Tag Archives: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

BOOK REVIEW: Introducing the Enlightenment by Lloyd Spencer

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Introducing the Enlightenment: A Graphic GuideIntroducing the Enlightenment: A Graphic Guide by Lloyd Spencer
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This brief illustrated guide offers a history of the Age of Enlightenment with a particular focus on the changing philosophical landscape and its opposition. It does dip into the literature and arts of the time, but most intensely with respect to philosophical novels. It also discusses a burgeoning scientific scene, but mostly with respect to Isaac Newton and his influence. The Enlightenment was an age in which religion’s hold on the populace was declining and tolerance of other sects was increasing, and at the same time there was increasing liberalization, rationality, and openness to new ideas. Therefore, much of the focus is on philosophy of religion and political philosophy, and Locke, Bacon, Rousseau, Diderot, and Voltaire are the most extensively discussed personalities. (Particularly Rousseau and Voltaire as their contrasting views offered insight to the breadth of views among Enlightenment philosophers.)

I felt this book did a fine job of delivering an overview of the era and the new ideas that informed it. It drew heavily on quintessential quotes of major figures of the day (particularly the very quotable Voltaire.) It’s a fine place to begin one’s examination of the topic and includes a “Further Reading” section as a means to direct those who would like deeper insight into the subject.


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5 Historical Figures You May Not Realize Were Super-Freaky

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5.) Jean-Jacques Rousseau: This French philosopher is probably best known for his ideas about social contract in governance. At least that’s what I knew him for when I was a student of the social sciences.

Unlike the Marquis de Sade, whose philosophy and sexual proclivities were intimately intertwined, one wouldn’t necessarily guess that Rousseau was a masochist into getting spanked by dominant women from his political theories. Although, all interest in governance is about who holds the whip and what the whipee gets in exchange for being subjected to it — figuratively speaking, of course.

 

4.) Peggy Guggenheim:  This  heiress  to  an  

artistic empire had a legendary libido — and not just in her youth. What interests people is not so much that she was sexually promiscuous, but that age didn’t seem to curb her desire for sexual conquest.

Even though her memoir is filled with discussion of her sexual dalliances, she is still more well known for discovering important 20th century artists and saving art from thieving Nazis.

 

 

3.) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: One of the all-time greatest musical minds, his genius for composition may have helped to keep him from being known for his scatological obsession.

This may seem far-fetched (not to mention grosser than the other proclivities discussed herein) but there’s even a Wikipedia page about it — so it must be true.

I knew from discussion of the movie “Amadeus” (which I, sadly, haven’t seen) that there was something unexpectedly scandalous about Mozart, but I never would have guess this was it.

 

2.) King Edward VII: It may be well-established that King Edward had some wild times, but the fact that he had custom sex furniture made tells you just how all-consuming his passions were.

 

1.) H.G. Wells:  The author of “War of the Worlds,” “The Island of Doctor Moreau,” and “The Time Machine,” Wells was all for free love, long before there was a free love movement. He is said to have had sex atop bad reviews. While I knew him as an early sci-fi author who famously predicted the atomic bomb (Physicist, Leo Szilard, cited Wells’ “The World Set Free” as an inspiration), he was — unknown to me — legendarily promiscuous.