Tex and Tradition: Analyzing Woolf's and Rousseau's Perspectives

This essay delves into the philosophical perspectives of Virginia Woolf and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, examining their critiques of societal norms and cultural values. The essay begins by exploring Woolf's short story, highlighting her disagreement with patriarchal structures and her embrace of modernism's challenge to tradition. It then transitions to Rousseau's philosophical stance, particularly his negative view of philosophers and his concern for preserving human freedom in a world of interdependence. Rousseau's concept of human nature and the influence of society on individual freedom is discussed. The essay analyzes how both thinkers, though from different eras, questioned established norms and advocated for social and individual liberation. The essay uses their works to analyze the cultural and philosophical context of their time, highlighting the significance of their ideas in shaping critical thought. It includes references to key works by both authors, like "A Room of One's Own" and "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality," to provide a comprehensive analysis of their arguments.

Running head: TEX AND TRADITION 1
Tex and Tradition
Name
Institution

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Tex And Tradition
Question 1
Virginia Woolf short story disagreement with certain cultural values
Virginia Woolf was simply more than a mere women’s writer; she was an excellent observer
of everyday life. The same explains why her short story in a way or another contradicts
certain cultural values (Woolf, 2016). The world that Virginia Woolf analyses in her short
story are recognizable to the context in which she presents the story, that is, the duration of
the first quarter of the 20th century. One of the cultural values that she presented vocally is
that for the concept of patriarchy, in which she argued that it was a dangerous system in
which a tyrannical father corresponded to a tyrannical ruler. She gave an impression that
indeed there was a clique of a cultural moment that she belonged to. One of the principles of
modernism that stands out in her texts was the ideas of evaluating existing traditions and
cultural norms to innovate them and if need be get rid of them (Woolf, 2015). The short story
precisely is considered as an independent subject of other prose forms saves to modernists. It
is important to present an overview of the literary as well as the cultural context of the
duration in which Woolf wrote. Her cultural perspective was more inclined towards her
familiarity with the Russian writers like Chekhov as well as first Post- impressionist’s
painters. Shorter fiction stories like “Mrs. Dalloway, Blue & Green and New Dress”, gives a
comprehensive example of the culture contradiction at that particular time (Woolf, 2017).
Woolf was more than a writer of experimental fiction; she became an icon for the women
movement in Europe and across the world. This was in her attempt to re-redesign the way
people think regarding women and hence received a great reception across the world. Woolf
took a front role in advocating for equality between sexes without falling into the trap of
creating a war between the two parties. She gave rise to a new generation of modernist
writers to build upon her works such as Green Jensen, Soren Ulrik Thomsen, and Pia

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Tafdrup. She also extensively covered religious and theological themes which she used a tool
to break through the societal barriers that hinder the empowerment of women. Virginia
Woolf’s "A Room of one’s Own," published in 1929 was also a key work that revamped
feminist literary criticism. Essays also published in 1928 examined cultural aspect that Woolf
disagreed with such as the educational, financial as well as social disadvantages that women
were being subjected to. One of her remarks, “a woman must be equipped with her money
and a room of her own if she is to write fiction,” describes this thought. Through the
fictionalized character of Mary, Woolf argues that history, as well as literature, is a male
construct that has technically traditionally marginalized women whether voluntarily or
involuntarily. She refutes the widespread notion that women are inferior writers as compared
to their male counterparts and argues that when they are subjected to equal rules of the game,
women match up to the standards of men (Bowlby, 2016). At this time, women had been
banned from attending schools as well as universities, excluded from inheritance by the law
and confined in the roles of housekeeping and childbearing. She can’t help but imagine the
kind of life that Judith Shakespeare might have lived being that she was brilliant and talented
just as the brother was. Woolf by far defined the issue that surrounds gender values and
insists that the masculine value prevails due to the social construct that gives men more
power so as they end up misusing the privilege. Woolf also advocates for the liberation of
women and attempts to go beyond far-reaching strands to achieve the liberation. Her
demands for this liberation were not only exclusively so that women could do the very same
things men do but rather to have the freedom to roam geographically as well as imaginatively
(Ratcliffe, 2016). Woolf recognized that such a transition required various practical forms of
freedom and power. She as well acknowledged that the process of liberation was not an easy
one since the change needs to be enacted both from the societal perspective and the women
themselves who need to meet all the personal expectations that the desire for themselves.

