Deru kugi wa utareru.

Sounds a little like Escher jurisprudence to me. Have fun.

Now that, I’m keeping. It may even score a guernsey in my essay. V. nice.

Now, off to do more work

If so it’s not contradictory exactly.

Evil Society = Traditional Context

And then he’s advocating the use of the State to dissolve or limit the ‘Evil Society’. This is where it seems to become contradictory because what gives the State the right to decide that this is the evil society and therefore actively enforce some sort of disassociation as opposed to enforcing the law which enshrines the rights of those within the ‘Evil Society’ to associate as they please.

Sounds a little like Escher jurisprudence to me. Have fun.

I don’t think Rousseau is counterthetical to liberalism at all John. The Romantic/Enlightenment dichotomy is not the same thing as political dichotomies. There are classical (Enlightenment, reason-based) liberals and classical autocrats. There are Romantic autocrats and Romantic democrats. And after a certain point in the 19th century we’re all both classical and Romantic at the same time.

But Rousseau’s view of society as a contract is compatible with liberalism. Many liberals however may take a more Hobbesian view of human nature.

He’s not contradictory at all, that’s the thing. I wanted to believe that he was, but the more I’ve read of his stuff, the more I’ve come to realise that defeating his arguments is going to take a sustained intellectual effort - in part because he is so careful about where he positions himself, and in part because he is a very kind and humane man in the best liberal tradition. This illuminates his best writing.

But I can see why Fortuyn and friends would be quoting him all over the place, too.