146 Ideals in the Modern World
next. He does not know what in the world might make him happy,
or bring him to grieve. One thing is likely though. To be able to say
“I am not what I am” can be a great asset for certain ways of life. To
have a shifting, mobile sense of self (or no sense of self at all) can be
an advantage for someone who aspires to be an actor—or even a
playwright.
What enrages Iago so much about Othello? Surely he is wounded
when Othello passes him over and appoints Michael Cassio as his
second in command. Iago may even believe, as he claims, that the
Moor has cuckolded him— done his offi ce between the sheets. (But
then Iago is free with such inferences—he also claims to suspect
Cassio with his nightcap.) One might speculate that what galls Iago
is not only being passed over for the lieutenancy in favor of the light-
weight Michael Cassio or a hunch that the Moor has been to bed
with Emilia. It is also something both deeper and more elusive. Per-
haps Iago is enraged by Othello’s confi dence of being, by his grace,
his assurance, his lack of uncertainty. Othello epitomizes a manner
of being that is aristocratically certain and at home in the world. To
be in proximity to such a singularly composed personage could only
be an insult to the man who has no fi xed sense of identity— “I am
not what I am”— and who is, perhaps, alternately elated and dis-
tressed by the fact.
The noble individual, Nietz sche suggests in The Genealogy of
Morals, lives in a paradise of univocal meaning. He knows only one
manner of apprehending the world: with himself and his sort at the
center. He knows only one set of values, heroic values, and he does
not doubt them. But then he meets the man of resentment. The re-
sentful man knows he cannot overthrow the noble man in battle, yet
the resentful one still wants supremacy. How does he get it? By using
his wits. He deploys his intelligence and imagination to spin out
other interpretations of life in which the hero is anything but pre-
eminent. He says that it is better to be learned than to be brave, or