Deliberate Regression Author:Robert Harbison "The disastrous history of Romantic individualism in thought and art, from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to 20th century fascism." — Robert Harbison offers nothing less than a whole new perspective on European cultural history since the late 18th century and the birth of Romantic individualism. Examining the works of a long series of majo... more »r creative figures, mainly artists and philosophers, he discerns an increasingly dangerous pattern of regression: a deliberate, compulsive turning-away from what previous ages had considered man's highest faculty - reason - to glorify instead the passionate instincts, the wisdom of the untutored peasant or child, the "truth" of ancient or exotic myth. History itself echoes the tragic irony: that as Romanticism exalts the individual and his private passions over universal reason, the universal instincts take over and individuality is lost; art becomes faceless, social awareness inhuman. Starting with Rousseau and Watteau, we end with Hitler and Stalin.« less