Read with Tessa, Simon, Amanda, and Dylan for Philosophy Book Club. Took us a while to get through this one, but once we switched from a line-by-line type of analysis to more discussion based format, this book went a lot smoother.

Half-parenting guide, half-profound philosophy, I really enjoyed spending time with Rousseau as he explained how he would raise his hypothetical perfect child (ironically even though he had seven children, all of them ended up in orphanages/foster houses, something that Rousseau later expressed regret about). The name of the game here was almost a sole focus on empiricism: Emile would learn almost exclusively from nature, not from books or lessons. Only later, once this empirical way of looking at the world had been deeply sown into his soul would abstract, rational book-learning be allowed. This type of education was favored to encourage self-reliance and favorable relations to other members of society: if one's daily bread comes from one's own work, it is less likely that one will exploit, or resent other people in society for simply being competition.

The early sections read like an advertisement for Montessori schooling (which if I ever have kids I will do). However, it was in the later sections that I found Rousseau's philosophy to be most interesting. The section of this book that got it banned in pre-Revolutionary France (and Rousseau condemned by the church) discusses the universality of all religions, and the importance of focusing one's religious actions on growing closer to God, rather than following specific doctrines. As someone who is perhaps starting to realize that they strongly disagree with certain doctrines of the Catholic Church, this was really cool to hear, and provides some relief that I haven't "done fucked up" so bad after all. The famous misogyny section where Rousseau discusses the raising of Emile's hypothetical wife also was not as terrible as I thought. Yes, there is some horrible gender essentialism, but it's clear that Rousseau still admires and respects women. The sixty-odd pages of their courtship was very sweet, and reminded me a lot of pride and prejudice.

The gender essentialism, plus I think the failure of Rousseau's project to integrate Emile into society (the answer is not a cabin in the woods), takes a star off for me, but this was still a great read. On to Jung!