Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human Greatness in Democracy

Dados Bibliográficos

ID8034214
AutoresPaul L Franco (0000-0002-2944-5252, autor correspondente), Paul Franco
Ano2014
Volume76
Fascículo3
Páginas439-467
Data de publicação2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670514000321
OpenAlexW2142944994
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas6
Referências citadas35

Nietzsche and Tocqueville share a common concern with the tendency to mediocrity and loss of human greatness in democratic life. This essay explores the many similarities in their diagnoses of this problem, which they both view from the distinctive standpoint of aristocracy. Both thinkers focus on the way in which the individualism, preoccupation with material comfort, restlessness, and valorization of compassion that belong to democracy undermine human aspiration, intellectual excellence, and spiritual depth. Nevertheless, they differ sharply in their responses to the problem of human greatness in democracy. Tocqueville calls chiefly upon religion to elevate democratic citizens but otherwise resigns himself to the mediocrity that comes with democratic life. Nietzsche starts from the pessimistic premise that God is dead but more optimistically affirms the possibility of reestablishing aristocracy and finding a new greatness for human beings. The essay ultimately finds Nietzsche's solution more convincing but not without difficulties

Aesthetics · Aristocracy (class · Compassion · Democracy · Environmental ethics · Greatness · Mediocrity principle · Political science · Politics · Praise · Sociology · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory