tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post6326318385011045309..comments2024-03-27T06:34:24.901-07:00Comments on Goethe Etc.: Freedom of Speech: The History of an IdeaGoethe Girlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11390542069637659154noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-21085948876320912502011-07-14T17:00:19.748-07:002011-07-14T17:00:19.748-07:00Very thoughtful comments, which made me think that...Very thoughtful comments, which made me think that Rousseau was unlike the other philosophes in being what you suggest is a "relativist." Thus, "truth" was not his goal. At the same time, dissent bothered him. Still, as you write, an interesting tension. I like the "reveries," too.Goethe Girlhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11390542069637659154noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9020609400967229954.post-8077645728970372932011-07-13T20:31:47.683-07:002011-07-13T20:31:47.683-07:00Rousseau seems to me such a free spirit, what with...Rousseau seems to me such a free spirit, what with his "Confessions"--so incredibly Opra-like. (Of course, published posthumously, not broadcast for all the world to see.) His "Emile" is supposedly a huge influence on the Dr. Spock method of bringing up children, you know, the molly-coddling, the encouraging to "explore," etc. Rousseau is said to be responsible for the idea that human beings can "be anything they want to be." There is no set human nature, but rather a standard (morally relativistic) called "perfectibility." American public schools, not mention the Montessori schools, try to instill a sense of the possible. The idea that there are limits (budgets)...seems to be discouraged. Indeed I noticed incredible waste in the public school at which I taught for eleven years. All kinds of waste. Now a reaction against the so-called Rousseauan influence seems to be setting in, in places. But this is only the other side of Rousseau, the tough, no nonsense side. We have the "Reveries" side; then we have the "art is dangerous" side. I love this tension in Rousseau, one of the West's most influential geniuses. Can't wait to read "Julie," which my wife got me for Christmas couple years ago. Rousseau raves about it in his "Confessions." (By the way, for my French exam in grad school I translated Rousseau's "Preface" to his "Narcisse." My then Belgian girlfriend helped me polish it up! It contains some of the characteristic tension in Rousseau, as I recall, between the state's need for order and the individual's desire for self-expression and for art in general. Some of its content overlaps with that award-winning "First Discourse" that made Rousseau famous at age 38; also I think with his Bloom-translated "Letter to D'Alembert on the Theatre." I'd not heard of Holbach--am looking forward to this volume coming out in the fall. I'm especially interested in reading some Herder. By the way Lee Kuan Yew, the wise mentor of Singapore, seems to have used both ancients (Aristotle) and moderns (Rousseau) in his building up of what sounds like a magnificent place, a miraculous place. For him, Yew (a wise atheist), the leader, the founder, the legislator--must have prudence above all. Freedom of speech is fine and dandy--with certain prudent restrictions in a dangerously mixed society such as present-day Singapore.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com