FROM ISSUE NUMBER 128 - SUMMER 1997 GO TO TABLE OF CONTENTS
Moist eyes—from Rousseau to Clinton
READERS of The Public Interest know that ideas have consequences, sometimes long delayed ones. Even so, the notion of a link between Rousseau and Clinton may seem tenuous. Except, perhaps, to a certain kind of codger, who would snort that the two had at least one thing in common: their obvious moral depravity. And that snort would be justified, at least to this extent: The goodness that both men have sought to project—and compassion has been important to them primarily as evincing this goodness— is for both of them a substitute for virtue. And this entitles us to regard Clinton as the beneficiary of a moral upheaval instigated by Rousseau.
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