My own feeling is that Rav Israel Salanter certainly must have realized that the main point of Torah is to come to good character traits. [That is Torah is a goal centered system. At least that is clear from the Talmud itself and also from the Rambam.] That includes the commandment of learning Torah. And that was probably the major motivation for his starting of the Musar Movement. -Though this is usually not stated openly. But that does bring often to the question that many people have that the results do not seem to conform to the intention. At least in my own case I think at least subconsciously I had thought that joining up with the religious world would help bring to family values.--Little did I know! But the fact of human messing up a system does not necessarily invalidate the system. [Unless it is clear that the actual implementation actual was a direct result of the system itself--not just a warping of the system for personal greed].
My feeling about this is that it comes under the category of the Dialectic of Hegel. [That is to say, I do not think that the dialectic of Hegel is only a process that takes place by means of Logic. --Though that is in fact one area. But I think it takes places also in the categories of Being. So the more you get into something, often that process in itself ends up the exact opposite of what you thought it was supposed to bring about.] {Schopenhauer however would have a different idea of this process. ]
My feeling about this is that it comes under the category of the Dialectic of Hegel. [That is to say, I do not think that the dialectic of Hegel is only a process that takes place by means of Logic. --Though that is in fact one area. But I think it takes places also in the categories of Being. So the more you get into something, often that process in itself ends up the exact opposite of what you thought it was supposed to bring about.] {Schopenhauer however would have a different idea of this process. ]
