Think clearly about the significance of the drama dispute between Rousseau and Diderot?

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Drama Aesthetic Education and Public Life —— On the Drama Debate between Rousseau and Diderot

Fan Yun

Source: Journal of Aesthetic Education, No.6 20 12

The controversy between Rousseau and Diderot's drama thoughts in the Enlightenment era is ostensibly reflected in their differences in aesthetic education, but actually involves their differences in their positions on enlightenment politics and human nature education. Rousseau criticized the actor's insincere performance, which would lead to the alienation of human nature and the corruption of social customs. Diderot, on the other hand, supports the form of drama performance in a high-profile way, believing that it contributes to the formation of social culture and the construction of modern public life. It is of great significance to fully understand the deep social and political connotation behind this difference for the construction of aesthetic education in contemporary society.

Keywords drama Rousseau Diderot's aesthetic life

"In all human States, it is a game, and only games can make people become complete people." Schiller's important ideas in Letters of Aesthetic Education had a far-reaching impact on the development and maturity of aesthetic education in later generations. Inspired by it, most aesthetic education theories regard the perfection and perfection of personality as the core goal of art education. The basic presupposition of Schiller and his followers is that when everyone's personality is perfected, the society composed of individuals will also move towards morality and justice. However, this presupposition is debatable, because other aesthetic education thoughts think that people's education should be separated from civic education, and some impersonal aesthetic education (drama education) is needed for social justice and the perfection of public life. Before Schiller, French enlightenment thinkers (such as Rousseau and Diderot) were aware of this problem. A deep understanding of their understanding of this issue is of positive significance for perfecting and developing contemporary aesthetic education theory.

Introduction: Debate about Drama

1758, Jean-Jean-jean-jacques rousseau, a French enlightenment thinker, published a paper entitled "Letter to D'Alembert about Drama", exposing his differences with the enlightenment camp. According to Peter Gay, a cultural historian, "this is Rousseau's most platonic, Geneva-style and contradictory work". On the surface, this paper is arguing with D'Alembert about whether to build a theater in Geneva, but in essence, it exposes the deep rift between him and the whole Enlightenment camp.

The event originated from D'Alembert's plan to write an entry about "Geneva" for the encyclopedia. Voltaire suggested that he insert a passage in it and set up a theater in Geneva to eliminate customs and enlighten people's wisdom. D'Alembert wrote in this article:

Drama is not tolerated in Geneva. It's not that they don't support the TV series itself, but that they are worried that actors will spread grandiose, wasteful and dissolute tastes among young people. However, isn't it possible to remedy these difficulties through strict rules that actors must abide by? In this way, Geneva has both theatre and fashion, and can enjoy the advantages of both. Drama performance will cultivate citizens' interest, teach good manners and subtle feelings, which are difficult to achieve without the help of drama; Without indulgence, literature will be beneficial. Geneva combines the prudence of Sparta with the elegance of Athens. [2]4

D'Alembert's suggestion represents the views of most scholars in the whole enlightenment camp. They all regard art as an indispensable tool and means to promote this great cause, because art is of great significance for cracking religious superstitions, resisting political authority, and promoting secular happiness and life happiness. However, Rousseau held a completely different view, and D'Alembert's entry aroused his anger. He strongly opposed the proposal to build a theater in Geneva, believing that it would damage the good manners of the city-state. Rousseau's letter continues the viewpoint he put forward in his paper: science and art are not conducive to the improvement of morality and fashion.

