Tocqueville and Nietzsche on the Problem of Human Greatness in Democracy

Datos Bibliográficos

ID8034214
AutoresPaul L Franco (0000-0002-2944-5252, autor de correspondencia), Paul Franco
Año2014
Volumen76
Número3
Páginas439-467
Fecha de publicación2014-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Review of Politics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0034-6705 • E-ISSN: 1748-6858
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0034670514000321
OpenAlexW2142944994
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias 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