Extract
[...] What would be the ideal of human life according to the disciples of Rousseau and those of Nietzsche? The disciple of Rousseau : A disciple of Rousseau would choose to live in a chosen society, small in number, composed of individuals with whom he would share common interests. Like Émile, he would have learned a manual, artisanal trade, allowing him to live in the greatest independence, free to change cities, or countries, as he pleased, while ensuring his own subsistence by himself. [...]
[...] Such an individual would relentlessly engage in a cold and sometimes painful deconstruction of all sorts of acquired certainties, admised, not for pure nihilistic will of destruction, but as a necessity for the creation of new values. It is difficult to determine if this disciple of Nietzsche would be his friend, or his enemy, or even both. Without a doubt, a disciple of Nietzsche would be led to fight, in one way or another, Nietzschean philosophy, just as Nietzsche himself had to fight Schopenhauer. [...]
[...] The somewhat Spartan character of the child's education in Rousseau could be softened, but the choice of aligning the child's education rhythm with their physiological and individual development seems entirely in line with certain current trends in education. Let's clarify that a modern ideal of life could be legitimately considered from a woman's point of view, which, in a way that is entirely consistent with the cultural norms of their respective eras, is difficult to consider from Rousseau's point of view, then Nietzsche's. [...]
[...] He would adopt a vegetarian diet, concerned not to kill unnecessarily. His political ideal, which he would try to approach as closely as possible if he had to choose in which state to live, would of course be satisfied by the institution of a social contract, where each citizen would recognize in the exercise of sovereignty his own will, manifested by the general will. In general, this disciple of Rousseau would always try to conduct himself in a virtuous manner, that is, to fight against the bad passions of self-love, and would derive a deep satisfaction from the freedom that such a struggle would allow him to acquire. [...]
[...] No doubt, every ideal of life is deeply subjective. One could conceive, as Rousseau, that a good way to approach happiness is to start by avoiding too much pain. But perhaps this is also a difficulty of Rousseau's reasoning and his morality by abstention: abstaining from a certain number of potential evils, is that really enough for happiness? One can think of a more risky ideal of life, where one would hardly gain this happiness so hard to find, where humility and a modest life would not be enough. [...]
