Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Michael Sandel and the politics of transparency

This essay aims to refute the influential argument, made famous by Jean Sta robinski and recently restated by Michael Sandel, that Rousseau's political thought aims at transparency, in which citizens understand each other imme diately, unambiguously and without distortion. Whatever transparency Rousse au fosters in the political sphere may safely be characterized as limited a nd more boldly as a lie. Rousseau favors the appearance of transparency bec ause it bolsters patriotism but does not favor real transparency because it is dangerous to seek among equals and impossible to realize among unequals . Though Sandel may be right to criticize Rousseau's "unitary" republicanis m, his own "pluralistic" republicanism fails even to take into account Rous seau's argument that proponents of openness conflate the conditions of phil osophy and community and propose to benefit the few at the expense of the m any.