personality, antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, inability to love, self–aggrandizement, self– effacement.
Would Schopenhauer agree? Did he consider his feelings toward other
people as maladaptive? Hardly. His attitudes were so close to his core, so deeply
ingrained that he never viewed them as a liability. On the contrary, he considered
his misanthropy and his isolation a virtue. Note, for example the coda of his
porcupine parable: «Yet whoever has a great deal of internal warmth of his own
will prefer to keep away from society in order to avoid giving or receiving trouble
and annoyance.»
Schopenhauer believed that a man of internal strength or virtue will not
require supplies of any kind from others; such a man is sufficient unto himself.
This thesis, interlocked with his unwavering faith in his own genius, served as a
lifelong rationalization for the avoidance of closeness. Schopenhauer often stated
that his position in the «highest class of mankind» imposed the imperative not to
squander his gifts in idle social intercourse but instead to turn them to the service
of humanity. «My intellect,” he wrote, «belonged not to me but to the world.»
Many of Arthur`s writings about his supreme intelligence are so flamboyant
that one might consider him grandiose were it not for the fact that his assessment
of his intellectual prowess was accurate. Once Arthur applied himself to being a
scholar, his prodigious intellectual gifts became evident to all about him. The
tutors who prepared him for the university were astounded at his precocious
progress.
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!