Rousseau's letter not only questioned D'Alembert and challenged Voltaire, but also ended his friendship with Diderot. Although there are many personal factors in this break, it is also an obvious fact that the two men are drifting apart in thought. Only on the issue of drama education, their views are quite different: Diderot is optimistic about drama education. In his view, the moral effect of excellent drama is beyond doubt: "Here, bad people will feel uneasy about the evil deeds they may commit, express sympathy for the pain they have caused others, and express anger at a person with the same personality as him." When the bad guy comes out of the box, he is "less inclined to do evil, which is much more effective than being scolded by a strict and blunt missionary." In Rousseau's view, people will not become kind after watching the play. "The tyrant of He Fei once hid in a corner to watch a play because he was afraid of being seen crying with Andrew Lomark and Priam, but he turned a deaf ear to the cries of many innocent people who were executed by him every day." [2]25

It can be seen that Rousseau and Diderot paid full attention to the aesthetic education of drama at that time, but they came to completely different conclusions. Behind this difference, it seems that Rousseau and Encyclopedia have different views on drama aesthetic education. Therefore, it is important not to choose between Rousseau and Diderot, but to explore the deep political and social factors and the concept of human nature behind this superficial difference. What is the difference between Rousseau and Diderot about drama? What are the specific social factors and political ideas that cause this difference? How to understand this difference, and what enlightenment will it provide for us to understand aesthetic education in modern society today?

At present, there have been many achievements in the research on the drama aesthetics of Diderot and Rousseau in China, but due to the limitations of research perspectives and methods, the aesthetics of the Enlightenment era has not been examined from a broader political and social theoretical perspective. Rousseau and Diderot are not only aestheticians in the sense of modern disciplines, but also thinkers who are full of worries about the fate of mankind. Therefore, the limitations of their horizons are likely to obscure their deeper political thinking and humanistic care. Therefore, this paper attempts to present the complex social and life problems behind the drama debate between the two thinkers from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Second, performance and alienation: Rousseau's resistance to drama

Rousseau took the debate with D'Alembert as an opportunity to systematically expound his view of drama. He not only points out that drama can never improve fashion in a general sense, but also shows the potential threat that drama will pose to this city-state from a specific angle in Geneva. He not only evaluated the influence of drama from the aspects of economy, morality, culture and politics, but also attacked the harm of drama from the perspectives of scripts, actors and audiences. Although he has created his own drama and made great achievements, although he put forward the view that drama is "beneficial to good people, but harmful to bad people", as far as the whole work is concerned, the danger and evil brought by drama still become the focus of his discussion, in order to refute the optimistic view of his enlightenment colleagues on drama.

Many critics believe that this paper on drama is almost a rewrite of Plato's Republic, and it is nothing more than a repetition of classical moral criticism, which seems to be nothing new. [3] 258 However, although he tried his best to keep up with the pace of the ancients in his speech, Rousseau's intentions were probably not limited to this under the background of drastic changes in western society. It involves not only Plato's "soul justice", but also more "social justice". As Alan Bloom said: "A letter to D'Alembert about drama has become a comprehensive theoretical work, which looks at civil society from the most inspiring perspective, that is, the relationship between civil society and spiritual works." [3] 255 Thinking about the political issues involved in Rousseau's drama aesthetics will undoubtedly be a key to accurately grasp his aesthetic thoughts.

Rousseau saw that the introduction of theater would corrode and destroy political isomorphism, and Rousseau regarded political isomorphism so important because he recognized the educational function of the state to individuals, because a just city-state was conducive to cultivating moral citizens. In a city-state with a good fashion, drama plays no role in consolidating and promoting morality. On the contrary, it may cater to people's bad tastes and hinder the normal education of citizens by the state. Among them, Rousseau's drama performance is quite noticeable. He wrote:

What is the talent of an actor? It is the art of dressing up, imitating other people's personality rather than their own, rather than showing it to others according to their true colors. It seems to be full of passion, but in fact it is cold-blooded and heartless. It is natural to be duplicitous, as if he really thinks so, and finally he completely forgets his position and occupies the position of others. What is an actor's occupation? It's a deal. Performing makes money. ..... What kind of spirit does an actor's career instill in an actor? The combination of meanness, deception, absurd pretensions and poor resignation makes him suitable for all kinds of roles, but he can't play the most noble role because they give up. [2]79-80

What kind of person is an actor? In Rousseau's view, he is a person who gives up himself and performs others. On the stage, he lived someone else's life, not his own. He is good at imitating other people's emotions through effective skills and inflammatory actions and lines, and they have also won rich returns through this "hypocritical" performance. This kind of person lives for others and lives by playing roles. They have no true self, they are hypocrites, and they have become "alienated" because they have lost their true self. Rousseau was the first thinker who criticized the alienation of human nature under the condition of modern civilization. The theory of alienation put forward by Marx in 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts was greatly inspired by Rousseau.

