The Schopenhauer Cure(99)
“Sounds a little Freudian,” said Bonnie.
“The other way around. Better to say that Freud is Schopenhauerian. So much of Freudian psychology is to be found in Schopenhauer. Though Freud rarely acknowledged this influence, there is no doubt he was quite familiar with Schopenhauer’s writings: in Vienna during the time Freud was in school, the 1860s and ‘70s, Schopenhauer’s name was on everyone’s lips. I believe that without Schopenhauer there could have been no Freud—and, for that matter, no Nietzsche as we know him. In fact Schopenhauer’s influence on Freud—particularly dream theory, the unconscious, and the mechanism of repression—was the topic of my doctoral dissertation.
“Schopenhauer,” Philip continued, glancing at Tony and hurrying to avoid being interrupted, “normalized my sexuality. He made me see how ubiquitous sex was, how, at the deepest levels, it was the central point of all action, seeping into all human transactions, influencing even all matters of state. I believe I recited some of his words about this some months ago.”
“Just to support your point,” Tony said, “I read in the newspaper the other day that pornography takes in more money than the music and the film industry combined. That’s huge.”
“Philip,” said Rebecca, “I can guess at it, but I still haven’t heard you say exactly how Schopenhauer helped you recover from your sexual compulsion or…uh…addiction. Okay if I use that term?”
“I need to think about that. I’m not persuaded it’s entirely accurate,” said Philip.
“Why?” asked Rebecca. “What you described sounds like an addiction to me.”
“Well, to follow up on what Tony said, have you seen the figures for males watching pornography on the Internet?”
“Are you into Internet porno?” asked Rebecca.
“I’m not, but I could have taken that route in the past—along with the majority of men.”
“Right about that,” said Tony. “I admit it, I watch it two or three times a week. Tell you the truth, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.”
“Me, too,” said Gill. “Another of Rose’s pet peeves.”
Heads turned toward Stuart. “Yes, yes, mea culpa—I’ve been known to indulge a bit.”
“This is what I mean,” said Philip. “So is everyone an addict?”
“Well,” said Rebecca, “I can see your point. There’s not just the porn, but there’s also the epidemic of harassment suits. I’ve defended quite a few in my practice. I saw an article the other day about a dean of a major law school resigning because of a sex harassment charge. And, of course, the Clinton case and the way his potentially great voice has been stilled. And then look at how many of Clinton’s prosecutors were behaving similarly.”
“Everybody’s got a dark sex life,” said Tony. “Some of it’s like—who’s unlucky? Maybe males are just being males. Look at me, look at my jail time in being too pushy in my demands for a blow job from Lizzie. I know a hundred guys who did worse—and no consequences—look at Schwarzenegger.”
“Tony, you’re not endearing yourself to the females here. 0r at least to this female,” said Rebecca. “But I don’t want to lose focus. Philip, go on, you’re still not making your point.”
“First of all,” Philip continued without a hitch, “rather than tsk-tsking about all this awful depraved male behavior, Schopenhauer two centuries ago understood the underlying reality: the sheer awesome power of the sex drive. It’s the most fundamental force within us—the will to live, to reproduce—and it can’t be stilled. It can’t be reasoned away. I’ve already spoken of how he describes sex seeping into everything. Look at the Catholic priest scandal, look at every station of human endeavor, every profession, every culture, every age bracket. This point of view was exquisitely important to me when I first encountered Schopenhauer’s work: here was one of the greatest minds of history, and, for the first time in my life, I felt completely understood.”
“And?” asked Pam, who had been silent throughout this discussion.
“And what?” said Philip, visibly nervous as always when addressed by Pam.
“And what else? That was it? That did it? You got better because Schopenhauer made you feel understood?”
Philip seemed to take no note of Pam’s irony and responded in an even tone with a sincere manner. “There was a great deal more. Schopenhauer made me aware that we are doomed to turn endlessly on the wheel of will: we desire something, we acquire it, we enjoy a brief moment of satiation, which rapidly fades into boredom, which then, without fail, is followed by the next ‘I want.’ There is no exit by way of appeasing desire—one has to leap off the wheel completely. That’s what Schopenhauer did, and that’s what I’ve done.”
“Leaping off the wheel? And what does that mean?” Pam asked.
“It means to escape from willing entirely. It means to fully accept that our innermost nature is an unappeasable striving, that this suffering is programmed into us from the beginning, and that we are doomed by our very nature. It means that we must first comprehend the essential nothingness of this world of illusion and then set about finding a way to deny the will. We have to aim, as all the great artists have, at dwelling in the pure world of platonic ideas. Some do this through art, some through religious asceticism. Schopenhauer did it by avoiding the world of desire, by communion with the great minds of history, and by aesthetic contemplation—he played the flute an hour or two every day. It means that one must become observer as well as actor. One must recognize the life force that exists in all of nature, that manifest itself through each person’s individual existence, and that will ultimately reclaim that force when the individual no longer exists as a physical entity.