Rousseau and the American Electorate – David Lewis Schaefer

Jean-Jacques Rousseau ( 171278 ) was a thoughtful critic of the excesses of the modern “ Enlightenment’s excesses.

He was a defender of familial-based morality, non-doctrinaire religious piety, political freedom, and national patriotism.

In short, he sought to uphold the qualities conservatives aim to preserve today .

Some 275 years after Rousseau wrote these words, nobody would seriously argue against universal public education, at least through high school.

But a survey of American higher education outside STEM fields will show that standards of learning have declined.

This decline has more recently extended downwards into the K-12 curriculum, through politicization and the lowering of standards.

The author shows himself to be intimately familiar with, and a thoughtful interpreter of, the works of the leading French playwrights of his time, especially Molière.

In another of his writings, The Government of Poland ( 1782 ), Rousseau takes issue with “enlightened” opinion in another respect.

He refrained from recommending a radical reconstruction of the politically backward nation.