general will

 does not depend on public debate, as democratic debate would allow individual and group interests to control the general will.

the general will is a complex term, but Rousseau makes it clear that it does not depend on public debate. Rousseau opposes democratic debate because it allows individual and group interests to control the general will. ' (spark habermas).

is essentially the fascist transformation of politics into a religion; the divination of the people at the expense of the person.

[W]hat truly makes the French Revolution the first fascist revolution was its effort to turn politics into a religion. (In this the revolutionaries were inspired by Rousseau, whose concept of the general will divinized the people while rendering the person an afterthought.)

is a concept that formed the intellectual basis for all modern totalitarianisms.

Robespierre's ideas were derived from his close study of Rousseau, whose theory of the general will formed the intellectual basis for all modern totalitarianisms. According to Rousseau, individuals who live in accordance with the general will are “free" and “virtuous" while those who defy it are criminals, fools or heretics. Those enemies of the common good must be forced to bend to the general will. He described this state-sanctioned coercion in Orwellian terms as the act of “forcing men to be free." It was Rousseau who originally sanctified the sovereign will of the masses while dismissing the mechanisms of democracy as corrupting and profane. Such mechanics -- voting in elections, representative bodies, and so forth -- are “hardly ever necessary where the government is well-intentioned," wrote Rousseau in a revealing turn of phrase.

is always just, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened.

The general will is always just, but the judgment which guides it is not always enlightened.

general will, n.All

general will