Schopenhauer was indeed an elitist. However, I often wave off much of Schop's views to grandiose prattle that is not his philosophy "proper" (his view of the human condition as laid out in The World as Will and Representation). At the core of his philosophy is the ascetic hero. This would be precisely against the warrior elite that he went on about in his ideas of aristocratic class ruling. Ironically, Nietzsche was probably more influenced by the neo-aristocratic prattle than Schopenhauer was with his own prattling when it came time to lay out his metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

Nietzsche can totally be interpreted as the Might Makes Right philosopher that Ragnar Danneskjöld makes him out to be. A lot of people excuse Nietzsche of far too much. I do like Nietzsche, but, he was kind of like that.

I feel like Schopenhauer does sort of imply that the commoners are incapable of actualizing upon their will and therefore incapable of thought in The World as Will and Representation, though. I liked the text, but, admittedly didn't necessarily give it my undivided attention. Perhaps I am just assuming too much.

I feel like Schopenhauer does sort of imply that the commoners are incapable of actualizing upon their will and therefore incapable of thought in The World as Will and Representation, though. I liked the text, but, admittedly didn't necessarily give it my undivided attention. Perhaps I am just assuming too much. — thewonder

Schopenhauer does have a conception of character in his core philosophy. He thinks that people's characters are more-or-less fixed. Thus, only a very few characters are probably able to withstand their own will and become a lifelong ascetic. I don't think he talks of himself in this regard, but it can be assumed that he too did not have the strength of character, as he never became an ascetic himself, though that was his ideal. His idea of character comes from his odd infusion of Platonic Ideas into his philosophy. Not only do species have an Idea, but so do individual humans, which is manifested in their character. Thus some people have a better moral "sense" than others do- these people are the truly empathetic who can lessen their own will and truly feel for others in a non-self-interested way. They are often self-sacrificing, worrying less of their own desires than that of suffering humans. This, he feels is the basis of compassion, and compassion is the basis of true ethical worth in his view. The ascetic is even more enlightened to him, because even though the compassionate person has lessened his will for others, ascetics lessen their will to an even greater degree, and the less one is a willing being, the less one is suffering. I don't necessarily agree with his assessment, but I think it is important to know for the basis of understanding his idea of "elite" that you seem to pose here.

Yeah, I could have just confused what I knew about Schopenhauer's reactionary views with his asceticsm when I read that text. That does help to clarify a few things.

Many traditionalist philosophies start with the assumption that the ordinary people (the hoi polloi) don't know what is good for them, are venal, weak, ignorant and otherwise corrupted. The distinguishing mark of Christianity as a social movement was that it offered salvation to all and sundry, provided they only believe - whereas many competing schools of the day were elitist (that being one of the main arguments against gnosticism. Platonism too was elitist in that sense.)

Nowadays as inheritors of a Christian social philosophy the underlying religious philosophy has been largely rejected by secular culture but which still retains the notion of equality that was originally grounded in the 'brotherhood of man under God'. The result is that in some ways, modern liberal democracies have created a global 'safe space for the ignorant'. Hence the universal dogma of 'following your heart' and 'being yourself' and the underlying sense that doing so is inherently meritorious.

I wouldn't argue that such Christian notions have resulted in anything negative. I also wouldn't necessarily argue that such Christian notions realistically had too much sway, either. What's wrong with "following your heart"? Shouldn't a person seek fulfillment to their desires?