Marshall mcluhan once said: "Media is information." The meaning of this sentence is that the media is not what people think, but just a means of transmitting information. In many cases, it is information in itself. In the process of information dissemination and communication, the media itself will also have a decisive influence on the formation of the focus of the whole cultural spirit: "The form of the media prefers some special content, so that it can finally control the culture." [4]10 neil Pozmann accepted and developed McLuhan's view that the media is more like a metaphor, "defining the real world with a hidden but powerful hint". [4]12 It can be seen that the uniqueness of the media lies in that although it guides people to look at and understand things, its intervention is often silent and subtle. From clocks and watches, writing to telegrams, microscopes and television, different media have an unknown potential influence on the fashion of each era. In this sense, the same is true of drama. In the transformation of modern civilization, drama actually plays an extremely important role.

Looking back on history,18th century was an era of drama. This not only means that drama is the most important art in the public world of European countries at that time, but also involves the profound influence of drama as a medium on the environment of the times. Looking through the historical and literary works at that time, we can find how deeply rooted the concept of "life is like a play" was at that time. Fielding once wrote in tom jones: "The world is often compared to drama ... This idea has a long history and is deeply rooted in people's hearts. At first, some dramatic expressions can only be applied to the world by extending metaphors, but now they can be directly applied to the two without any difference. Therefore, when we talk about daily life, we often use words such as stage and scenery skillfully. It seems that we are talking about drama performance ... "[5]136-137, as an art type of drama, exerts a subtle influence on people's daily life. Life in big cities such as London and Paris is gradually showing dramatic features. Communication between strangers is like an actor performing on the stage of a drama.

It can be seen that Rousseau's view of drama is based on his whole educational concept. He saw that the threat of drama performance lies not only in the immorality of its content, but also in the stage and mask of the whole society created by the form of drama performance. People learn to play others through drama, and learn to play various roles in complex situations. In a society where everyone wears a mask, they are like a duck to water. Rousseau hates such people because they are corrupt and no longer have natural nature. They are artificial and hypocritical, but they are never willing to show themselves sincerely. In a sense, Rousseau's Confessions embodies an autobiographical aesthetics opposite to drama aesthetics. Because only in autobiography can the author get rid of the mask of hypocrisy and reveal his sincere soul.

Regarding education, Rousseau deliberately distinguished between human education and civic education: human education pursues the maintenance of human nature, while civic education aims at fulfilling political obligations. However, these two distinctions do not mean that Rousseau's educational philosophy can be understood as two levels. On the contrary, personality and politics should be highly unified. "Those who want to separate politics from morality will get nothing from either side. "Rousseau built political justice on the basis of personality. No matter he is a natural person or a citizen of the city-state, as long as he is sincere (or "transparent" according to Starobinski) and not hypocritical and bourgeois, then politics based on sincere personality will also be just.

For this reason, Rousseau's criticism of drama is reasonable in theory. Because the performance form of drama is depriving people of sincerity, which is the basis of Rousseau-style political justice. But Rousseau doesn't seem to realize that there is no natural unity between personal life and public politics. Sincere personality does not necessarily promote political justice, but in order to promote political justice, it seems that a more special civic education is needed to distinguish it from this personality education. On this issue, Diderot clearly saw more things.

