February 29, 2008

'Absurd' Ideas on Knowledge and Art

To the Editor:

Laurie Fendrich's elevation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Letter to d'Alembert on the Theatre to iconic status is amazing ("Creative Class, Dismissed," The Chronicle Review, January 25).

Rousseau was typical of men of his time in believing the religious notion of divine creation, which is where he got the absurd notion of virtue as the product of residing in a "state of nature." That is humorous, to say the least, considering that modern science and recent