Group Think

In these times, when one feels despair about the intellectual state of America, it is enlightening (a word used advisedly here) to look at other times, other places. I speak of the Enlightenment itself. In connection with a book I am reviewing concerning literary journals in 18th-century Germany, I have been led to read a piece that appeared in an online forum called Republic of Letters, in which appeared, in 2008, a piece by the scholar Elena Russo, entitled "Slander and Glory in the Republic of Letters: Diderot and Seneca Confront Rousseau." It is of course an exceedingly arcane subject, concerning a quarrel between two of the major French philosophes. Diderot, it seems, was channeling the Roman philosopher Seneca in order to demolish intellectually the status of Rousseau. In a familiar tale, the two had as young men been friends, but in the course of time fell out. Rousseau could be quite contrary, and Diderot seemed to fear for the slander that Rousseau might publish about him. So, intellectual feuds come and go.

The terms of the argument in Diderot's essay, however, strike a familiar note in respect of contemporary attacks on people with different opinions. Herewith two quotes from the essay. In the first, the author is discussing Rousseau. I include the footnote, which renders Rousseau's own words:

1. "The Dialogues and the Essai [writes Elena Russo] evoke a world in which individuals cannot endure being alone, but are eager to make themselves subservient to the opinion of the majority, regardless of what evidence and reality tell them": 'Once the spin is set in motion, each and everyone follows the current and increases its force. How can one mistrust one’s own opinion when one sees that it is shared by everybody else?'”[19]

[19] “Quand une fois le branle est donné, chacun suivant le torrent en augmente l’impulsion. Comment se défier de son sentiment, quand on le voit être celui de tout le monde?” (ibid., 892).

2. The other quote is from Diderot, in which he speaks of the intellectual fraternity that should guide public opinion, i.e., men like himself, which he calls an "invisble church."

"I am talking about that small flock, that invisible church which listens, observes, meditates, and speaks in muted tones, but whose voice prevails in the long run and shapes public opinion." [24]

[24] Je parle de ce petit troupeau, de cette église invisible qui écoute, qui regarde, qui médite, qui parle bas, et dont la voix prédomine à la longue et forme l’opinion générale.

Finally, the author says the following about Rousseau:

Rousseau, who had always seen the philosophical church as a malevolent secret society entirely devoted to his personal destruction, had been living in that hell for a long time.

"Invisible church" is an interesting expression, for it conveys rules and dogma such that they become established, every bit as much as those of a "visible church, but, unless you are contrary (like myself), you accept the dogma and even believe that there is nothing intellectually conformist or repressive about it. It becomes "naturalized," indeed "enlightened"; after all, everyone YOU know thinks the same way, right, and even use the same words. Faced someone who disagrees with the dogma, the "muted tones" that Diderot invokes disappear, to be replaced by screams that drown out the words of heretics.