Roots of Conflict and the Social Contract
The Roots of Conflict and the Importance of Coexistence
The root of many wars and conflicts lies in the relegated coexistence of different beliefs within a country. Intolerance breeds violence, both from those in power who seek to impose one religion and from those who resist this imposition.
For example, in the war in the former Yugoslavia, regardless of significant political tensions, intolerance played a role in triggering the conflict and the events that followed.
Religious conflicts are often concealed within economic, political, or cultural fights. In any case, tolerance and dialogue are the most appropriate means to promote peaceful coexistence among different religions, ethnic groups, and ideologies.
Church-State Relations in Modern Democracies
With respect to church-state relations, today’s democracies, inheritors of the principles that triumphed with the Enlightenment and that Locke set out in his text, are based on the separation between the two spheres. Most states in our environment, including our own country, are non-denominational, meaning they support the most diverse beliefs and believe that religious issues are matters of individual conscience, which only the individual can address unless it endangers the rest of society.
However, in our society, the influence of the Christian religion—and in our country, the Catholic Church in particular—is much higher than that of other religions, and their views have an important weight in the public sphere.
Rousseau and the Social Contract
Rousseau’s critique of contemporary society did not call for a complete return to the original state but questioned the basis on which a lawful society should be established. The purpose of his work, “The Social Contract,” is the happiness of all citizens.
- He criticizes the divine origin of political institutions, arguing that they can only come from a pact between individuals.
- He also criticizes the concept of a legitimate deal, claiming that voluntary association of individuals forms a single social body.
- The real sovereign is the people, who become a community.
Thus, every man becomes a citizen, a member of a moral and social body whose virtue lies in the defense of the common good above selfish interests. Man transforms his natural freedom into civil or social liberty, which is for himself but as a member of a collective. The expression of this collectivity is what Rousseau calls the general will.
The General Will and Popular Sovereignty
The general will is one of the most controversial slogans of Rousseau’s theory. More than an empirical reality, the general will appears as a normative principle of common life. The strength of this general will is that it is the people themselves who give it existence by obeying it through law.
For the first time in modern history, the moral and political legitimacy of popular sovereignty is placed against the sovereignty of divine right. This free self-assessment of the law can be understood as a foretaste of Kant’s moral lesson.
Implications of Popular Sovereignty
The affirmation of the supremacy of popular sovereignty implies:
- The rejection of representative democracy.
- Laws have no value if not directly approved by the people.
- The separation between the sovereign and the government.
The state thus constituted is the only legitimate one, but it can take different forms of government: monarchy (one ruler), aristocracy (several rulers), or democracy (majority rule). The latter is undoubtedly the best, but it may not be achievable in modern societies. Therefore, Rousseau thinks that the democratic model should be followed in real democracies, an ideal to which reality must increasingly conform.