Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Sri Aurobindo

[Rousseau versus Locke from The Daily Goose by Matthew
Boiled down, their debate animates the progressive versus conservative debate, and the debate within every human heart. Or so says Jonah Goldberg:
"Rousseau says … that our rights come from the government, that come from the collective. Locke says our rights come from God, and that we only create a government to protect our interests. The Rousseauian says you can make a religion out of society and politics, and the Lockean says no, religion is a separate sphere from politics. And that is the defining distinction between the two, and I think that distinction also runs through the human heart, that we all have a Rousseauian temptation in us. And it’s the job of conservatives to remind people that the Lockean in us needs to win."
Analysis like this (and how he further elaborates the analysis and detects it within a vast array of American history) is why Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is, in my view, a minor classic for the ages.]

[The Stillborn God: Two books, oddly yoked together posted by Charles Taylor
Mark Lilla’s The Stillborn God feels like two books, oddly yoked together. One is a fascinating study, which traces a post-Enlightenment tradition of theorizing about religion starting from an anthropocentric focus. Religion is to be understood from the human desire or craving or need for religion. The originator of this way of thinking is Rousseau, but he rapidly acquires followers in Germany: Kant, the German Romantics, Schleiermacher....But then this monograph is woven into a much broader narrative of modernity...The motive for the Great Separation was the religiously inspired violence of the confessional wars of the early modern period. Its great architect for Lilla was Hobbes. The threatened return of political theology today may also weaken our defenses against the eruption of violence, hence the importance of our understanding what is at stake. SSRC Home SSRC Blogs Blog Home 7:07 PM]

[Sri Aurobindo said it as “Unity without uniformity” which is better described as India’s tolerance to all sorts of culture, nationalities, and communities and how they are united together without loosing their own identity. Due to this, India was prosperous earlier, and it will be the world’s most powerful nation, within a decade . It is destined to be so. So, welcome back again to India … the land of prosperity and peace. Spirituality and materiality. For all the Indians, who have shifted abroad in search of prosperity. In addition, to all the others, who wants to come to India, for search of prosperity. Posted by Joydip Chakladar at 12:29 PM Friday, February 22, 2008]

Savitri Erans, thankfully, have the Sri Aurobindian vision honed in the conflicting and confrontational discourse of the 20th century to guide them into the future, where art, poetry, politics, and philosophy all blend to build an integral and harmonious highway. [TNM]