Third, performance and acceptance: Diderot's drama complex

Different from Rousseau's antisocial and withdrawn personality, Diderot can better adapt to the rise of urban society and modern civilization. Therefore, he also has a more positive attitude towards drama. In his "Paradox Surle Comdeien" written in 1769, he compared the society to a stage in a theater: "The stage is like an orderly society, and everyone has to sacrifice some of his rights for the whole and the whole interests." [6] 293 In addition, he also created a large number of dramatic works (such as illegitimate child, head of the family and betrothed girl). ), Diderot also devoted himself to the study of drama theory for a long time and achieved high attainments. Lessing, a contemporary German thinker, once commented: "Since Aristotle, no philosopher has cared about drama as much as he (Diderot)." [ 1]3 12

Among many theoretical contributions to drama aesthetics, Diderot's theoretical criticism of neoclassicism and the creation of "citizen drama" are undoubtedly the most concerned topics for the researchers of Diderot's aesthetic thought. This paper does not discuss it too much, but focuses on Diderot's views on drama performance. It is on the important issue of the aesthetic education of drama to public life that he came to a completely opposite conclusion with Rousseau.

Diderot found the boundary between art and nature in the artistic type of drama: "Without art, how can great actors be made only by nature?" Because the plot development on the stage is not just natural, the drama works are written according to a certain system of principles. "[6] 279 In the work" On the Paradox of Actors ",Diderot's core view is that if an actor wants to perform successfully and effectively express the joys and sorrows of the people in the play, he must remain calm and restrained, but not too excited. Because:

This is the basic quality that a great actor must have. I require a great actor to have high judgment. For me, he must be a calm and stable bystander. Therefore, I ask him to be insightful, unmoved, master the art of imitating everything, or in other words, perform various personalities and roles. [6]280-28 1

On the other hand, untrained and emotional actors often fail:

Actors who perform with emotion are always good and bad. You can't expect to see any consistency from their performances; Their performances are strong and weak, cold and hot, mediocre and excellent. What is good today will fail tomorrow, and what failed yesterday will be very successful today. [6]28 1

In Diderot's actor dictionary, a good actor needs "rich imagination", "superb judgment", "delicate wit in handling things" and "accurate taste". Of course, "they are the most emotionless people in the world". In his view, "the actor's crying scene is like a priest who doesn't believe in God preaching the crucifixion of Jesus. Another example is that a lecherous kneels to seduce a woman, even though he doesn't love her; This can be compared to a beggar who insults you in the street or at the church gate, because he has no hope of touching your sympathy; Or compared to a prostitute, she fainted in your arms and actually had no real feeling "[6] 287-288. Actors conquer people on the stage by acting, not by touching people with true feelings.

This view is obviously beyond Rousseau's consent. It is beyond the understanding of the latter to publicly defend the actors and openly tolerate and praise hypocritical performances. In Diderot's view, "sincerity" is out of place in formal theatrical performances. Performance is not the expression of true feelings, but the illusion of creating true feelings: "the tears of actors flow down from their minds;" Tears of an emotional person welled up from his heart. " [6] 287 A truly outstanding actor needs to rely on his study of human nature, his observation of human beings, and the comparison and ponder of each performance if he wants to achieve good performance results. It is in this continuous research process that the performance level of actors can reach high attainments. Lessing agrees with this view. Although the actors seem indifferent in the performance, they are far superior to the emotional performance on the stage. [7] From the perspective of drama theory alone, Diderot's contribution is enormous. He "strongly defended the importance of intellectuality and artistic autonomy in artistic creation" [1] 346 (Peter Gay), and he was also "the first person who thought that performance itself was an art form irrelevant to the performance content" [5]139 (Richard Sannett).

So, why does Diderot think that being unmoved is the true meaning of performance? What kind of question perspective made him think so? This involves Diderot's understanding of modern society and his thinking on political issues. In a sense, what made Diderot more sober than Rousseau was that he saw that people needed to live as actors in French social life in the18th century. /kloc-since the 0/7th century, with the development of modern society and the rise of big cities, the relationship and communication methods between people are changing. It was at that time that people began to notice something called "society". In this space, there are a large number of strangers, which requires people to re-explore the way of interpersonal communication. At that time, drama performance just provided guidance and guidance for the establishment of this new mode of communication.

