his reader scrutinise his work and hold him accountable for what it purports to claim. He had previously proposed that readers who have the “courage” would inevitably delve deeper into his writing than others would, but that “there will be little harm done” if one merely skims the surface of the text.[8] So Rousseau, an excellent rhetorician, wrote for both audiences at once. Here, in Émile, he obscures the boundary between treatise and novel (as well as the boundary between insight and “dream”), allowing the treatise to expound his philosophy of education, while between the lines, the novel informs careful readers of the complexity of such an undertaking. Even the title suggests its dual identity – Emile, the novel, and De l’éducation, the treatise.

This subterfuge is not without its function: to conceal what he could not assert openly. A considerable amount of scholarship concerning Rousseau’s sexuality has accumulated in the two-and-a-half centuries since he penned his manuscript – particularly in the century following the introduction of psychoanalytic vocabulary – often claiming, due to his acute sensibilité, that he was a repressed homosexual.[9] This essay will not proliferate that thesis much further, but will consider its more moderate counterpart – that Rousseau was confused about his sexuality – as it does not require as great a stretch of the imagination. To support this adaptation, one simply needs to reflect on Les Confessions, his memoirs completed eight years after Émile’s controversial release, and one could readily point to his unorthodox relationships with Sophie d’Houdetot, Thérèse Levasseur, or the prostitute who suggested to him: “Zanetto, lascia le Donne, e studia la matematica.”[10].

Noted education theorist G. H. Bantock stresses the importance of approaching Émile through Les Confessions, since “[i]n assessing someone who depends much on ‘sensibility’, indeed consciously evokes it as a standard of reference, we need to define the particular nature of that sensibility.”[11] In Les Confessions, Rousseau recounts the events of his life as far back as his birth. Bantock believes that a book should be considered not only by its influence on educational precepts and practices, but to whatever extent possible, according to its author’s original purposes. Certainly, one may gain some insight into Rousseau’s purposes for Émile within its own pages, but also from Les Confessions. Whether its contents can be trusted becomes an issue, but one that Rousseau addresses: “[J]’ai pu supposer vrai ce que je savois avoir pu l’être, jamais ce que je savois être faux.”[12] And historians tend to agree that though he “may omit or transpose facts, or make mistakes in dates,”[13] the events he depicts generally occurred as he describes them.[14]

It is important to examine the effects of Rousseau’s life experience on the lessons Jean-Jacques propounds, because while the events of Rousseau’s life constituted his education, his experience must in turn constitute Émile’s education. After all, “avant d’oser entreprendre de former un homme il faut s’être fait homme soi-même; il faut trouver en soi l’exemple qu’il se doit proposer”.[15] The antiquated resulting formula puts the cart before the horse however, requiring that “le gouverneur eut été élevé pour son élêve,” since “[c]omment se peut-il qu’un enfant soit bien élevé par qui n’a pas été bien elevé lui-même ?”.[16] With a noticeably fictional tone in Émile, the narrator conceitedly rationalises his competence as Émile’s governor and his purpose in documenting their progress before declaring, “J’ai donc pris le parti de me donner un élêve imaginaire, de me supposer l’âge, la santé, les connoissances, et tous les talens convenables pour travailler à son éducation”.[17] Moreover, not just any teacher or precept would be qualified to assume the responsibility of Émile’s education. Instead, he insists that the boy be guided by a gouverneur, who, in the spirit of the Socratic method, “ne doit point donner de preceptes, [mais] doit les faire trouver,”[18] just like Rousseau did. Yet Émile will only discover what his governor sets out before him, and unfortunately, this education will not only be inspired by Jean-Jacques’s experience, but coloured by Rousseau’s opinion of it.

The most basic premise underlying all of Rousseau’s philosophy is: “Tout est bien, sortant des mains de l’auteur des choses : tout dégénére entre les mains de l’homme.”[19] So accordingly, any imperfections in the human heart were not there at its conception.[20] They have been acquired ex post facto. Neither are there any in the mind, which, for all intents and purposes, is useless to Jean-Jacques until the age of reason. He considers, “Le plus dangereux intervalle de la vie humaine est celui de la naissance à l’age de douze ans. C’est le tems où germent les erreurs et les vices, sans qu’on ait encore aucun instrument pour les détruire”.[21] At this stage, Rousseau believes there is only one naturally endowed passion that can move the child: amour-propre, the passion that ensures that one possesses what is most essential to his well-being. In its purest form and unrelated to other individuals – amour de soi – it functions positively, guaranteeing the individual’s survival. However, amour-propre can be perverted as it measures the individual against external factors and contextualises him. The individual can only manage amour-propre with reason, but children do not yet have that capacity. Hence the requisite governor, someone who will look after the child’s best interests. He should reinforce nature’s unimpeded progress and dread “d’exercer l’emploi du tentateur en voulant donner à l’innocence la connoissance du bien et du mal”.[22] However, it is also the responsibility of the governor to shelter the child from the exposure that would enable his amour-propre to have a negative influence on him – most importantly, the company of others. He calls this deterrent strategy “negative education” since “[e]lle consiste, non point à enseigner la vertu ni la vérité, mais à garantir le cœur du vice et l’esprit de l’erreur.”[23]

