The Alt Right. The West has gone through paradigm changes in which one belief system is weakened and another replaces it.The Alt Right is mainly against democracy and rule of the masses and wants something like a return of an aristocracy. They are also not very thrilled with the way Christianity has been absorbed into Leftism. So some are not interested in Christianity at all, but others still want it but not in its current day Leftist Political state of being.
At first I looked on this as unlikely. But then further thought got me to notice that the Roman Empire had lost interest in the old gods and adopted Christianity at an amazingly swift rate. So changes in world view are possible for the West as a whole.
The introduction of the Enlightenment philosophers took much longer than Christianity to become the ipso facto world view of the West.
In any case I agree that all this is subject to change.
In short the West seems to be rejecting Leftism as a whole, not just Rousseau, but John Locke also, and Christianity also - at least in its present form with a more or less communist Catholic church and highly politicized Protestant church.
I can't tell where this will go. My own approach is "none of the above". It is the basic idea of Gra, Rav Shach, Reb Israel Salanter and the Rambam. How to put that in a nutshell? To learn Torah. That is the entire Oral and Written Law, every single last word of the Tenach Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharsha. The entire Rambam with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. Plus the idea of the Rambam of learning the entire Metaphysics of Aristotle plus basic Physics and Math (i.e. String Theory, Field Theory, Abstract Algebra and Algebraic Topology). [Even though the Rambam only referred to ancient Greek Metaphysics, I would include Kant.]
But this is not to suggest the religious world in itself is so great. There is a problem there with the absence of compassion. And that does not enter by any means that I have seen. Certainly not by Musar--which is the first place you would expect to find it. And with no compassion, there is also no Torah. The solution to this problem is by no means obvious since it certainly was the primary concern of Reb Israel Salanter [and the reason he launched the Musar Movement]. But to me it seems that if compassion was what he was aiming at, then the whole Musar movement was an abject failure. But I certainly have nothing better to offer.
[The way you can see the problem in the religious world is fairly obvious because of their aversion of doing kindness. This has given me the strong impression that Reform and Conservative Jews are much closer to the true path of Torah.][Even so this still leaves me wondering what is wrong and what could be done. If Reb Israel Salanter's idea does not seem to work, then what would?][Reb Nachman incidentally noticed this same problem as you can see in the LM II ch 8. There he says that compassion left Israel, and the little bit that is left has בחינת אכזריות the essence of cruelty. I can't quote the whole piece from memory.]
At first I looked on this as unlikely. But then further thought got me to notice that the Roman Empire had lost interest in the old gods and adopted Christianity at an amazingly swift rate. So changes in world view are possible for the West as a whole.
The introduction of the Enlightenment philosophers took much longer than Christianity to become the ipso facto world view of the West.
In any case I agree that all this is subject to change.
In short the West seems to be rejecting Leftism as a whole, not just Rousseau, but John Locke also, and Christianity also - at least in its present form with a more or less communist Catholic church and highly politicized Protestant church.
I can't tell where this will go. My own approach is "none of the above". It is the basic idea of Gra, Rav Shach, Reb Israel Salanter and the Rambam. How to put that in a nutshell? To learn Torah. That is the entire Oral and Written Law, every single last word of the Tenach Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharsha. The entire Rambam with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. Plus the idea of the Rambam of learning the entire Metaphysics of Aristotle plus basic Physics and Math (i.e. String Theory, Field Theory, Abstract Algebra and Algebraic Topology). [Even though the Rambam only referred to ancient Greek Metaphysics, I would include Kant.]
But this is not to suggest the religious world in itself is so great. There is a problem there with the absence of compassion. And that does not enter by any means that I have seen. Certainly not by Musar--which is the first place you would expect to find it. And with no compassion, there is also no Torah. The solution to this problem is by no means obvious since it certainly was the primary concern of Reb Israel Salanter [and the reason he launched the Musar Movement]. But to me it seems that if compassion was what he was aiming at, then the whole Musar movement was an abject failure. But I certainly have nothing better to offer.
[The way you can see the problem in the religious world is fairly obvious because of their aversion of doing kindness. This has given me the strong impression that Reform and Conservative Jews are much closer to the true path of Torah.][Even so this still leaves me wondering what is wrong and what could be done. If Reb Israel Salanter's idea does not seem to work, then what would?][Reb Nachman incidentally noticed this same problem as you can see in the LM II ch 8. There he says that compassion left Israel, and the little bit that is left has בחינת אכזריות the essence of cruelty. I can't quote the whole piece from memory.]
