Heroic Individualism: the Hero As Author in Democratic Culture Alan I
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 2006 Heroic individualism: the hero as author in democratic culture Alan I. Baily Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations Part of the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Baily, Alan I., "Heroic individualism: the hero as author in democratic culture" (2006). LSU Doctoral Dissertations. 1073. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_dissertations/1073 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized graduate school editor of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please [email protected]. HEROIC INDIVIDUALISM: THE HERO AS AUTHOR IN DEMOCRATIC CULTURE A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in The Department of Political Science by Alan I. Baily B.S., Texas A&M University—Commerce, 1999 M.A., Louisiana State University, 2003 December, 2006 It has been well said that the highest aim in education is analogous to the highest aim in mathematics, namely, to obtain not results but powers , not particular solutions but the means by which endless solutions may be wrought. He is the most effective educator who aims less at perfecting specific acquirements that at producing that mental condition which renders acquirements easy, and leads to their useful application; who does not seek to make his pupils moral by enjoining particular courses of action, but by bringing into activity the feelings and sympathies that must issue in noble action. On the same ground it may be said that the most effective writer is not he who announces a particular discovery, who convinces men of a particular conclusion, who demonstrates that this measure is right and that measure wrong; but he who rouses in others the activities that must issue in discovery, who awakes men from their indifference to the right and the wrong; who nerves their energies to seek for the truth and live up to it at whatever cost. The influence of such a writer is dynamic. He does not teach men how to use sword and musket, but he inspires their souls with courage and sends a strong will into their muscles. He does not, perhaps, enrich your stock of data, but he clears away the film from your eyes that you may search for data to some purpose. He does not, perhaps, convince you, but he strikes you, undeceives you, animates you. You are not directly fed by his books, but you are braced as by a walk up to an alpine summit, and yet subdued to calm and reverence as by the sublime things to be seen from that summit. Such a writer is Thomas Carlyle, It is an idle question to ask whether his books will be read a century hence: if they were all burnt as the grandest of Suttees on his funeral pile, it would be only like cutting down an oak after its acorns have sown a forest. For there is hardly a superior or active mind of this generation that has not been modified by Carlyle’s writings; there has hardly been an English book written for the last ten of twelve years that would not have been different if Carlyle had not lived. The character of his influence is best seen in the fact that many of the men who have the least agreement with his opinions are those to whom the reading of Sartor Resartus was an epoch in the history of their minds. The extent of his influence may be seen in the fact that ideas which were startling novelties when he first wrote them are now become common-places. And we think few men will be found to say that his influence on the whole has not been for good… George Eliot, unsigned review in Leader , October, 1855 ii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my parents, Bruce and Marianne Baily. Without their encouragement and support I never would have embarked on this project, let alone completed it. Also thanks to James R. Stoner, Jr. and Jeremy Mhire, for their helpful comments and suggestions. Of course all errors herein are mine. Finally, thanks to all my teachers, in particular, Charles R. Embry, Cecil L. Eubanks, and G. Ellis Sandoz; and to my colleagues and friends, David Gauthier, Dylan Rickards, Scott Segrest, Aaron Collins, Zack Henry, and Mr. and Mrs. Weaver. iii Table of Contents Acknowledgements........................................................................................................................iii Abstract...........................................................................................................................................vi Chapter One: Writing and Action............................................................................................................1 The Question of Heroism.....................................................................................................1 Political Philosophy and Literature......................................................................................4 The Heroic in Political Philosophy......................................................................................8 Modern Science and Democratic History..........................................................................14 History and Language: Vico..............................................................................................21 The Hero as Author: Rousseau..........................................................................................23 Carlyle and Nietzsche........................................................................................................24 Democratic Perfectionism or the Doctrine of Supermen?.................................................27 Summary............................................................................................................................30 Two: The Heroic Individual.....................................................................................................33 Heroism and Politics..........................................................................................................36 Aristotle on Moral Action..................................................................................................38 Nietzsche and the Aestheticization of Action………………………………............…....41 Heroism and Morality........................................................................................................49 The Taming of the Ancient Hero.......................................................................................49 The Ambiguity of Heroism and Duty................................................................................54 Conclusion: Heroic Authority and the Philosophy of Literature.......................................60 Three: The Hero as Author......................................................................................................68 The Religion of Literature.................................................................................................68 Vox Populi, in Oculis........................................................................................................75 The Language of Religion.................................................................................................80 The Resurrection of the Reader.........................................................................................87 Titanism.............................................................................................................................95 Four: The Democratization of Heroism.................................................................................101 The Democratization of Heroism.....................................................................................102 Rousseau and the Heroic Legislator................................................................................110 The Modern Origins.........................................................................................................118 Historical Heroism: Vico and Rousseau on Hobbes........................................................124 The Critique of Heroism..................................................................................................128 Conclusion: The Problem of the Hero.............................................................................134 Five: The Hero as King..........................................................................................................140 The Legacy of Carlyle.....................................................................................................140 iv Carlyle: Ancient and Modern...........................................................................................148 The Meaning of Democracy............................................................................................154 Carlyle and Rousseau.......................................................................................................157 The Hero as Legislator.....................................................................................................167 Conclusion.......................................................................................................................174 Six: “The Godlike in Human Affairs”...................................................................................177