Rousseau is recognized as an inspiration both of modern democracy and of modern totalitarianism. In general, he has been a pernicious influence. What we know of his biography gives us even less reason to trust him as a guide.
In his defense, though, he has attracted the attention of modern philosophers and thinkers because he really takes the difference between the modern and ancient worlds seriously. Straussians in particular, who despise modernity and the currents which grew out of Rousseau, still appreciate his engagement with ancient values and ideas.
What you see in Rousseau may be a desire to recreate the relations between man and the state that he presumed existed in antiquity. A dangerous project that should be rejected, but one that sheds much light on what we were and what we have become.
Locke is a valuable thinker. I've heard that much of what is valuable in him goes back to Aristotle and Aquinas. What is his own may be less valuable or more suspect. If Locke truly is the background of our thought it pays to understand his ideas, and also the criticisms made of them.
While much preferable to Rousseau, the criticism has been made that Locke underestimates important values like loyalty, and makes one type of person the measure of all individuals. Actually existing societies are held together by more complex ties and connections than Locke was willing to admit. Also, if we truly achieve freedom, we eventually come to appreciate it less or to apply the idea of liberation to areas where it doesn't apply. That's probably more a judgement against us than against Locke, but the Lockean moment may be hard to recapture once it passes.
Hume was a Tory and a good guide to politics, though his other philosophical ideas could be painful to those who are looking for certainty or purpose in the universe. While Hume was right about so much that he turned his hand to, one can hardly blame people for wanting more from the universe than the skeptical Hume provided.
In general, though, the level of these thinkers was much higher than what we have today. We are moderns, and certainly we can't deny or reject that now. But it would do us well to return to the early promise of modernity and study it to understand what may have gone wrong since then.
Anyway, thanks for a great set of quotes.
That's why I posted them. Your analysis' of the three of them are quite correct.
Rouseau was a double edged sword and tended to waffle on certain aspects of the State vs. the individual. But some of his ideas (specifically those I have quoted) exerted a great influence on emerging thought with regard to modern democracy. Hume as you said was a bit of a Monarchist in his thinking, and Locke of course is probably the most important of the three, both in his ideas and clear-headed representation of them.
Taken together, all three of these authors were well known to our founding fathers and you can find the influences of Locke, Hume, and Rousseau throughout their writings.
What is on your list?
And it's probably worth remembering as we hash it out what has gone right as well. There are relatively few people (although they are surprisingly vigorously represented, and I don't necessarily mean you, on FR) who think that everything that is worth living for came to an end between 1775 and 1789.
Much that disappeared during those years hasn't been missed, I think.
Exactly. At least he understood that music and the musical part of us has something really important to do with man, unlike his English predecessors and many of those who came after.