Mom and Pop
Schopenhauer
—
Zu Hause
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Thesolid foundations of our
view of the world and thus its
depth or shallowness are
formed in the years of
childhood. Such a view is
subsequently elaborated and
perfected, yet essentially it
is not altered.
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What kind of a man was Heinrich Schopenhauer? Tough, dour, repressed, unyielding,
proud. The story is told that in 1783, five years before Arthur`s birth, Danzig was
blockaded by the Prussians and food and fodder were scarce. The Schopenhauer family
was forced to accept the billeting of an enemy general at their country estate. As a
reward, the Prussian officer offered to grant Heinrich the privilege of forage for his
horses. Heinrich`s reply? «My stable is well stocked, sir, and when the food supply runs
out I will have my horses put down.»
And Arthur`s mother, Johanna? Romantic, lovely, imaginative, vivacious,
flirtatious. Though all of Danzig in 1787 considered the union of Heinrich and Johanna a
brilliant event, it proved to be a tragic mismatch. The Troiseners, Johanna`s family, came
from a modest background and had long regarded the lofty Schopenhauers with awe.
Hence, when Heinrich, at the age of thirty–eight, came to court the seventeen–year–old
Johanna, the Troiseners were jubilant and Johanna acquiesced to her parents` choice.
Did Johanna regard her marriage as a mistake? Read her words written years later
as she warned other young women facing a matrimonial decision: «Splendor, rank, and
title exercise an all too seductive power over a young girl`s heart luring women into tying
a marriage knot...a false step for which they must suffer the hardest punishment the rest
of their lives.»
«Suffer the hardest punishment the rest of their lives»—strong words from Arthur`s
mother. In her journals she confided that before Heinrich courted her she had had a young
love, which fate took from her, and it was in a state of resignation that she had accepted
Heinrich Schopenhauer`s marriage proposal. Did she have a choice? Most likely not. This
typical eighteenth–century marriage of convenience was arranged by her family for
reasons of property and status. Was there love? There was no question of love between
Heinrich and Johanna Schopenhauer. Never. Later, in her memoirs, she wrote, «I no more
pretended ardent love than he demanded it.» Nor was there abundant love for others in
their household—not for the young Arthur Schopenhauer, nor for his younger sister,
Adele, born nine years later.
Love between parents begets love for the children. Occasionally, one hears tales of
parents whose great love for each other consumes all the love available in the household,
leaving only love–cinders for the children. But this zero–sum economic model of love
makes little sense. The opposite seems true: the more one loves, the more that one
responds to children, to everyone, in a loving manner.
Arthur`s love–bereft childhood had serious implications for his future. Children
deprived of a maternal love bond fail to develop the basic trust necessary to love
themselves, to believe that others will love them, or to love being alive. In adulthood they
become estranged, withdraw into themselves, and often live in an adversarial relationship
with others. Such was the psychological landscape that would ultimately inform Arthur`s
worldview.