ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways Nietzsche’s order of rank helps us to appreciate when inequality in the classroom undermines democratic values and when it supports them. Drawing on both Nietzsche’s agonistic conception of competition and historical conceptions of the practice of educational “emulation,” we propose something we call “inspirational emulation,” whereby individuals in the classroom of various abilities can look to each other for inspiration in maximizing their own academic skills and for achieving their own self-overcoming. This inspiration is not the dishonest inspiration that implies that all students are equally talented or equally able to achieve at the same level in the classroom but a more authentically grounded inspiration. That is, inspirational emulation teaches that the effort to become one’s best and highest self, no matter one’s native ability, is what makes all students in the class moral equals. As such, a culture of mutual inspiration and admiration can exist, all the while celebrating the differences of ability and achievement.
