HISTORY
ABSOLUTISM AND REVOLUTION
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Question
[CLICK ON ANY CHOICE TO KNOW THE RIGHT ANSWER]
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advocated equality for men and women
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believed that the government needed to serve the general will of the people
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believed that an absolute monarch could rule and keep the peace
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believed that a good government would need to have a system of checks and balances to avoid corruption
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Detailed explanation-1: -Rousseau argued that the general will of the people could not be decided by elected representatives. He believed in a direct democracy in which everyone voted to express the general will and to make the laws of the land. Rousseau had in mind a democracy on a small scale, a city-state like his native Geneva.
Detailed explanation-2: -Rousseau believed that a government’s purpose is to protect liberty, or freedom, and to help people get along. Rousseau believed that the best form of government was a democracy. His writings influenced how people think about government and how a democracy should work.
Detailed explanation-3: -Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss Enlightenment philosopher with some radical ideas. He argued passionately for democracy, equality, liberty, and supporting the common good by any means necessary. While his ideas may be utopian (or dystopian), they are thought-provoking and can inform modern discourse.
Detailed explanation-4: -The phrase “general will", as Rousseau used it, occurs in Article Six of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du citoyen), composed in 1789 during the French Revolution: The law is the expression of the general will.
Detailed explanation-5: -By defining the sovereign and sovereignty in the absolutist but egalitarian terms of the General Will, Rousseau could conclude that ‘the sovereign has no need to give guarantees to the subjects’ (1968:63).
Detailed explanation-6: -Locke was more restrained when it came to the idea of setting up guidelines for governments to not infringe on the rights of its citizen’s liberty. While Rousseau, through the assembly and the general will refuse to let individual freedom be taken away by any government unless it is done by the majority of the people.