A PHILOSOPHIC ASIDE

IN HER "Lead Kindly Life" (June 15), Emily Colette Wilkinson twice describes Jean Jacques Rousseau as a believer in opposition to Thomas Hobbes in innate human kindness and sociability. Although this is a widely accepted notion, it is directly at odds with the "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality," where Rousseau explicitly portrays human beings in the state of nature as asocial loners largely indifferent (like himself) to their fellows. Rousseau does say that man is naturally "compassionate," but he explains that this "compassion" has limits. It includes a capacity for pity but not a disposition to be charitable or kind. It was not Rousseau, the philosopher of the French Revolution, but the Scots David Hume and Adam Smith, who made belief in a capacity for "natural sympathy" the basis of their moral and political philosophies.

MAX HOCUTT
Emeritus Professor of Philosophy
University of Alabama

FORTUNE 500 DIVERSITY

MATT LABASH'S article "Where Everybody is Disadvantaged" (May 25) reminded me of my experience growing up in a corporate Fortune 500 environment. I can vividly recall the "wrist-slashing lectures" (to steal a line from the article) I endured during the introduction and forced-feeding era of valuing diversity. It wasn't humorous then, but I have to admire the pure comic genius of Labash to make me laugh about it now. It is difficult to imagine how anyone could make such a topic entertaining, but Labash did, and I didn't want that article to end.

But end it did, and with the right message to boot: Government intervention in the private sector has once again proven to be fundamentally discriminatory and unproductive. As Ronald Reagan demonstrated, if you can unburden the individual from crushing taxes and government obstacles, he or she will succeed on their own--if they are worthy.

PAUL FORREST
La Quinta, California

MATT LABASH'S "Where Everybody Is Disadvantaged" was serious and funny.

I wonder how Madame Curie survived without diversity groups? Golda Meir? Jane Austen? How about Cleopatra? To name a few. It's a distorted fad. These groups desperately try to elevate mediocrity, yet all the great religious leaders couldn't seem to drive mankind to an even playing field. On a much larger basis than ego, intelligence is not about the color of your skin or where you live. However, the diversity groups would make a hysterically funny skit for Comedy Central.

I am a retiree. However, when I worked for a Fortune 500 company I refused to attend a diversity class in the '90s and was told my yearly bonus depended on it.

JOAN CHRISTENSEN
Fountain, Colorado

PULITZER PREDICTIONS

ANDREW FERGUSON'S article on that incestuous cesspool of humanity, otherwise known as the mainstream media ("The Fawn Patrol," June 22) made me laugh out loud. He absolutely nailed the truth of the matter, in a beautifully written and highly amusing article. What a bunch of self-congratulating narcissists. Ferguson deserves the Pulitzer Prize for this alone, but of course he won't get it because that is just another liberal love-fest. I am sure it will go to Katie Couric. But the line I loved the best was (to paraphrase), "Everyone admires Helen Thomas but no one knows why."

PAULA HIGGINS
Marietta, Georgia

SHEDDING A FEW TIERS

IF SNOBS do indeed make the best spies, then apparently they do not make the best writers--certainly not in the case of Sam Schulman in his piece on W. Kendall Myers ("At Least He Isn't a Traitor to His Class," June 22). Mr. Schulman has an estimable educational pedigree (Yale, Oxford, Bennington); it's a pity that the class of these institutions doesn't seem to have rubbed off on him.

Those of us at Mercersburg Academy are left to wonder what top-drawer journalistic principles gave Mr. Schulman his license to trash not only our institution ("the third-tier Mercersburg Academy"), but also the great Brown University, simply because one alumnus we share has been identified as an alleged long-time spy for the Cuban government?

Mercersburg's alumni include 54 Olympians, seven Rhodes scholars, three Medal of Honor recipients, two Academy Award winners, and one Nobel laureate, among many others that we have no space to list here. To our knowledge, Mr. Schulman has nothing on his résumé that comes close to any one of these life achievements by Mercersburg alumni, who exemplify the values that Mercersburg imparts to all its students.

Thus, perhaps Mr. Schulman and THE WEEKLY STANDARD should reassess who in this instance is truly "third-tier." Clearly it is not Mercersburg Academy.

WALLACE WHITWORTH
Director, Strategic Marketing and Communications
Mercersburg Academy