The roles of the governor and of negative education repeatedly serve to make Émile’s transitions from one stage of human development to another seem jarring and unnatural, contrary to Rousseau’s declared purpose. Émile is not permitted to develop gradually, but is forced to climb from one plateau to the next. At every milestone along the way of his education, “ne pouvant empêcher que l’enfant ne s’instruise au dehors par des éxemples,” Rousseau writes, “bornez toute vôtre vigilance à imprimer ces éxemples dans son esprit sous l’image qui lui convient”.[24] Jean-Jacques’s philosophy stipulates that he postpone Émile’s progress, wishing him not to wade into the pool at the shallow end – learning to swim by steadily refining his skills – but to dive head-first into the deep-end – only when he has been completely prepared to appreciate the whole métier and not approach it in phases, therefore (hypothetically) eluding the opportunity to develop any bad habits along the way. Since the goal of education is to allow nature to take its course as unperturbedly as possible, he advises the governor to interfere as little as possible with it. When a lesson becomes appropriate, if it is not necessary, “gardez-vous de la donner aujourdui si vous pouvez differer jusqu’à demain sans danger.”[25] Rousseau intends that by the age of reason (approximately twelve years), a child will have been exposed only to a natural environment without human meddling, thus begging the question: “Mais où placerons-nous cet enfant pour l’élever comme un être insensible, comme un automate ?”.[26] Granting it is impossible “qu’au sein de la societé l’on puisse amener un enfant à l’age de douze ans sans lui donner quelque idée des rapports d’homme à homme et de la moralité des actions humaines”,[27] he resigns to compromise the goal, insisting that the governor must at least tend toward seclusion, however unlikely the circumstance. While this may seem insignificant, it opens the door to the potential criticism of governors who may isolate their charges from society with varying success. This also serves to excuse some of Jean-Jacques's failure with Émile, since from the perspective that perfection is impossible, failure is inevitable.

The main thrust of Émile – and, for that matter, much of Rousseau’s work from the Discourses on – concerns the inevitable fall from paradise that everyone faces in engaging with civil society. Rousseau’s goal in Émile ou De l’éducation is not only to expound a method by which to diminish the impact of that fall, but to illustrate the resulting individual. This is attempted through the twofold format of the oeuvre as both treatise and novel. Grimley explains that since society appeared “fraught with danger, Rousseau had to look for happiness within the resources of his own inner being.”[3] The more difficult his situation became, the more he retracted into a world of “imaginative fantasy”. This essay is suggesting that the world of Émile is one of these fantasies, where Jean-Jacques has the hypothetical opportunity to mould an individual into everything Rousseau believes would make him perfect for both the worlds of the solitary individual and the integrated participant in society, for, other than the author of his own fantasy universe, “who can hope entirely to direct the speeches and the deeds of all those surrounding a child?”[4] Jean-Jacques tries to prepare Émile to be an effective member of the community by ensuring that he maintains his innocence long enough to develop his ability to reason, which should in turn allow him to see society for what it really is, the debauchery of the Second Discourse. Considering the effect of amour-propre, “Si votre élêve étoit seul, vous n’auriez rien à faire; mais tout ce qui l’environe enflame son imagination. Le torrent des préjugés l’entraîne; pour le retenir il faut le pousser en sens contraire”,[5] essentially, contradicting his natural tendencies. Rousseau would argue that the very factors in that environment that would engage his imagination are not natural. It remains, nevertheless, that the reaction is.

