Rousseau’s Revolutionary Legacy: The Philosopher Who Inspired Freedom & Terror Ep.4 Part 5 Finale

In the final part of our Jean-Jacques Rousseau Series, we explore the extraordinary legacy of a philosopher whose ideas reshaped the modern world, and split it in two.

Rousseau’s writings did not remain in books. They ignited revolutions and shattered political traditions that had lasted for centuries.

His radical claims, that the people are sovereign, that authority must be rooted in the General Will, and that freedom requires more than simply electing rulers, became the foundation of modern democratic movements.

• The French Revolution carried his words through the streets of Paris.
• Republican movements across Europe drew inspiration from his vision of civic equality.
• Modern democracies echo his belief that political power must come from the people themselves.

But Rousseau’s legacy goes deeper and darker. The same ideas that inspired democratic liberation also justified political terror. The same philosophy that taught people to govern themselves gave rulers the language to claim they spoke for “the people” while silencing the people themselves. This dual inheritance, freedom and oppression, democracy and dictatorship, is why Rousseau remains the most controversial political thinker in history.

More than two centuries later, every debate about democracy, state power, collective identity, and the “will of the people” still carries Rousseau’s shadow. His philosophy did not end with him. It is still shaping and haunting our world.

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The Social Contract: How Rousseau Reimagined the People as Sovereign and Invented Modern Democracy → [https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeVFwr0ZRxbyckUlh0OXGcHfbmXsZBYI9&si=VzSpCXSNNQA1_7Kr]

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