Foreshad
owings
of
Pessimis
m
_________________________
Thecheerfulness and
buoyancy of our youth are
due partly to the fact
that we are climbing the
hill of life and do not
see death that lies at
the foot of the other
side.
_________________________
Early in their training therapists are taught to focus upon patients` responsibility
for their life dilemmas. Mature therapists never accept at face value their patients`
accounts of mistreatment by others. Instead, therapists understand that to some
extent individuals are cocreators of their social environment and that relationships
are always reciprocal. But what about the relationship between young Arthur
Schopenhauer and his parents? Surely its nature was primarily determined by
Johanna and Heinrich, Arthur`s creators and shapers; they were, after all, the
adults.
And yet Arthur`s contribution cannot be overlooked: there was something
primal, inbuilt, tenacious in Arthur`s temperament which, even as a child, elicited
certain responses from Johanna and from others. Arthur habitually failed to
inspire loving, generous, and joyful responses; instead almost everyone responded
to him critically and defensively.
Perhaps the template was set during Johanna`s tempestuous pregnancy. Or
perhaps genetic endowment played the major role in Arthur`s development. The
Schopenhauer lineage teemed with evidence of psychological disturbance. For
many years before he committed suicide, Arthur`s father was chronically
depressed, anxious, stubborn, distant, and unable to enjoy life. His father`s mother
was violent, unstable, and eventually required institutionalization. Of his father`s
three brothers, one was born severely retarded, and another, according to a
biographer, died at age thirty–four «half mad through excesses, in a corner with
wicked people.»
Arthur`s personality, set at an early age, endured with remarkable
consistency his entire life. The letters from his parents to the adolescent Arthur
contain many passages that indicate their growing concern about his disinterest in
social amenities: For example, his mother wrote, «...little though I care for stiff
etiquette, I like even less a rough, self–pleasing, nature and action.... You have
more than a slight inclination that way.» His father wrote, «I only wish you had
learned to make yourself agreeable to people.»
Young Arthur`s travel diary reveals the man he would become. There, the
teenaged Arthur demonstrates a precocious ability to distance himself and view
things from a cosmic perspective. In describing a portrait of a Dutch admiral he
says, «Next to the picture were the symbols of his life`s story: his sword, the
beaker, the chain of honor which he wore, and finally the bullet which made all
these useless to him.»
As a mature philosopher Schopenhauer took pride in his ability to assume
an objective perspective, or, as he put it, «viewing the world through the wrong
end of the telescope.» The appeal of viewing the world from above is already
found in his early comments about mountain climbing. At sixteen he wrote, «I
find that a panorama from a high mountain enormously contributes to the
broadening of concepts.... all small objects disappear and only what is big retains
its shape.»
There is a powerful foreshadowing here of the adult Schopenhauer. He
would continue to develop the cosmic perspective that allowed him as a mature
philosopher to experience the world as if from a great distance—not only
physically and conceptually but temporally. At an early age he intuitively
apprehended the perspective of Spinoza`s «sub species aeteritatis,” to see the
world and its events from the perspective of eternity. The human condition,
Arthur concluded, could be best understood not from beinga part of butapart from
it. As an adolescent he wrote presciently of his future lofty isolation.
Philosophy is a high mountain road...an isolated road and becomes even more
desolate the higher we ascend. Whoever pursues this path should show no fear
but must leave everything behind and confidently make his own way in the
wintry snow.... He soon sees the world beneath him; its sandy beaches and
morasses vanish from his view, its uneven spots are leveled out, its jarring
sounds no longer reach his ear. And its roundness is revealed to him. He
himself is always in the pure cool mountain air and beholds the sun when all
below is still engulfed in dead of night.
But there is more than a pull toward the heights motivating Schopenhauer;
there are pushes from below. Two other traits are also evident in the young
Arthur: a deep misanthropy coupled with a relentless pessimism. If there was
something about heights, distant vistas, and the cosmic perspective that lured
Arthur, then, too, there was much evidence that he was repelled by closeness to
others. One day after descending from the crystal–clear sunrise on a mountaintop
and reentering the human world in a chalet at the mountain base he reported: «We
entered a room of carousing servants.... It was unbearable: their animalistic
warmth gave off a glowing heat.»
Contemptuous, mocking observations of others fill his travel diaries. Of a
Protestant service he wrote: «The strident singing of the multitude made my ears
ache, and an individual with bleating mouth wide open repeatedly made me
laugh.» Of a Jewish service: «Two little boys standing next to me made me lose
my countenance because at the wide–mouthed roulade with their heads flung
back, they always seemed to be yelling at me.» A group of English aristocrats
«looked like peasant wenches in disguise.» The king of England «is a handsome
old man but the queen is ugly without any bearing.» The emperor and empress of
Austria «both wore exceedingly modest clothes. He is a gaunt man whose
markedly stupidly face would lead one to guess a tailor rather than an emperor.»
A school chum aware of Arthur`s misanthropic trend wrote Arthur in England: «I
am sorry that your stay in England has induced you to hate the entirenation. ”
This mocking, irreverent young lad would develop into the bitter, angry
man who habitually referred to all humans as «bipeds,” and would agree with
Thomas Г Kempis, «Every time I went out among men I came back less human.»
Did these traits impede Arthur`s goal to be the «clear eye of the world?»
The young Arthur foresaw the problem and wrote a memo to his older self: «Be
sure your objective judgments are not for the most part concealed subjective
ones.» Yet, as we shall see, despite his resolve, despite his self–discipline, Arthur
was often unable to heed his own youthful, excellent advice.