Political theory sunday seems to have a half-life. From a reader in response to today’s syndicated column in which I wrote, “”Saying that the courts should follow the Rousseauian General Will of the people isn’t “moderate” at all —
indeed, it’s a form of radicalism.”:
This is ironic considering my comments on Rousseau
when I emailed you about Niet. this weekend. You are
just wrong on this, and howsoever much I love what you
and Rich Lowery do (and I love it very much since I
have been coming back for more for the last-almost
12-years, since I was 14), you-especially he-have this
thing against Rousseau that is totally wrong. There
is nothing in 1) The Social Contract, 2) the First
Discourse, 3) the Second Discourse, 4) the Letter on
Stage Spectacles, 5) The Confessions, 5) The Discourse
on Political Economy, 6) The Discourse on the Origin
of Languages, 7) The Essay on Heroic Virtue, 8)
Narcisse, or, the Self-Admirer, 9) the first parts of
the Letter to Count Weilhorski on the Government of
Poland or 10) several letters from Rousseau to
Voltaire, Diderot, etc. that in any way contradicts
originalism, traditionalism, conservatism, capitalism,
or anything else that you hold dear (also, just incase
you were wondering about this, Rousseau was not
French, he was a citizen of Geneva). I have read the
entirety of everything I have just mentioned (so for
the Letter on Poland, I have only read a little of
it), plus parts of “La Nouvelle Eloise,” and a little
of Emile (I don’t know if Emile’s educational theory
is as bad as Lowry thinks it is, it may be, but the
whole of Emile I think is less than 600 pages, all the
reading I have described to you is about 1500 pages).
And all of it is 1) very good, 2) often as
nationalistic as John O’Sullivan (so the thing Lowry
has against Kant, the one bad thing about Kant, his
love for a UN before we-sadly-got one, Rousseau is
innocent of), 3) the greatest stuff out there against
euthanasia and the so-called “right-to-die” and at no
point is the “general will” confused with the impulse
of the mob-though Rousseau hated all indirect
democracy, and therefore he did not approve of our
Anglo-American system (he knew how M.P.’s in England
were elected, I think his views on this were stupid,
but they only occupy one footnote in the Social
Contract), anyway, believing that we should all be
like Geneva (or Rome before the Empire) where everyone
in the “city” can vote, and thus, we should all live
in city-states is something that Aristotle too
believed-and all the Alastir MacIntyre-Leon Kass
people never have to defend their hero’s conservatism
to you guys, even though Aristotle DID defend
infanticide and euthanasia (which is bad stuff,
right?).
You and Lowry are great, but-like Burke, you seem
to think that just because Robespierre *said* he was a
disciple of Rousseau, he was in fact one. Justice
Brennan quoted George Washington, but you’d never
saddle the Father of the Country with that moral
relativist idiot’s “work” on the Supreme Court, people
at NR should read more Rousseau before they attack
him, they will find that there is precious little to
attack.
Thank you for your time.