Because Rousseau regrets the loss of his innocence and Jean-Jacques longs for it, he pleads with his audience, “Pourquoi voulez-vous ôter à ces petits innocens la joüissance d’un tems si court qui leur échape, et d’un bien si précieux dont ils ne sauroient abuser? Pourquoi voulez-vous remplir d’amertume et de douleurs ces prémiers ans si rapides qui ne reviendront pas plus pour eux qu’ils ne peuvent revenir pour vous?”[6] And yet, although the fall, or loss of innocence, is an influential experience on Rousseau’s philosophy (perhaps even the most influential), it is not the only significant one of which he remains constantly aware, and which finds its way into the pages of Émile. Les Confessions records an entire lifetime of misadventures and emotional scar tissue, mostly pertaining to strained interpersonal relations and sexually awkward circumstances, all of which contribute to Rousseau’s increasing discomfort in society. It is in the midst of this discomfort that he is working on Émile ou De l’éducation.

In matters pertaining to interpersonal relations and sexuality however, Jean-Jacques’s treatment of Émile plainly breaks with his professed “natural” method, as these seem to be the only situations that require him to intervene directly, deviating Émile in a direction that he would not have taken without Jean-Jacques’s prodding. At the crucial developmental stage when amour-propre launches Émile into the arena of sexual awareness, Jean-Jacques answers “cette question si souvent agitée, s’il convient d’éclairer les enfants de bonne heure sur les objets de leur curiosité, ou s’il vaut mieux leur donner le change par de modestes erreurs”.[7] He asserts that since “cette curiosité ne leur vient point sans qu’on y ait donné lieu[, i]l faut donc faire ensorte qu’ils ne l’aient pas.”[8] Allan Bloom points out that Rousseau believed sex is merely a “thing of the body. There is no teleology contained in the sexual act other than generation”.[9] This would seem to corroborate the theory of the “Abelard complex” that an intellectual of the late Enlightenment could be “construed as unsexed, a being who was either unwilling or unable to perform what many social theorists saw as the individual’s most fundamental duty to the human race: healthy reproduction.”[10] Although this seems to contradict the biography of Rousseau (who had several children, but gave them all up for adoption) in particular, it may provide a possible clue to his motives in postponing Émile’s introduction to sexuality. Reflecting on one romantic affair in Les Confessions, Rousseau supposes, “Content d’aimer,t de l’oser dire, j’aurois été dans la plus douce situation si mon extravagance n’en eut détruit tout le charme.”[11] Since Rousseau attributes so much of his life’s misfortunes to his ineptitude in sexual and other interpersonal relations, Jean-Jacques will attempt to prevent Émile from enduring such tribulations by delaying the emergence of Émile’s sexual desires at precisely the time when they would most naturally surface.

As great intellectual ability became more closely associated with male strength in the decades leading up to the Revolution, Anne Vila notes that “men were increasingly depicted as having to choose between intellectual fecundity and sexual procreation.”[12] Rousseau, as author of the universe of Émile, chose for his two characters: the former for Jean-Jacques and the latter for Émile, however carefully timed. At its outset, Rousseau declares that one’s approach to education will produce either a man or a citizen, but not both at once.[13] By analogy, Vila suggests, “the Enlightenment philosophe may … have retained the lean and hungry look of the Socratic ideal, but he generally strove to be seen as a sociable fellow eager to contribute to civic concerns.”[14] Rousseau, portrays this idealised duality in Émile, as he is first taught to be a man and to be concerned with himself and his immediate environment, and subsequently with the rest of its inhabitants. “Hommes, soyez humains,” pleads Rousseau, “c’est vôtre prémier devoir”.[15] This lesson is again repeated in retarding “the age at which man acquire[s] knowledge of his sex”,[16] as “plus on s’applique à le retarder, plus un jeune homme acquiert de vigueur et de force”,[17] (two attributes conspicuously opposed to the one he uses to describe Jean-Jacques throughout the Confessions and Émile as a child: “weakness”).

There is another imaginative fantasy of Rousseau’s that deserves mention, specifically because he is believed to have written it not long after fleeing Geneva when Émile and the Contrat social were banned, possibly even during the first few weeks of his stay in Motiers.[18] It is a work he described as a scène lyrique, composed as a dramatic dialogue with an accompanying musical score, and it retells the Ovidian story of “Pygmalion et Galatea”[19]. In the Metamorphoses, Pygmalion, put off by the indecency of the people around him, sculpts a woman so perfect and innocent that he falls in love with his ivory creation and asks Venus to give him a wife just like it. Venus exceeds his request, bringing the statue itself to life, and they are married. Rousseau’s adaptation – for the most part, a monologue – highlights the artist’s relationship to his artifice and his concern for that relationship. John Hummel believes, “The Pygmalion is Rousseau’s first attempt to come to terms, as an artist, with the experience of his affair with Sophie d’Houdetot and his quarrel with the philosophes”.[20] But perhaps there is an additional and more immediate biographical motive, one that implicates Rousseau practically without metaphor. His scène lyrique could be an expression of his authorial relationship with Émile and Jean-Jacques’s emotional attachment to him.