The purpose of drama performance is to convey emotions to the audience under the stage. The effectiveness of this communication depends not on sincerity, but on skill. In a strange big city, effective communication and interaction between people also depends on this impersonal skill. "On the stage, just like in the social world, emotional impulses can only bring harm." Diderot believes that an actor's true feelings on the stage may not cause the audience to sing. On the other hand, the emotions deliberately created by actors on the stage can stimulate the emotions of the audience more effectively. "If you copy your kind tone, simple expression, daily posture and natural behavior to the stage, you will see that you will become poor and pitiful. No matter how many tears you shed, it is in vain. You become ridiculous and people will laugh at you. " [6] 288 Therefore, in modern social life, people can achieve good interpersonal interaction only by controlling their emotional roles like actors on the stage. As American scholar erving goffman pointed out in Self-Presentation in Daily Life: "If every interaction between two individuals needs to exchange people's experiences, troubles and secrets, then city life will become an unbearable torture for us." [8] 40 Diderot has an insight into the important value of "being an actor" to public life, so Richard Sannett admits that "Diderot was the first great theorist who regarded performance as a secular activity". [5] 139

Fourth, from people to citizens: the public dimension of aesthetic education

It can be seen that Diderot's understanding of drama aesthetic education has gone beyond the level of personality education. What he sees more is the value of drama as a special art type in providing interpersonal communication principles and shaping the order of public life. As Masakazu Yamazaki, a Japanese scholar, said, people's words and deeds in social occasions are completely different from their daily private lives. In social situations, people need to play roles as they do in drama. The biggest taboo in social occasions is that "people who make mistakes and cannot intuitively grasp their own situation and role will be excluded from the drama" [9]18. Etiquette is equivalent to the performance rules on the social stage, and it is an appropriate criterion for people to behave in public life. Elias described in detail the development of etiquette in modern western civilization in The Process of Civilization, and thought it was the regulation of human nature. It is this control of emotions that enhances interpersonal communication. Diderot saw that the art of drama teaches people how to perform, how to control their feelings and how to consciously create artificial feelings, which will help the effective acceptance of the communication object. Drama can really be a teacher of life. It teaches people how to get along in public space in a subtle way.

Rousseau's followers will inevitably question this: why do people need to socialize? Isn't socialization some kind of alienation of human nature? Here, there are roughly two reasons to answer this question. First of all, many critics believe that social communication is also human nature, and there is no problem of alienation. According to legend, it is in memory of the grandmother of the French writer George Shah. /kloc-people in the 0 th and 8 th centuries believed that living in the world and interacting with people was the greatest purpose of life. [9] 7 sociologist Georg Simmel said: "Socialization is not just killing time or extravagance, but an indispensable activity for people to survive in a humanized way." [9] 34 Santayana even thinks that this socialized personality is more real: "With our publicly stated beliefs and vows, we must try our best to hide all the inconsistencies between our emotions and behaviors. This is not hypocrisy, because the role we play carefully and deliberately is more real than our involuntary dreams. " [8] 46 No matter from the perspective of history or sociology, it seems that it is difficult for us to easily draw the view that "socialization is the alienation of human nature".

Secondly, thinkers represented by Diderot believe that the impersonality of social communication is extremely necessary for modern society, and its value lies in that it can open up and defend the political public sphere. Interpersonal communication under the guidance of theater mode will bring people out of their narcissistic selves and guide them to diverse and different public spaces. It effectively prevents people from treating political figures and social events with an emotional and personalized attitude. It will become a barrier to effectively prevent society from slipping into totalitarianism and a force to promote social fairness and justice. ②

On the contrary, Rousseau, who hates socializing, realized the evil of "impersonal" society from the beginning, which caused "obstacles" to "transparent" personality. Throughout his life, he devoted all his energy to the cause of removing these veils covering nature and nature. As a self, he can remove the veil in Confessions to highlight his personality. But how to remove the veil of others, how to remove the veil of politics, and realize the sincerity and individuality of all this? Sannett pointed out that Rousseau is reactionary at this point after all, and he came to the conclusion that only by exercising political tyranny on human beings can people have the opposite of interpersonal relationships in big cities-sincere relationships. In the subsequent French Revolution, Rousseau's "sincerity" eventually turned into bloody terror. The reason why the revolution keeps killing people is that people will find insincere people anytime and anywhere. [10] Because he can't see the difference between morality and politics, and the difference between public and private fields, his thoughts are in great danger.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion

