Refugees of Reason

On Revisiting Rousseau

Rousseau, purveyor of revolt,
condemned from above and below;
a modern thinker, gnawing
at society's status quo.

What's this? Mankind born good,
but corrupted by society?
Everyone's vested interest —
ubiquitous Church, noblesse!

Original sin? What about that?
What is it that causes our fall?
Man born uncorrupted, again
society corrupts us all.

The chains that bind,
bind us to a nation.
Oh, and this freedom?
A constitutional fabrication.

An education for all,
free of church and state;
student-centred Emile,
unattained even at this date.

Radical for your times,
(radical for our times too),
though that criminal from Arras,
would probably repel even you!

though it was he and his excess,
as the loosened stone atop a cliff,
that propelled us along towards
the democracies in which we live.

Yet the social contract notoriously
confuses well-meaning democrats
and baffles moral philosophers alike,
while sustaining revolutionary autocrats.

Your works, thick with meaning,
fodder for many argumentatively,
confounding minds the brightest
or minds the dullest respectively;

but you provide a livelihood
for many a gifted academic,
while amateur readers like me
remain but a poor aesthetic.

I've read you many times, and
annoyance comes to my mind;
you're likely to baffle me some more
before I put you down for all time;

to read and ponder, yes to wonder,
--- and take you up anew I will,
again to curse your ambiguity afresh
and repeat many times this life still.

~ gtk