Petr
Administrator
I think it is well known that in philosophic terms, Liberalism and Fascism share a common source in Hobbes. This statement was given by Strauss I think, or possibly his teacher Schmitt. I should give a link.
Well, this is how Benjamin Wiker saw the matter (this conservative Thomist writer has the talent of explaining complicated philosophical issues in such a way that tolerably intelligent ordinary people can understand them - he is a "popularizer" in the positive sense of the word).
Rousseau's theories about "the state of nature" were greatly influenced by Hobbes, even though he was partly reacting against him - one could say that Rousseau "stood Hobbes on his head," like Karl Marx did to Hegel:
Hard and soft liberalism both have their roots in Rousseau. As we shall see, the difference between them arises from the above-mentioned contradiction in Rousseau’s thought – the notion that the state is on the one hand unnatural but on the other necessary for the re-creation of our original natural Edenic condition.
While Rousseau painted an Edenic picture of our unfallen, natural and animal-like condition, he also made it clear that humanity had irredeemably fallen from that condition. That is, we now live in highly developed societies with families, morality, private property and laws that protect it, vices that come with luxury, and virtues that are made necessary by the fact that we are no longer simple animals.
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Against the debauched luxury of his own age, Rousseau preached the severities of ancient Sparta, of the primitive Teutonic peoples, and especially of republican Rome. All three of these political regimes were defined by a simplicity of life and manners and by the rough equality of citizen-soldiers. And all of them aimed at military virtue rather than artistic, economic, or intellectual development.17 This was a condition at least closer to our natural origins.
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Rousseau’s admiration of the pagan Roman Republic, brought forward from Machiavelli, provided the intellectual inspiration for the Jacobins of the French Revolution, with their stress on virtue against the debauched upper classes and the church. By taking upon themselves the name “republicans” and setting up a French Republic they meant to reject Christianity as well as depraved eighteenth-century notions of nobility. Their return to pagan virtue allowed them to maintain the high moral ground, at least in their own minds, and vindicated their purifying brutality. Thus the figure of Robespierre, at once austerely virtuous and entirely savage.
The hard liberalism of the French Revolution was a child of Rousseau (and a grandchild of Machiavelli), as was the Romantic nationalism of both Fascism and Nazism, rooted in the primitive religio-mythic origins of, respectively, ancient Italy and Germany – pre-Christian cultures that Rousseau himself praised.
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While hard liberalism embraces Rousseau’s praise of Sparta, the Teutonic tribes, and republican Rome, soft liberalism embraces Rousseau’s Eden. Both strains of liberalism are inspired by Rousseau, and both represent a rejection of Christianity. And the horrifying excesses of hard liberalism in the first half of the twentieth century have led to the victory of soft liberalism in France and Britain, and now in the United States. The goal of liberal politics today is not the creation of Spartan or Roman warriors. Instead, liberalism is creating a kind of soft techno-political paradise where Rousseau’s Adams and Eves can enjoy pleasure in peace.
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