The Pygmalion enables Rousseau to examine recent events and question whether he approves of his predicament. “Que suis-je devenu ?” asks Pygmalion, “quelle étrange révolution s’est faite en moi ?”[21] Disguising Paris as “Tyr, ville opulente et superbe,” reputed for its licentiousness, instead of Cyprus like in the Classical tale, allows Rousseau to reproach “le commerce des Artistes et des Philosophes [qui lui] devient insipide”. He comforts himself with the reminder that “quand j’aurai tout perdu, [mon ouvrage] me restera… et je serai consolé.”[22] The Pygmalion culminates in a dialogue in which Galathée touches herself and exclaims, “Moi,” and then Pygmalion does the same before, putting her hand on his heart, she recognises “[avec un soupir] Ah ! encore moi…”. Finally, the last words uttered in this pivotal work answer the question that began it; Pygmalion addresses his “chef d’oeuvre”: “je t’ai donné tout mon être : je ne vivrai plus que par toi.”[23] In Émile, Jean-Jacques insists that once your pupil “commence à sentir ce que c’est qu’aimer, il sent aussi quel doux lien peut unir un homme à ce qu’il aime; et dans le zéle qui vous fait occuper de lui sans cesse, il ne voit plus l’attachement d’un esclave, mais l’affection d’un ami.”[24]

“Songez qu’aussi-tôt que l’amour-propre est développé,” reminds Jean-Jacques, “le moi rélatif se met en jeu sans cesse, et que jamais le jeune homme n’observe les autres sans revenir sur lui-même et se comparer avec eux.”[25] When the scène lyrique shifts away from Pygmalion’s monologue “transporté” and Galathée recognises that she is at once the product of Pygmalion and the object of his desire, the noticeable break should elicit a familiar reaction to “courageous” Rousseau readers. She continues to consider (and perceive) only herself: “Moi. … C’est moi. … Ce n’est plus moi. … Ah ! encore moi”,[26] and again Rousseau is concealing a message behind fiction that he felt would have been inappropriate if it were made explicit. The most pointed correlation between the two stories is not that both Émile and Galathée reflect their creators – Rousseau (and Jean-Jacques) and Pygmalion, respectively – thus depicting idealised alternatives to their creators’ criticisms of society. But where the relationship between Pygmalion and Galathée is inextricably related to that of Jean-Jacques and Émile is in the artisans’ adulation for his artifice. Galathée recognises that she is infused with the labour of Pygmalion, in a Lockean epiphany, and that they are inseparable.

In the early stages of development, Jean-Jacques explained that nature provides an attachment to parents to accommodate the weakness of children.[27] He then transfers the attachment to the governor, and their relationship too becomes symbiotic. When later, at the moment when it would seem most appropriate for the governor to release his charge to his own autonomy, confronted with a young adult’s maturing claim to social and sexual independence, and immediately after admitting, “C’est vôtre disciple encore, mais ce n’est plus vôtre élêve. C’est vôtre ami, c’est un homme, traittez-le desormais comme tel”,[28] he insists that they cannot be separated. Jean-Jacques writes:

Mais voyez de combien de nouvelles chaines vous avez environné son cœur. La raison, l’amitié, la reconnoissance, mille affections lui parlent d’un ton qu’il ne peut méconnoitre. Le vice ne l’a point encore rendu sourd à leur voix. Il n’est sensible encore qu’aux passions de la nature. La prémiére de toutes, qui est l’amour de soi, le livre à vous; l’habitude vous le livre encore. Si le transport d’un moment vous l’arrache, le regret vous le ramêne à l’instant; le sentiment qui l’attache à vous est le seul permanent; tous les autres passent et s’effacent mutuellement.[29]

However to complete the analogy between Pygmalion and Émile ou de l’éducation, it does not suffice that Galathée and Émile appreciate their circumstances as interminable bonds to Pygmalion and Jean-Jacques, who moulded them into the complete individuals they became. If indeed Rousseau composed Pygmalion in contemplation of Émile, then Rousseau’s questioning – “Que suis-je devenu ? quelle étrange révolution s’est faite en moi ?” – and Pygmalion’s declaration to Galathée, reminiscent of a marriage vow – “je t’ai donné tout mon être : je ne vivrai plus que par toi” – also ought to account, if not only for Jean-Jacques’s relationship with Émile, Rousseau’s relationship with the œuvre.

