Rousseau and the Beggar
I found this interesting article in the German magazine Cicero during the summer. I enjoy Cicero for its maverick take on current events, social trends, and its search for philosophcal definition in a forward-moving, modern society. If someone had asked me to name "Cicero," I would have chosen another journalistic German name, Der Beobachter, which means in English "The Observer." (60)
Not surprisingly, Cicero already publishes a monthly column, titled "Der Flaneur," an older French term for a well-to-do, educated citizen with few social ties who walks along city streets, observing his fellow citizens in their shared urban surroundings, digesting their good experiences along with the bad.
In its August, 2026, issue, Cicero published an article titled "So klag uns doch raus!" or in English, "So, Complain about Us Already!" by Joachim Köhler. Cicero employs its own staff of writers but also employs guest writers of the flaneur-class for their fresh points of view and their independent, or contrary stance.
In "So klag uns doch raus!", Köhler reviews a chapter from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's last book The Reveries of a Solitary Sojourner, released only shortly before his death in 1778. Rousseau grew up in Geneva, Switzerland, and spent his last years in Paris, acting like a flaneur, taking long, solitary walks and studying his human environment.
As a writer myself, I always wonder how much influence a writer really has among contemporaries, or how much his publications can determine the direction and intention of a society, as opposed to the more influential technocrats, industrialists, and politicians. The Wikipedia article on Rousseau says his impact on the philosophical direction of French and Swiss society was considerable.
Wikipedia also credits him with organizing the agenda of the modern liberal-left. He championed a egalitarian structuring of society for the sake of public welfare, and encouraged it to adopt a back-to-nature movement. He also held a Peacenik personal stance toward world affairs.
Rousseau's mother died when he was still young, and his father farmed him out to relatives shortly thereafter, and basically abandoned him. He had to work at various trades to earn a living, even as his inclination toward books and contrary free-thinking pulled him in a different direction, meaning that he didn't stay employed anywhere for long. During hard times, Wikipedia reports that he had to occasionally beg on the street. No wonder people admired him—an intellectual who walked in the shoes of the poor. (70)
In "So klag uns doch raus!" the author Köhler writes about Rousseau encountering a beggar on the streets of Paris. The young cripple's reduced station in life must have brought back memories of his own penury. The beggar's politeness and sociability also impressed Rousseau. He gave generously to the beggar, really beyond his own means. If the beggar moved to a different street to beg, the old man tracked him down, concerned that he have enough to eat and a place to live.
A period of time must have passed between Rousseau's first encounter with the beggar and his later dealings with him, although the author Köhler does not say how long. At some point, however, the older man must have realized that the complexion of their relationship had changed, from a willing generosity to a grudging sense of obligation.
The author describes Rousseau's obligation as "Gewohnheitsrecht," the beggar's right to expect the status quo. Rousseau had, in effect, passed control of the status quo to the beggar. So in this article, Cicero only does what it customarily does, challenge the status quo of the Gewohnheitsrecht.
Cicero also wants Germans to comprehend the transition in Germany's relations with the hordes of people from other countries who want to settle there, to make them calculate the personal cost of it, and to cause a retreat from the status quo—"zurück vom automatischen Abgeben an andere"—from Germany's automatic, presumed concession to other people.