The Anti-Augustines: Rousseau & His Progeny

This is as concise a summary as we've even encountered.

...Briefly put, Rousseau taught that human nature is good, not sinful; that all humans are free and equal by nature; and that inequality and its consequence, un-freedom, were byproducts of the creation of private property.  ...

We've been irritated by the screeching about "FREEDOM" by elements of the Trump party, as though "freedom" was some sort of unalloyed good.

In reality, 'freedom' is the liberty to do what is right.  Only what is right.

Moving on:

...From there, it is but a short step to the dream of utopia: a society in which everyone will be equal, everyone will be free, and everyone will be good; and this goodness will be a spontaneous thing, not something imposed by police, law courts, and prisons; and all things will be held in common, with a sufficiency of the necessities of life for everybody; and nobody will be avaricious or unkind, and nobody will wish to exploit anybody else; and such limited government as society may need will be purely democratic.

Two further features of this ideal society will be the absence of anything but a very vague Deist-tending religion (no real Christianity), and something whose quaint name used to be “free love.”

The desire for such a society was, doubtless, stimulated by the decline, due to the Enlightenment, of belief in Christianity and its essential accompaniment, belief in life after death.  If we can no longer look forward to heaven in the next world, perhaps we – or our descendants in later generations – can at least look forward to something like a heaven on earth.

Parallel to this earthly paradise was the idea of a great Revolution that would usher in the utopian age...

The French had FOUR revolutions, beginning in 1789.  None brought Utopia.  The Bolsheviks tried it and failed.  The Maoists tried and are in the process of failing.  In Western Europe and America, the Soros/Great Reset movement is continuing the effort.  Have you noticed the Utopia yet?

All of them believe that eating the fruit of the apple tree will work--this time.

Don't bet on it.