Is there any mileage in this?

[fpb]

I have a kind of intuition that one might get a lot of insight into the modern age by making a close comparative study - not only philosophical, but psychological and culture-historical too - of Rousseau and Nietzsche; beginning with their religious roots.

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[fpb.livejournal.com]

I think these two stand out because there is much in them that can be saved, and that, indeed, it is the flame against which they rebel that makes their work so memorable. It was not some modernist hack, but GK Chesterton, in his magnificent little treatise on Thomas Aquinas, who placed Nietzsche among the giants such as Plato, the Buddha, and obviously Thomas himself. Likewise Rousseau, though profoundly corrupting, is also full of passages that lead back to the light - however hard he may be trying to turn away. And there is also this, that it would be useful to see to what extent the radical collectivism of Rousseau and his Collective Will and the radical individualism of Nietzsche's Overman arise from similar or different postulates and experiences. To denounce is easy enough; to understand enough to save what can be saved and denounce what actively corrupts and is corrupted takes a certain amount of effort.