Question regarding a small paragraph from Henry Kissinger’s book “World Order”

Hi, guys, I’m a student from China who’s interested in politics in general, I apologize in advance if this is the wrong forum to ask this question but I do not know where else to seek help. On page 42 of Dr. Kissinger’s book “World Order”. The term “rule of administration in social order” appeared in the following paragraph, I quote: “... Walking readers step by step through a ‘rational’ dissection of human society, Rousseau condemned all existing institutions—property, religion, social classes, government authority, civil society—as illusory and fraudulent. Their replacement was to be a new ‘rule of administration in the social order.’ The populace was to submit totally to it ...” As a non native speaker, it’s a bit hard for me to comprehend the meaning of “rule of administration in social order”. Any help with the explanation of this term would be much appreciated, thank you guys in advance!

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Your English sounds curiously quite excellent - better, in fact, than most teabaggers posting here.

Assuming this is actually a question asked out of genuine interest from a "student in China", my suggestion is that you forget about learning anything about Jean-Jacques Rosseau from the noted war criminal Henry Kissinger.

Any knowledge acquired about Rousseau should come from professional philosophers and historians of intellectual history. I do not think it matters what the purported buzzword "rule of administration in the new social order" means. I am not convinced Rousseau actually said it, and since he wrote in French, this English interpretation could mangle the actual original meaning. The only thing that matters is intent....not buzzwords.

All I know about Rousseau is what I learned from a class I recently took --- that he was a contrarian voice to the Enlightenment. He, almost uniquely among the great European thinkers, maintained that cultural progress and technological progress lead directly to moral decay. The system of laws and property rights established by the modern nation state were forms of coercion and inequality leading to unnatural relationships. Primitive man living in balance with nature was deemed by Rousseau to be morally superior. As a deist, he was an ardent defender of a natural religion and God against the prevailing atheism of the day. It is possible that 20th radicals, progressives, and socialists might have held out Rousseau as their intellectual birthright, but that is their opinion and assertion only. Rousseau is dead and gone, and cannot speak for himself. I highly doubt Rousseau or Karl Marx would have approved of Bolsheviks or Maoists coopting their names in the pursuit of totalitarianism and the establishment of coercive Leninism or Maoism. .
 
Your English sounds curiously quite excellent - better, in fact, than most teabaggers posting here.

Assuming this is actually a question asked out of genuine interest from a "student in China", my suggestion is that you forget about learning anything about Jean-Jacques Rosseau from the noted war criminal Henry Kissinger.

Any knowledge acquired about Rousseau should come from professional philosophers and historians of intellectual history. I do not think it matters what the purported buzzword "rule of administration in the new social order" means. I am not convinced Rousseau actually said it, and since he wrote in French, this English interpretation could mangle the actual original meaning. The only thing that matters is intent....not buzzwords.

All I know about Rousseau is what I learned from a class I recently took --- that he was a contrarian voice to the Enlightenment. He, almost uniquely among the great European thinkers, maintained that cultural progress and technological progress lead directly to moral decay. The system of laws and property rights established by the modern nation state were forms of coercion and inequality leading to unnatural relationships. Primitive man living in balance with nature was deemed by Rousseau to be morally superior. As a deist, he was an ardent defender of a natural religion and God against the prevailing atheism of the day. It is possible that 20th radicals, progressives, and socialists might have held out Rousseau as their intellectual birthright, but that is their opinion and assertion only. Rousseau is dead and gone, and cannot speak for himself. I highly doubt Rousseau or Karl Marx would have approved of Bolsheviks or Maoists coopting their names in the pursuit of totalitarianism and the establishment of coercive Leninism or Maoism. .

Speaking of Marx might not approve Bolsheviks and Maoist, Soviet political jokes are quite popular in China, and there is one that I distinctively remember, I was able to find the source of the joke in an English website numbered 1.8. Most soviet politics jokes have rather high quality, highly recommended. http://www.talkreason.org/marperak/jokes/party.htm


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Speaking of Marx might not approve Bolsheviks and Maoist, Soviet political jokes are quite popular in China, and there is one that I distinctively remember, I was able to find the source of the joke in an English website numbered 1.8. Most soviet politics jokes have rather high quality, highly recommended. http://www.talkreason.org/marperak/jokes/party.htm


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I am not really a fan of Soviet jokes, having some indirect exposure to and familiarity with the Gulag Archipelago.

Based on what I have observed from my Chinese friends, is that Chinese have an ambiguous relationship to Russia. On the one hand, the Soviet occupation of Manchuria directly after World War 2 was seen as offensive, overbearing, and in some cases resulted in war crimes. On the other hand, Chinese seem to have an affinity, even a kinship, for Russia and Russian culture, perhaps owing to some extent to their links geographically, historically, and also as their shared heritage as the two leading communist super powers of the 20th century.
 
I am not really a fan of Soviet jokes, having some indirect exposure to and familiarity with the Gulag Archipelago.

Based on what I have observed from my Chinese friends, is that Chinese have an ambiguous relationship to Russia. On the one hand, the Soviet occupation of Manchuria directly after World War 2 was seen as offensive, overbearing, and in some cases resulted in war crimes. On the other hand, Chinese seem to have an affinity, even a kinship, for Russia and Russian culture, perhaps owing to some extent to their links geographically, historically, and also as their shared heritage as the two leading communist super powers of the 20th century.

Those who like/hate Russia have their own individual reasons, I do not represent the whole Chinese community, therefore I can only share with you some opinions of mine.

In terms of hatred, I’d say the long lasting ones are the territorial loss of Qing dynasty to Tsardom Russia, and the independence of Mongolia(which Soviet played a huge role) during republic of China. The first incident caused Manchurian provinces to lose almost all coastal regions to Russia, and many people of Manchuria today blame the economic problems of Manchuria(we call Manchuria “north east” 东北 nowadays) to lack of coastal regions and ports because of Russia. As for Mongolia, it’s a topic I’m not familiar with, so I won’t touch on that.

On the other hand, as comrades of communism, we did have a natural affiliation with each other during a short time in mid 20th century. Until we had conflicts of interest, and the relationship broke apart. The recent good relation with Russia was kind of forced by outer forces since America displayed hostility towards both countries, therefore forming this unlikely tie of cooperation (I don’t think it’s any official Alliance yet). Because for the most part of history, Russia and China saw each other as the biggest threat on each other’s borders. So I don’t think the links geographically and historically planted the seeds of affinity. If any, it planted hatred and hostility.

The Russian culture is a weird one. There are the Russians displayed on the internet: barbaric, alcoholic, rude, but also direct, valuing friendship, and sincere. And those who live in Manchuria that have frequent contact with Russian people find their way of life and values bare a lot of similarities(for starters, Manchurian people are infamous for their drinking habits, and they believe true friends are made on the drinking table). I think finding similarities contribute most to having affinity for Russian culture. On the other hand, most of us Chinese actually grew up reading Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky etc. (It was a requirement to read these authors along side with some French, English and American authors when I was in elementary school, I’m not sure if they still do that these days) those writings made us more familiar with the streets of Saint Petersburg, the river of Volga, and the Russian culture in general.

This answer is a bit all over the place, but I hope it helps


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