Sunday, October 22, 2006

Locke v. Rousseau

David Kirby, in today's Chicago Tribune book section, reviewed this book, and made a point of philosophical comparison between the U.S. and France:

"As opposed to the world of John Locke, so beloved of Thomas Jefferson and other members of America's founding generation, this is the world of Henri Rousseau; the American model proposes freedom from the state, and the French one proposes freedom through the state."

Give me "freedom from".
"Freedom through" sounds dumb.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for quoting me, John. Of course, the Rousseau reference is to Jean-Jacques Rousseau the philosopher, not Henri Rousseau the painter (apparently someone at the newspaper inserted the wrong first name).

All the best,

David

John Enright said...

Oh my god. I didn't even notice the "Henri"!

But I enjoyed your review very much!