Rousseau and Nietzsche

There is an underappreciated parallel in the developments of Rousseau and Nietzsche. For both, an ecstatic Festival experience was the foundation of a theory of human nature. In the earlier phase of their subsequent careers, both produced a devastating and influential indictment of prevailing decadence. And, both eventually offered a constructive alternative. One difference that emerges in the latter phase is that Rousseau's Principle, the Social Contract, is Egalitarian, while Nietzsche's, the Will to Power, is not. But, on the one hand, Rousseau's Egalitarianism is derived from his formative ecstatic experience. On the other, while Nietzsche's is generally thought to be likewise, i. e. that Will to Power is a manifestation of Dionysus, the genealogy does not support such an interpretation. For, according to Nietzsche himself, the Dionysian Festival is an eradication of all Particularity, which amounts to an egalitarianism amongst the revellers. Hence, the Inegalitariansim of his Will to Power derives from a subsequent Principle, probably the Apollinian. In a Phronetocracy, there is no intrinsic contradiction between its Egalitarianism, and the possibility of a distinction between leaders and followers. But, as is the case in the formation of the views of both Rousseau and Nietzsche, Egalitarianism is primary.