zoogs Posted July 31, 2016 Share Posted July 31, 2016 http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/01/how-rousseau-predicted-trump An aptly argued piece for our time. I can't quote the whole thing, so I'll try to pick out a paragraph sensibly: The triumphs of capitalist imperialism in the nineteenth century, and of economic globalization after the Cold War, fulfilled on a grand scale the Enlightenment dream of a worldwide materialist civilization knit together by rational self-interest. Voltaire proved to be, as Nietzsche presciently wrote, the “representative of the victorious, ruling classes and their valuations,” while Rousseau looked like a sore loser. Against today’s backdrop of political rage, however, Rousseau seems to have grasped, and embodied, better than anyone the incendiary appeal of victimhood in societies built around the pursuit of wealth and power. Link to comment
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