The Schopenhauer Cure(72)
Goethe, the one man of the nineteenth century whom Arthur considered his intellectual equal, eventually came to respect Arthur’s mind. Goethe had pointedly ignored the young Arthur at Johanna’s salons when Arthur was preparing for the university. Later, when Johanna asked him for a letter of support for Arthur’s application to the university, Goethe remained masterfully noncommittal in his note to an old friend, a professor of Greek: “Young Schopenhauer seems to have changed his studies and occupations a few times. How much he has achieved and in what discipline, you will readily judge for yourself if, out of friendship for me, you will give him a moment of your time.”
Several years later, however, Goethe read Arthur’s doctoral dissertation and was so impressed with the twenty-six-year-old, that during Arthur’s next stay at Weimar, he regularly sent his servant to fetch him for long private discussions. Goethe wanted someone to critique his much-labored work on the theory of colors. Though Schopenhauer knew nothing of this particular subject, Goethe reasoned that his rare innate intelligence would make him a worthy discussant. He got rather more than he bargained for.
Schopenhauer, greatly honored at first, basked in Goethe’s affirmation and wrote his Berlin professor: “Your friend, our great Goethe, is well, serene, friendly: praised be his name for ever and ever.” After several weeks, however, discord arose between them. Arthur opined that Goethe had made some interesting observations on vision but had erred on several vital points and had failed to produce a comprehensive theory of color. Dropping his own professional writings, Arthur then applied himself to developing his own theory of colors, differing in several crucial ways from Goethe, which he published in 1816. Schopenhauer’s arrogance eventually corroded their friendship. In his journal Goethe described the ending of his relationship with Arthur Schopenhauer: “We discussed a good many things in agreement; eventually, however, a certain separation proved unavoidable, as when two friends, having walked together so far, shake hands, one wanting to go north and the other south, and very soon losing sight of one another.”
Arthur was hurt and angry at being dismissed, but internalized Goethe’s respect for his intelligence and continued for the rest of his life to honor Goethe’s name and to cite his works.
Arthur had much to say about the difference between men of genius and men of talent. In addition to his comment that men of talent could hit a target that others could not reach, whereas men of genius could hit a target that others could not see, Arthur pointed out that men of talent are called into being by the needs of the age and are capable of satisfying these needs, but their works soon fade away and disappear during the next generation. (Was he thinking of his mother’s works?) “But the genius lights on his age like a comet into the paths of the planets…. he cannot go hand in hand with the regular course of the culture: on the contrary he casts his works far out onto the path in front.”
Thus, one aspect of the porcupine parable is that men of true worth, particularly men of genius, do not require warmth from others. But there is another, darker aspect to the porcupine parable: that our fellow creatures are unpleasant and repulsive and, hence, to be avoided. This misanthropic stance is to be found everywhere in Schopenhauer’s writings, which are studded with scorn and sarcasm. Consider the beginning of this passage from his insightful essay “On the Doctrine of the Indestructibility of Our True Nature by Death”: “If in daily intercourse we are asked by one of the many who would like to know everything but who will learn nothing, about continued existence after death, the most suitable and above all the most correct answer would be: ‘After your death you will be what you were before your birth.’”
The essay continues with a penetrating and fascinating analysis of the impossibility of two kinds of nothingness and in its entirety offers insights to every human who has ever contemplated the nature of death. But why begin with a gratuitous insult—“one of the many who would like to know everything but who will learn nothing”?—Why contaminate sublime thoughts with petty invective? Such dissonant juxtaposition is commonplace in Schopenhauer’s writings. How disquieting to encounter a thinker so gifted yet so socially challenged, so prescient yet so blinded.
Throughout his writings Schopenhauer laments any time spent in socializing and conversation. “It is better,” he says, “not to speak at all than to carry on a conversation as sterile and dull as is the ordinary conversation with bipeds.”
He lamented that he had sought all his life for a “true human being” but found none but “miserable wretches, of limited intelligence, bad heart, and mean disposition.” (Except Goethe, whom he always explicitly exempted from such diatribes.)
In an autobiographical note he states, “Almost every contact with men is a contamination, a defilement. We have descended into a world populated with pitiable creatures to whom we do not belong. We should esteem and honor the few who are better; we are born to instruct the rest, not to associate with them.”
If we sift through his writings, it is possible to construct a misanthropist’s manifesto: the rules of human conduct by which we should live. Imagine how Arthur, adhering to this manifesto, might have fared in a contemporary therapy group!
“Do not tell a friend what your enemy ought not to know.”
“Regard all personal affairs as secrets and remain complete strangers, even to our close friends…. with changed circumstances their knowledge of the most harmless things about us may be to our disadvantage.”