Companion lecture, Rousseau’s First Discourse: Professor Kelly's Book (affiliate): https://amzn.to/4bX9JQD My book notes: https://www.johnathanbi.com/p/rousseau-as-author-by-christopher Introduction Johnathan Bi: Superheroes have never been more popular in movies, yet real heroes have never been more absent in society. Who do we look up to today the same way Rome looked up to Caesar, that Christendom looked up to the saints. Nobody, because we tear heroes down and Rousseau thinks that's an existential threat to society. Christopher Kelly is one of the world's leading Rousseau scholars and today, we discuss the importance of heroes. Heroes aren't just ornaments, a nice-to-have, but the very foundations of community itself. What's worrying then is Rousseau's diagnosis that the modern world is hostile to heroes. It's not just we can't produce them, it's not just we can't sustain them, but that we are actively tearing them down. You're going to learn how many existential issues we face due to our lack of shared heroes. Issues as seemingly unrelated as the failure of reason in public discourse is due to the lack of heroic models. Without heroes, even reason is impotent. So what can we do? Can we bring heroes back? Rousseau doesn’t think that's possible anymore for reasons we'll explore, but he will teach us what the next best alternative to heroes are and how to live, if not thrive, in our hero-less world.
"59:59" (to use Bacon's phrase "hostages to fortune...")