Word: rousseau
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU was not enamored of his contemporaries: They were motivated by selfish desires, he said, and a little too frivolous in their interest. But Rousseau was a political philosopher, and that me is he had to have some ideas for the future, preferably optimistic ones. After all, the state of nature may be be romantic, but it doesn't have much in the way of creature comforts. So Rousseau came up with an idea, a scenario to bring culture to the heathens, and men would learn to live for each other. It went something like this...
After men had quibbled, nit picked, and clashed for some time, a great legislator would come along. He couldn't exactly force people to live properly; that would contradict Rousseau's belief that a populace must retain sovereignty, misguided though it might be. Instead, Rousseau's Supermen would skillfully persuade men to listen to that part of their consciousnesses that instructs them to act as public-minded citizens and to ignore their self-serving desires. Thanks to this great legislator-educator, society would advance spiritually, cooperation would become the norm, and everyone would be fulfilled...
...problem is, as Rousseau might have known, men of that caliber don't come along any too often, when they do, they rarely make the compromises necessary to reach adequately influential positions. Visionaries able to persuade without compelling, and convincing enough to sway millions to jettison their selfish tendencies are a vanishing breed (and never a big species in the first place...
...stylized hills that suggest haste rather than observation. But his candid style has an impact on the modern viewer that Remington's hyped-up romanticism no longer does. His so-called ineptness of drawing has been re-evaluated in the wake of the incisive simplicities of a Douanier Rousseau or even a John Kane. He relied on a plain clarity of eye in an age in which this virtue ranked rather...
...most aggressively competitive series of confessions since Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Like a sinner who does not want to miss any bets, Billie Jean King made the rounds of the major churches and synagogues of press and television last week. She unburdened herself to ABC'S Barbara Walters, the one woman in America officially empowered to hear confessions and grant absolution. She went over the scandal with Rona Barrett. She spent ten hours with an old friend from PEOPLE...