James
Conant
"Emerson as Educator" (from "Nietzsche's Perfectionism:
A Reading of Schopenhauer as Educator")
Nietzsche and Emerson may both be considered "moral perfectionists": both celebrate
the "exemplar," the exemplary individual, and the aesthetic and moral necessity
of "attaching one's heart to some great human being." Traditionally, this common,
fundamental aspect of their thought has led to elitist interpretations. Thus John
Rawls criticizes Nietzschean perfectionism as incompatible with democratic society--or
Judith Shklar argues that Emerson's valorization of great men contradicts his
fondness for democracy. This essay offers a close reading of Nietzsche's Schopenhauer
as Educator--a work that directly and indirectly echoes Emerson's essays in
countless instances (i.e., the concepts of genius, exemplariness, culture, animality,
timidity, shame, custom, humanity, trusting oneself, conformity, longing, a circle
of duties, and a higher self)--to suggest that Emersonian/Nietzschean perfectionism
is not the anti-democratic philosophy it is usually taken to be. Conant argues
that Emerson and Nietzsche are, in fact, profoundly critical of the elitist notion
of the "great human being" that is usually ascribed to them. He also considers
the ways in which Schopenhauer as Educator, in its pervasive quotation
of Emerson, enacts the Nietzschean (Emersonian) conception of "education"--the
process of attaching oneself to an "educator" or "exemplar."