Another key to modern thought is the influence (evil) of Rousseau. . .
''And, finally, implacably, there is the Rousseau, the very central thinker . . .
“Rousseau, of the general will and its absolute power over the individual, of insistence that when the individual enters into the social contract that yields the general will, all liberties and rights are automatically surrendered. . . . Rousseau is, at least to the mind of the late-twentieth-century clerisy in this country, the saint of saints. He offers absolute power in the form of divine grace, of the community of the elect.''
‘Community of elect’ is directly taken from Calvin. Rousseau raised in Geneva.
''Rousseau transferred, as it were, grace from the body of the church to the body of the state, the state based upon the social contract and the general will. His doctrine of the general will was regarded in his day as it is in ours as beyond the power of pure reason to understand, to assimilate. He could have said what Saint Augustine said in effect: To understand, one must first believe, have faith.'' (1029)
Nisbet explains his view of current American (western) intellectual worldview. . .
''We are obviously in dire need of a revolution of ideas right now in America. . . . There is a manifest revulsion in America toward moralizing militarism, toward superbureaucracy, toward a social order seemingly built out of the cash nexus, and toward the subjectivist, deconstructionist, and minimalist posturings which pass for culture. The time would appear to be as congenial to a revolution in ideas as was the eighteenth century in America.'' (2636)
Nisbet wrote this in 1988. Seems correct today.
I. The Prevalence of War
II.The New Absolutism
III. The Loose Individual
Epilogue
A fundamental theme is the overwhelming change from 1914 on American culture;
''The present age in American history begins with the Great War. When the guns of August opened fire in 1914, no one in America could have reasonably foreseen that within three years that foreign war not only would have drawn America into it but also would have, by the sheer magnitude of the changes it brought about on the American scene, set the nation on another course from which it has not deviated significantly since. The Great War was the setting of America’s entry into modernity—economic, political, social, and cultural. By 1920 the country had passed, within a mere three years, from the premodern to the distinctly and ineffaceably modern.”
“Gone forever now the age of American innocence.'' (44)
Included is the permanent change in the national state produced by -
''Woodrow Wilson made the war his personal mission, his road to salvation for not only America but the world; and in the process, he made the war the single most vivid experience a large number of Americans had ever known. . . . What the Great War did is what all major wars do for large numbers of people: relieve, if only briefly, the tedium, monotony, and sheer boredom which have accompanied so many millions of lives in all ages.''
''In this respect war can compete with liquor, sex, drugs, and domestic violence as an anodyne. War, its tragedies and devastations understood here, breaks down social walls and by so doing stimulates a new individualism. Old traditions, conventions, dogmas, and taboos are opened under war conditions to a challenge, especially from the young, that is less likely in long periods of peace. The very uncertainty of life brought by war can seem a welcome liberation from the tyranny of the ever-predictable, from what a poet has called the “long littleness of life.” (157)
Nisbet highlights two controlling ideas. . .
''The first was noted profoundly by President Eisenhower in 1961 in his cogent farewell remarks. He warned Americans against what he called the “military-industrial complex” and also the “scientific-technological elite.” Taken in its entirety the Eisenhower farewell address is as notable as was that of George Washington.'' (489)
The second -
''The cost of alleged scientific miracles is probably less, though, than the total costs of what may from one point of view be called the militarization of intellectuals and from another point of view the intellectualization of the military. I am thinking of the fusion of the military and the university during the last half-century. Eisenhower offered this warning also in his farewell remarks:
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present—and is gravely to be regarded.”
He cautioned too: “Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity.” (489)
The national state has transferred the sacred from the religious clergy/institution to the political expert/bureaucracy.
Many other fascinating insights. Well worth the time. Changes and deepens understanding of modernity since 1914.
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''Rousseau is clerisy in this country, the saint of saints. He offers absolute power of divine grace - of the elect''
Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2016
