to the death, even rushes toward it in order to be in a position to live, or renounces life in order to acquire immortality.”50 The moderns, alas, also wish to be sung about.51
Rousseau Contra Sophocles
There are, of course, good reasons not to overstate a Rousseau-Sophocles linkage, though none rises to the level of making such a comparison indefensible. First, there is no direct textual evidence connecting Rousseau’s amour de soi-même and amour-propre distinction to the clash of values in fifth-century Athens that inspired Sophocles to write Ajax. Although Rousseau was familiar with both Homer and Sophocles, as demonstrated by the fact that he refers to them more than a dozen times in his published and unpublished works, he only once connects Homer to either amour-propre or being best and never mentions Sophocles’ Ajax.52 Both poets are mostly background noise cited for relatively minor arguments and concepts that at best play a supporting role in Rousseau’s philosophy. Still, as previously argued, the conceptual similarities between Sophocles’ distinction between democratic and aristocratic personalities and Rousseau’s amour de soi-même and amour-propre are conspicuous. Even if it is conceded that Rousseau did not directly borrow from Sophocles, the analytic similarities between the two distinctions are obvious enough. As I argue in Chapter 2, Rousseau’s entry point into the aristocratic mind-set comes from one of its critics, Saint Augustine.
Second, Rousseau is far less admiring of the Homeric honor culture than is Sophocles.53 On the surface, this may not seem to be the case. In the one passage in which he discusses the content of Homeric ethics, he endorses it as necessary and good, at least for certain peoples. In Considerations on the Government of Poland, he tries to revive Polish patriotism and identify a suitable ruling class through agonistic games and events that reward the most talented and manly. These games, he proposes, should be modeled on “Homer’s heroes,” who “were all distinguished by their force and skill,” as well as “Knights’ tournaments,” in which men “were … avid for honor and glory.”54
The purpose of such games, however, is not Homeric. They are not designed to provide source material for poets. Rather, they are a means to much more important ends: promoting patriotism and ensuring the safety of the state. Patriotism is achieved by increasing the “pride and self-esteem” of the participants, which is redirected to promote love of country and a common Polish identity through reminiscences of past national glories.55 It is common among Rousseau scholars, in fact, to cite this passage as proof that amour-propre and honoring talents can be manipulated for positive purposes, such as the promotion of civic virtue. The latter goal of ensuring state security is attained through the selection and establishment of a manly aristocratic class capable of mounting an effective military defense against invaders. The Homeric games and knights’ tournaments are specifically tailored to address Poland’s geopolitical vulnerabilities. Rousseau worries that Poland is too decentralized and underpopulated to fend off military threats from its more powerful and despotic neighbors, such as Russia. If Poland is to prevent foreign invasion, it needs to become a unified nation guided by powerful military leadership. Thus, unlike Ajax and Achilles, Rousseau seeks to promote the glory of collective identities rather than individual ones and does so in service to amour de soi-même rather than amour-propre. Sensibly, Rousseau views Homer’s martial ethic as an asset for a people facing military dangers. In a world of nation-states, patriotism and a warrior class have their uses and must be cultivated. Homeric practices and attitudes are for him a means to a different end and do not imply an endorsement of aristocratic values.
Sure enough, absent such geopolitical concerns, Rousseau presents a much more mixed picture of classic aristocratic values. In “Discourse on Heroic Virtue,” he provides a modest defense of heroism and heroes. Love of glory, he claims, is responsible “for innumerable goods and evils.”56 The formulation here is more balanced than his earlier descriptions of the utility of amour-propre in the Second Discourse and Emile, which are more skewed toward inevitable evils. But it is hardly a ringing endorsement. Moreover, Rousseau portrays martial glory as a poor substitute for virtue. True heroes are wise men who desire virtue and the happiness of their fellow citizens, not warriors trying to kill their way to eternal glory. And heroes for him are hardly the best of men. Rather, they are “a composite of good and bad qualities that are beneficial or harmful depending on circumstances.”57 While the essay is not all that helpful—Rousseau begins it by conceding “this piece is very bad”58—this last point about circumstance is crucial for understanding his critique of amour-propre and love of glory and why his endorsement of Homer in Considerations on the Government of Poland is not generalizable to other societies.
In the context of Enlightenment Europe, as evident from the first two discourses as well as later writings, Rousseau thinks the concept of the hero or the existence of a superior class of individuals is positively dangerous. In such environments, love of glory serves neither the collective good nor amour de soi-même. It becomes solely a means for self-aggrandizement. People will want to be best for the sake of being best, and hence will develop the worst sorts of amour-propre. In all likelihood, they will cause untold amounts of evil. The great, in other words, become a grave threat to the good. When writing of Paris and Enlightenment Europe, Rousseau dedicates himself to equality and promotes the virtues of the common person. He sees it as his duty to protect the dignity of such people against the superior personalities or heroes in their community.
When Rousseau writes in this vein, few would dispute that he is the “anti-Homer” or, as Judith Shklar once wryly referred to him, “the Homer of the losers.”59 Nietzsche’s characterization of Rousseau as committed to “an ideal born of hatred for aristocratic culture” likewise gets to the core of Rousseau’s motivations.60 Although Nietzsche has been accused of being unfair and simplistic toward his Genevan predecessor,61 a charge that is probably true, his bird’s-eye view of Rousseau nonetheless manages to identify the topical thread that ties together so many of Rousseau’s writings. Nietzsche’s Rousseau views genius and being best as a social problem in need of a solution.
Third, and most important, Rousseau blurs the aristocrat-democrat distinction that structures Sophocles’ Ajax. The modern Europeans whom he so persistently criticizes—the urban ones committed to the Enlightenment and commerce—are a strange amalgam of both the aristocratic and the democratic personalities. They are one part Odysseus and one part Ajax. They are strategic, calculating, and materialistic and yet supremely consumed with honor, the value of their identity, and ability-based superiority. In some cases, they even strive for immortality. If they speak the language of utilitarianism, they are still dedicated to being aristos and, as will be demonstrated, seeking societal dominance to complement their perceived excellences. They do more than work for themselves in the prudent, flexible way that is exemplified by Odysseus. There is a good deal of Ajax in them, even if they lack the vocabulary to account for it.
It requires little effort to reconcile the seemingly disparate democratic and aristocratic values of modern bourgeois Europeans. Their “democratic” commitments to utility and practicality are easily assimilated into the aristocratic value structure. They become yet another criterion for being aristos. Once utility and practicality are established as a dominant set of values, those who best exemplify such traits plausibly can demand membership among the aristoi. This is even true of Odysseus. He wins Achilles’ armor because he successfully argues that his intelligence is more useful to the Greek war effort than Ajax’s brute strength. As Woodruff points out, after nine years of war it was clear to everyone that brute strength was not going to win the war. It took Odysseus’s idea of the Trojan horse to finally secure victory.62 Rousseau essentially argues that the new bourgeois elite echoed Odysseus’s claim to being aristos and called for the establishment of an “Odyssean” aristocracy. The members of the elite argued that their ability to administrate the world, produce wealth, and invent knowledge ought to define