The relationship Jean-Jacques describes between himself and Émile is not typical of a relationship between governor and pupil. He insists that he and Émile have developed alongside each other as if equal so that even when Émile is an adult, “il reconnoit la voix de l’amitié, et il sait obéir à la raison. [Jean-Jacques] lui laisse, il est vrai, l’apparence de l’indépendance, mais jamais il ne [lui] fut mieux assujetti, car il l’est parce qu’il veut l’être.”[30] Likewise, this is not a unidirectional relationship either. Their affection is shared mutually, as he writes, “[N]ous nous accordons toujours, et nous ne sommes avec personne aussi bien qu’ensemble.”[31] And just as Denman pointed out regarding his tone in the description of his brother’s beating in Les Confessions, he seems to adopt an almost erotic voice to describe his fondness of a boy close to the ideal state of nature, for example: “Mais quand je me figure un enfant de dix à douze ans, vigoureux, bien formé pour son age, il ne me fait pas naitre une idée qui ne soit agréable”.[32] To reduce the taboo, he even idealises their generational divide:

Je remarquerai seulement, contre l’opinion commune, que le Gouverneur d’un enfant doit être jeune, et même aussi jeune que peut l’être un homme sage. Je voudrois qu’il fut lui-même enfant, s’il étoit possible, qu’il put devenir le compagnon de son élêve, et s’attirer sa confiance en partageant ses amusements. Il n’y a pas assez de choses communes entre l’enfance et l’age mur pour qu’il se forme jamais un attachement bien solide à cette distance. Les enfants flattent quelquefois les vieillards, mais ils ne les aiment jamais.[33]

Allan Bloom translates the end of this passage: “Children sometimes flatter old men, but they never love them.”[34] Yet, as has already been mentioned, Rousseau was adept at writing more than appears only at first glance and another interpretation would be: “Children sometimes stroke old men, but they never love them.” Considering this additional layer of meaning throughout the text, the relationship between Jean-Jacques and Émile takes on undertones closely resembling that of Pygmalion and Galathée. He even simulates taking Émile’s hand in marriage when, in receiving his charge, he explains:

[J]e succéde à tous [les] droits [de ses parens]. Il doit honorer ses parens, mais il ne doit obéir qu’à moi. C’est ma prémiére ou plustôt ma seul condition.

J’y dois ajoûter celle-ci, qui n’en est qu’une suite, qu’on ne nous ôtera jamais l’un à l’autre que de nôtre consentement. Cette clause est essentielle, et je voudrois même que l’élêve et le gouverneur se regardassent tellement comme inséparables que le sort de leurs jours fut toujours entre eux un objet commun.[35]

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[1] Ibid., 20-1 (my emphasis).

[2] Ibid., 132-3.

[3] Grimley, 31.

[4] Rousseau, Emile, Bloom, 38.

[5] Rousseau, Émile, 336.

[6] Ibid., 138.

[7] Ibid., 332.

[8] Ibid., 332-3.

[9] Rousseau, Emile, Bloom, 16.

[10] Anne C. Vila, “Sex, Procreation, and the Scholarly Life from Tissot to Balzac,” in Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 35, iss. 2, ed. Julia Simon (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2002), 240.

[11] Rousseau, Les Confessions, 443.

[12] Vila, 240.

[13] Rousseau, Émile, 84.

[14] Vila, 239.

[15] Rousseau, Émile, 138.

[16] Rousseau, Emile, Bloom, 216.

[17] Rousseau, Émile, 332.

[18] Hummel, 273.

[19] Ovid, Metamorphoses II, trans. Frank Justus Miller, The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge : Harvard UP, 1958), 80-4.

[20] Hummel, 273.

[21] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Pygmalion, in Œuvres complètes, dirs. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond, vol. 2, La nouvelle Héloïse – Théatre – Poésies – Essais littéraires, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (Paris: Gallimard, 1964), 1224.

[22] Ibid., 1225.

[23] Ibid., 1230-1231.

[24] Rousseau, Émile, 358.

[25] Ibid., 370.

[26] Rousseau, Pygmalion, 1230-1.

[27] Rousseau, Émile, 146.

[28] Ibid., 475.

[29] Ibid..

[30] Ibid., 497.

[31] Ibid., 255.

[32] Ibid..

[33] Ibid., 101.

[34] Rousseau, Emile, Bloom, 51.

[35] Rousseau, Émile, 103.