Tag: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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He [Rousseau] had nothing new, but he set everything on fire. — Madame de Staël

Starting from unlimited freedom I arrive at unlimited despotism. — Shigalev, in Dostoevsky’s The Devils

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, not Karl Marx is the real father and inspiration for the theater of the absurd that is today’s Left. Rousseau’s “Man is born free, everywhere he is in chains” is the original formulation of the adolescent anarchist rally-cry, “Rage against the machine!” (more…)

Ted Kaczynski teapot by Charles Krafft

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Part 1 of 2 (Part 2 here)

The following is an edited transcript of the conversation between Greg Johnson and Richard Houck on the subject of Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, that was broadcast on Counter-Currents Radio in April 2021. You can listen to the recording here.

Greg Johnson: I’m Greg Johnson. Welcome to Ted Talk. I am joined here today by Rich Houck, and we’re going to be talking about Ted Kaczynski’s Industrial Society and Its Future. Rich, welcome to the show. (more…)

Gustave Doré, The Fall of Lucifer

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The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? — Jeremiah 17:9

Unde malum? Where does evil come from? I first pondered that question as a child, a childhood of full immersion in a fundamentalist, Baptist Weltanschauung. Evil’s origin and its persistence in the world was the central motif in the narrative of the Great Rebellion, the failure of Angel Lucifer’s insurrection against God. The origin of evil came from a titanic battle of supernatural beings. (more…)

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The following text is being presented in commemoration of Sir Oswald Mosley’s 136th birthday. — Ed. (more…)

The Blood Compact Monument in the Philippines, which commemorates the blood compact between that country and Spain that was made in 1565.

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Most classical liberal thinking, which is still ultimately liberal and thus subversive, is based on the idea of the Lockean social contract. But what if the idea of a social contract is a complete farce? Given that classical liberalism underpins much of lukewarm conservatism, if we knock out the idea of social contracts, we also knock out conservatism. (more…)

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, left, and David Hume.

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“No good deed goes unpunished,” as the old saw goes. It puts a cynical, waggish twist on the perspicacious observation that acts of genuine generosity and kindness too often come to grief. Benefactors beware! Shades of Thomas Hobbes: “Man to man is a wolf.” (more…)

Nejběžnějším nařčením bývá označení populismu za „antidemokratický“

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English original here

Populisté usilují o to vyrvat lidovládu z rukou zkorumpovaných elit. Ty se přirozeně brání: nejběžnějším nařčením elitních komentátorů bývá asi označení populismu za „antidemokratický“. Jak píše Yascha Mounk, populismus staví problém jako „lid versus demokracie“. (more…)

Norman Rockwell, Study for “Freedom of Speech”

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English original here

Le spectre du populisme

Les révoltes populistes de 2016 — le Brexit et l’élection de Donald Trump — ne sont pas des événements marquants comme les révolutions de 1789 et 1848. Pas encore en tous cas. Mais vous n’y croiriez pas en voyant la panique qui a parcouru les élites politiques occidentales. (more…)

Norman Rockwell, Study for “Freedom of Speech”

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French version here, Czech version here

The Specter of Populism^*

The populist uprisings of 2016—Brexit and the election of Donald Trump—aren’t epochal events like the revolutions of 1789 and 1848. Not yet anyway. But you wouldn’t know that judging from the panic that swept through Western political elites. (more…)

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This week Greg Johnson talks to video blogger Endeavour on topics ranging from Thomas Hobbes to Steven Pinker to Pixar movies, answers questions from our Entropy donors, (more…)

Rousseau’s Émile

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Part 3 of 3 (Part 2 here)

This conversation took place in the spring of 2015. We would like to thank KC for making this transcript.  (more…)

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Jan-Werner Müller
What is Populism?
Penguin, 2017

When a political establishment feels threatened by a growing force like National Populism, Plan A is to defend the establishment and attack its opponents by dispatching middle-brow journalists to sneer and jeer and middle-brow political hacks to construct partisan talking points. (more…)

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Paul Theroux
The Mosquito Coast
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981

I always find it interesting when different people make similar observations based on the same data, yet come to completely different conclusions. Allie Fox, the main character in Paul Theroux’s novel The Mosquito Coast, seems at first to have much in common with many on today’s Dissident Right. He’s disgusted with the ubiquitous commercialization of modern society. (more…)