Modern Age * Summer 2017 a pathway toward it, not a cafeteria line that lays out too many processed desserts. The impulse to distinguish superior things and be drawn to them is the foundation of the humanities and the key to their success. "There is an instinct for rank," Nietzsche says in Beyond Good and Evil, "which more than anything else is already the sign of a very high rank." Faith in the ladder of discrimination is the first step in the acquisition of an authentically high rank-a real form of greatness-for one's students. If humanities departments wish to reinvigorate themselves, they must change the way they talk about what they do. Egalitarianism must give way to superiority, inclusivity to exclusivity (in the development of the syllabus, not in enrollment in classes). Instead of saying, "Here we value everything," they must entice undergraduates with: "Here you shall encounter masterpieces of genius, and they will change you forever." 110 modernagejournal.comhttp://www.modernagejournal.com