What makes someone superior? An essay.

The quality of what makes an individual great, or, less specifically, better than other
individuals is a question of great discomfort to most. We have a few select representatives
who have thought long and hard, had discourse with peers and other minds in the field,
and most likely lost sleep and a lot of time thinking pretty solidly about this. Aristotle and
his teachers teacher, Socrates (who spoke about it to colleagues and friends of colleagues,
or anyone who would listen) both had their views on the superiority of an individual
against a whole, and most recently of the people well mention, Friedrich Nietzsche has
contributed his (difficult to comprehend) ideas on the topic. So therell be more or less an
exploration of what they thought, along with a few praises and critiques here or there, and
maybe even another foreign theory near the end.
To start with, well go from youngest to oldest in age of philosopher and philosophies thus
attributed, and begin with Nietzsche. Friedrich Nietzsche believed that there was a problem
with humanity, it had become fantastically obedient. He believed that though the death of
the dogma of religion was coming, that the democratic rise that was to replace it was no
better; the iron fist of ignorance being replaced by the placated feather bed of oppressive
equality did not please him at all. Nietzsche called most people deplorable, because they
were belonging to a morality called slave morality which viewed safety, trustworthiness,
peaceability, and some might argue, perhaps even stupidity, as the defining features of a
great man. The idea being that if all were to unite under the banners of loving ones
neighbour that we could eliminate that which caused fear, which was what was negative
to a member of slave morality. This upset Nietzsche, as he believed that such an attitude
bred weakness and unoriginality within people. Treat them all as if nothing can harm them
and they have no reason to continue to advance as a society, after all, why move forward if
the world is already bending to you? He believed that to create greatness, you needed the
will to overcome yourself and others in order to establish your own moral law, and that
was greatness. None of that slave moral law, dictating kindness and unnecessary grace to
be a great man, no, it was needed for the real great men (he mentioned Napoleon) to stand
up and declare themselves powerful, then wield that power to make the change in the wold
that they saw as correct. While these may be extreme views to us, he genuinely believed
them, and there is some merit. While this sort of belief encourages general distrust, and if
taken to a point of absurdity would result in the mass slaughter of ones neighbours
because, why wouldnt you prevent them from being able to harm you? Though this belief
finds its ground in the idea that suffering is used to create greatness, and in a fearless,
placated society, there is no suffering to cause greatness. If we look at someone like Vincent
Van Gogh, a sufferer of terrible mental health problems, he used his pain and misfortune as
fuel to continue his work, and it was, great work, and thus, he was a great man. So there is
something to be said for suffering to cause greatness.
Next, we move on to Aristotle. He had a very different view of what was to make one man
great over his peers, and hopefully one that is easy to explain. Aristotle firmly believed in
the contemptibility of excess and deficiency within yourself. He believed that if we are to
stray too far into greed towards or too far into the rejection of any given practice or
experience, that we were not being great. The middle path was what he called it, and it was
designed in such a way that the intention was to, each time you felt a desire, to act in
opposition to it, thus to train yourself to a more middled path. Aristotle believed this trained
within a person consideration, patience, and self-restraint. This, he decided, was what
made a person greater than any other person, those qualities. This is interesting, and
somewhat agreeable in some respects. These qualities tend to be nurturing of somewhat of a
wise personality within people, and tend to be the habits of people who have some form
of innate understanding of the world, which one might suppose is a truly great quality.
However, one might also say that nowhere within here is knowledge valued, or learning, or
kindness, but that seems not to be the case. Some logical thought shows that there is a
spectrum of grace to cruelty, and that it is not advisable to be excessively graceful (unless
you plan on consistently being taken advantage of), nor is it advisable to be excessively
cruel. One side causes more suffering for others, one for yourself. It seems logical that the
only way to resolve the seeming guarantee of creating more suffering is to simply be
neither be somewhere in the middle. So one might say that Aristotle was a clever cookie
because of how easily applicable his idea was to reality.
Lastly of course, we have Socrates, coming in first in line for people born. Socrates had a
few different ideas about what makes someone superior to another someone. There is
reading material known as Platos Gorgias wherein Socrates engages in a dialogue with a
man named Callicles about what makes life good, and therefore by extension, what makes a
man good. Callicles in that text being a firm believer in hedonism (the idea that seeking
personal pleasure is what makes a good life and therefore a good person), is thoroughly
shut down by Socrates superior level of thought on the subject probably because
Socrates was a philosopher and Callicles was a teacher. Socrates proposes that instead, what
makes a great man is the idea of superiority through moral practice and understanding. He
believed that what was truly contemptible was living our lives in a way that we perceived
as morally wrong in some way. Socrates often had difficulty discerning exactly what it was
that was morally correct, but he did have a great deal of contempt for those who were too
ignorant to attempt to figure it out. Because of this, Socrates decided that the most superior
man was a man who practiced philosophy the practice of reflection and logical thought
about what the world around us and our place within it actually meant. There are a few
interesting things here, but the most interesting and most positive one is probably that there
are a few parallels with both Nietzsche and Aristotle. Those being that Nietzsche believed in
self-overcoming, and making ones own moral code, and Socrates believed in following
what you knew was right even if it wasnt necessarily the most fun, and Aristotle believed
in self-discipline in life, and Socrates was a fan of reflection and thought upon the morals
of the individual as well. Socrates makes a great case for the idea that following the things
you genuinely believe, as well as actually thinking about what those things are is what
makes a man great, in part simply by pointing out that most other pursuits are just a vain
attempt to gather more hedonistic pleasures. However, he does make the case that
philosophy is once again the greatest pursuit of all time, which one might narrow their eyes
at, given that he was a philosopher, and also because that ideology seems to allow him some
form of hedonistic pleasure, and one must wonder whether that was his only motivation.
What seems obvious to one who has studied all of these men is that they each placed great
importance in the idea of being accountable to oneself about the contents of your beliefs
and ideals. They each decided that regardless of all other things, being true and genuinely
acknowledging yourself was an extremely important thing to do, otherwise youd be in a
world of confusion and moral hypocrisy. What makes a man great seems likely at least in
part to be the consideration of ones place in the world, and what one believes is true and
right when they examine the world around them. The conclusion they come to doesnt
seem to matter, just that they engage in this act, and stick to whatever it may be that they
decide. So what makes a man great? I guess simply thinking about it already has you there.