Public Vision, Private Lives Rousseau, Religion, and 21st-Century Democracy [Hardcover]

Listening closely to the religious pitch in Rousseau's voice, Cladis convincingly shows that Rousseau, when attempting to portray the most characteristic aspects of the public and private, reached for a religious vocabulary. Honoring both love of self and love of that which is larger than the self--these twin poles, with all the tension between them--mark Rousseau's work, vision and challenge--the challenge of 21st-century democracy.

Elegantly organized and engagingly written, serving at once as a window into the origins of modernity and as a mirror of our present condition. . Highly Recommended --Choice

Cladis's new book does for Rousseau what his first book did for Durkheim. For he has provided a rich historical context for understanding Rousseau's most important works while also shedding a great deal of fresh light on contemporary concerns in philosophy, political theory, and religious thought. This is the most important discussion of the conflicts between public and private life yet written by a specialist in modern religious thought. The writing is clear and vigorous, the thinking is careful and well-informed throughout. A wonderful book. --Jeffrey Stout, Professor of Religion,PrincetonUniversity

Mark Cladis moves us to appreciate the ways in which heartfelt piety and robust democracy can check and cross-fertilize one another. More specifically, he highlights the necessity of balancing public rules and private aspirations, charitable concern for the common good and prudential love of self, group obligations and solitary affinities, the fallen city and the amoral garden, secular reason and sacred hope, etc. Elaborating Rousseau's stance 'at the crossroads of Augustinian pessimism and Enlightenment optimism,' Cladis is able to identify the 'ineluctable tension' between various political and personal goods, without simply dissolving all commitment into one or the other. WithPublic Vision, Private Lives