Being forced to be free sounds ludicrous – until you read Rousseau and suddenly, it doesn’t just makes sense, it illuminates something that was much more obscure before. Namely, why democracy is such a strange yet remarkable system of government. And why democracy asks so much of us. Clearly, democracy is not easy or simple, I think, we all feel that.
The episode explains what Rousseau means by being forced to be free, what all that has to do with the general will and why that tells us something about democracy today, even though that is not Rousseau’s model at all. There would be so much more to say on Rousseau, but it turned out, the basic idea was fairly easy to explain. So this is not a particularly long episode. I encourage you, to comment, ask question and leave your critique of my approach here.
You can listen to the episode on a podcast app of your choice. Some direct links ar just to the right of this post. –>
You can find further links, as usual, on the episode page. And hope, you enjoy listening! Stay curious.