The debate between Rousseau and Diderot about drama performance is indeed a long-standing topic. In today's drama academy and performing arts, there are still two completely different views. However, in the process of investigating these two important representatives of the French Enlightenment, we can see that the difference between them is not only the difference of aesthetic education concept, but also the deviation of political and social understanding. The aesthetics of enlightenment thinkers cannot be the so-called "pure" aesthetics later, but it must be linked with the transformation of modern civilization and the emerging ideological enlightenment.

The dispute between Rousseau and Diderot about drama aesthetic education is rooted in the distinction between personal personality education and social citizenship education. In Rousseau's sense, he wants to replace the politics imitated by the public with personal sincere politics; In the sense of Diderot, individuality is individuality and publicity is publicity, which belong to different fields. Rousseau's ideological criticism aims at smoothing the boundary between private life and public life, because it is the isolation of these two life fields that leads to the alienation of modern personality. How do people live in private life, so how should they live in public life? This is man's natural and real life. To this end, he opposes all performances and all imitations, and he hopes that all societies can be based on natural personality without being distorted. On the contrary, Diderot clearly separated private life from public life. He set completely different principles for private life and public life, and completely opposed nature and art. In private life, he also advocates nature, but in public life, it is unnatural behavior that makes communication between people possible.

Of course, it is important not to choose between Diderot and Rousseau. Diderot's keen insight into public life and Rousseau's sharp criticism of the alienation of human nature in modern society are worthy of attention today. In the contemporary era when consumerism prevails and the media is highly developed, drama performance has long since disappeared, replaced by the rise of the new media kingdom. On the one hand, people are getting farther and farther away from the public world and falling into narcissism in the process of facing TV, computers, mobile phones and other media; On the other hand, when sincerity becomes the only moral standard of this era, not many people really love this value. Therefore, today we can still have a deep insight into the essence of human life through Diderot's brain, and we can still feel the corruption and depravity of this era through Rousseau's mind. The drama era injected by their spirit left people with infinite thinking and nostalgia.

To annotate ...

① In the existing research on their drama aesthetics, it is mainly emphasized that Diderot used "the civic drama that conforms to the bourgeois ideal to replace the neoclassical drama that mainly served the feudal court in Kloc-0/7th century as the weapon of the anti-feudal struggle." See Zhu Guangqian, History of Western Aesthetics, Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 1964, p. 254.

(2) at this point, please refer to the works of Habermas, hannah arendt and Richard Sannett.

refer to

Peter Gay. Enlightenment [m] Liang yongan, translated. Taipei: Lixu Culture Enterprise Co., Ltd., 2002.

[2] Rousseau. Politics and Art: A Letter to D'Alembert about Drama [M]. New york: Cornell University Press, 1960.

[3] Bloom. Introduction to Politics and Art [M]//Giants and Dwarfs: Collected Works of Bloom. Beijing: Huaxia Publishing House, 2003.

4 neil Pozmann. Play till death [m]. Zhang Yan, translator. Guilin: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2004.

[5] Richard Sonnets. The decline of Gong * * * people [M]. Li Jihong, translator. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2008.

[6] Diderot. Selected aesthetic papers of Diderot [M]. Stone, translation. Beijing: People's Literature Publishing House, 1984.

[7] Lessing. Hamburg drama review [m]. Zhang Li, translator. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1998: 17.

Erving goffman. Self-presentation in daily life [M]. Feng Gang, translator. Beijing beijing University Press, 2008.

[9] Masayoshi Yamazaki. Social man [m]. Zhou, translated. Shanghai: Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 2008.

Hannah arendt. On revolution [m]. Chen, translated. Nanjing: Yilin Press, 2007: 89-90.

(The author is a lecturer at the School of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University)