40 Essays in Anarchism and Religion: Volume 1
last, ironic, lesson about exemplarity. Exemplars are rarely the
straightforward imitators of past greatness that they claim to be.
Rather, in attempting to make the exemplary models of the past
relevant to the present, they more often than not create something
new. The chain of exemplary causation is as much about innova-
tion as it is about the endless recycling of accomplishment. The
greatest exemplars—those who liberate the sparks of the imagina-
tion rather than inspiring mere mimicry—are those whose deeds
are familiar enough to bring to mind the best of the exemplary
tradition, yet who steer the profound authority of that tradition
into new channels.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers, Alex
Christoyannopoulos, Matt Adams, Christina Doonan, and Vivian
Kao for helpful feedback, as well as Jeff Stout for his comments
on an earlier version of this article.
Notes
- The quote is from Octave Mirbeau. See the “Introduction” to
Daniel Guerin, Anarchism: From Theory to Practice (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1970), vii. - Mel Piehl, Breaking Bread: The Catholic Worker and the Origin of
Catholic Radicalism in America (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University
Press, 1982), x. - Important examples of this strain of scholarship include Alexander
Gelley, ed., Unruly Examples: On the Rhetoric of Exemplarity
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995), Irene E. Harvey,
Labyrinths of Exemplarity: At the Limits of Deconstruction (Albany,
NY: State University of New York Press, 2002), Bryan R. Warnick,
Imitation and Education: A Philosophical Inquiry into Learning by
Example (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2008), Dana
Hollander, Exemplarity and Chosenness: Rosenzweig and Derrida on
the Nation of Philosophy (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2008), Alessandro Ferrara, The Force of the Example: Explorations
in the Paradigm of Judgment (New York: Columbia University