To contemplate a person as an ideal is to submit to his authority. The admirer of Napoleon does not judge him by independent previously established standards, but accepts, on the contrary, the figure of Napoleon as a standard for judging himself. Such an admirer may be mistaken in the choice of his hero, but his relation to greatness is correct.Please, discuss. The quote is from Michael Polanyi (1959), The Study of Man, page 96.
HOW I FEEL WHEN I’M TWO WEEKS OUT FROM QUALS
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I don't think that makes much sense. If I consider Napoleon to be an ideal, then either it means that I think he is the foundation of reality (i.e. an ideal in the strict technical sense of the word), which seems absurd in normal speech; or, it means that I think he exemplifies whatever standard - logically prior to his existence - I happen to fancy. In normal speech, the latter seems a lot more likely.
It's like Euthyphro: if I respect Napoleon for being great, or clever, then it follows that greatness and cleverness more properly constitue basic categories than he; the true ideal in this case would be greatness and cleverness, for which he simply stands proxy. The alternative (that a mortal man is somehow pure being) seems pathologically bizarre.
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