Rousseau, with his concept of the 'general will,' moves us fundamentally toward the totalitarianisms of the twentieth century, which depend on collective identities: on the left, classes, on the right, nations; on both, from time to time, races. He states amazingly clearly the very worst idea in the history of philosophy: total submission to authority is the very definition of freedom: a thought furnished by Rousseau to Kant and Habermas.At one point I attribute the turn to romanticism to 'Fo...