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Question 2
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Rousseau remains one of the most influential figures in the history of philosophy.
Subsequently, this is credited to his contribution to moral psychology, political philosophy as
well as his influence on later thinkers. Rousseau’s opinion on philosophers was firmly
negative. He described philosophers as the post hoc rationalizers of self-interest in particular.
He also argued that they played a particular role in the alienation of the modern individual
from the aspect of humanity’s natural impulse to compassion. His work was also dominantly
concerned with finding a way to preserve human freedom in a world characterized by
interdependency to survive. In this case, Rousseau is a personality that rejected one of the
main values of the human society. According to Rousseau, this interdependency has two
dimensions: psychological and material. The psychological variable is technically considered
as one with the greatest importance among the two. In contemporary society, it is natural for
human beings to derive their very sense of self from what others think. Rousseau views this
as a corrosive of human freedom and as well an aspect that is destructive of individual
authenticity. In his research and work, Jacques explored two significant routes of achieving
and protecting freedom. The two routes are:
 Political freedom aimed at constructing political institutions allowing for the
coexistence of free and equal citizens in a society that they can be classified as sovereign.
 A project for child development as well as education hence fostering
autonomy as well as aiding in discouraging self-interest.
Rousseau was also consistent with his arguments that humanity will escape from a dystopia
of alienation, unfreedom and also oppression. Regarding conjectural history and moral
psychology, he argued that human beings are connotated as good by nature and rendered

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corrupt by the society. However, through the years, it has been made clear that no plausible
interpretation of the claim exists. In several places, he continuously states that morality is
equally a natural feature of the human life. In relation, human beings can be classified as
good by nature, and it is not only the moral sense that the casual reader would technically
assume. His work, “Discourse on the origins of Inequality,” is a comprehensive example that
can help analyse this central claim. In the text, he agrees that human beings are by default
equipped with natural means to satisfy their needs. There is the drive for self-preservation
and compassion. Rousseau also imagines a multi-stage evolution of the concept of humanity
from what can be classified as a primitive condition to technically that of a modern complex
society. Arguments from other personalities like Frederick Neuhouser points out that the
evolutionary story is technically a philosophical device that is designed to alienate the natural
and artificial elements of our psychology. At every step of this evolution, human beings
reshape their material and psychological relations towards themselves and each other.
Rousseau refers to this as the sentiment of their existence. Simply put, this narrative state that
human live solitary lives in the original state of the human race because they do not need
each other to survive or to provide for material needs. If at all human beings are naturally
good at the stage of human evolution, their goodness can technically be referred to as a
negative since it amounts to the absence of evil (O'Hagan, 2017). The central argument, in
this case, is that human beings are distinguished from other living creatures by two concepts:
freedom and perfectibility. Perfectibility is merely the capacity to learn and find better means
to satisfy one’s needs while freedom is simply the ability of not being governed solely by
appetite. The two concepts work together to give human beings the ability to achieve self-
consciousness, morality, and rationality. The irony, however, is that it is most likely that such
characteristics will condemn individuals to a social world based on deception, dependence,
domination, and oppression amongst many others. Readers of articles of contemporary

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philosophy, in general, can relate or discredit the line of thought of Rousseau. Other scholars,
like John Rawls’s works, draw a lot of influence from the works of Rousseau. One of the
arguments of Rousseau that can be traced in Rawls’s A Theory of Justice is the argument that
citizens will be drawn to select just laws from an impartial perspective.

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References
Bowlby, R. (Ed.). (2016). Virginia Woolf. Routledge.
Ratcliffe, K. (2016). Anglo-American Feminist Challenges to the Rhetorical Traditions:
Virginia Woolf, Mary Daly, Adrienne Rich. SIU Press.
Woolf, V. (2015). Kew gardens. Booklassic.
Woolf, V. (2016). The Collected Essays of Virginia Woolf. Read Books Ltd.
Woolf, V. (2017). Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown. Virginia Woolf.
Woolf, V. (2017). The Essays of Virginia Woolf, Volume 5: 1929-1932. Random House.
O'Hagan, T. (Ed.). (2017). Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Routledge.