by Robert Musil
I add that what I have just referred to in other terms as the unequivocal nature of the event (of life) is by no means a philosophical demand but one that in an animal would already be satisfied, while in a person it can apparently be lost.
This makes comprehensible that the major problem of the second volume is the search for what is definitely signified or, to use another expression, the search for the ethically complete action or, as I might call it ironically, the search for 100 percent being and acting.
The more general investigations of the first volume permit me to concentrate here more on the moral problems or, according to an old expression, on the question of the right life. I attempt to show what I call “the hole in European morality” (as in billiards, where sooner or later the ball gets stuck in such a hole), because it interferes with right action: it is, in a word, the false treatment that the mystic experience has been subjected to.
But here I would like to stop burdening your desire for information with the impossible problem of philosophical window dressing and conclude: Ulrich, who has traveled to his father’s funeral, encounters in the house cleared out by death his almost unknown and unremembered sister. They fall in love, not so much with each other as with the idea of being siblings. I gready regret that this problem has a certain higher banality, but on the other hand, this proves that it is the expression of broad currents. My representation is aimed at the needs leading to this expression. I contrast the two theses, one can love only one’s Siamese-twin sister, and man is good. This means (the relation of brother and sister to each other is at first purely spiritual) Ulrich returns after a period filled with their being together in intense intimacy; his sister follows him, and they begin a provisional living together according to principles revealed to them, but they are disturbed by the attention of society, which is deeply touched by this act of brotherly and sisterly devotion. General Stumm reports on the state of the Parallel Campaign, which is fed up with the spirit and longs for deeds. Diotima, whose relation with Arnheim is cooling, busies herself with sexual science and again devotes more attention to her husband, Section Chief Tuzzi.
Feeling has never had freedom of association.
Fundamental idea: The first part turns out to be too overloaded, even if consideration did have to be given to the problems brought up in Volume One. On the other hand, there was no way around them. What had been analyzed must somehow be summarized. Cf., e.g., the desire for a solution (Brecht) noted as justified in [a cross-reference—TRANS.]. This coincides with Ulrich having in any event to build his life anew after the journey with Agathe, during which the “reserve idea” of his life has collapsed. So the connection to the ideas of Volume One and their new context is indicated from his point of view also. This, whatever may happen in between, is the content of the second half.
Fundamental idea: The coinciding of the contemporary intellectual situation with the situation at the time of Aristotle. Then people wanted to unite understanding of nature with religious feeling, causality with love. In Aristotle there was a split; that’s when analytical investigation arose. However much of a model the fourth century B.C. has been, this problem has not been admitted. In a certain sense, all philosophies, from scholasticism to Kant, have been, with their systems, interludes.
That is the historical situation.
What prevails today is what Ulrich wants: every age must have a guiding idea about what it’s here for, a balance between theory and ethics, God, etc. The age of empiricism still does not have this. Hence Walter’s inconsistent demands.
Fundamental idea: This furnishes Ulrich’s relationship to the social sphere. Criminality out of a sense of opposition follows from this. Aims at the period after Bolshevism. Against total solutions.
Ulrich is, finally, one who desires community while rejecting the given possibilities.
Fundamental idea: War. All lines lead to the war.
Fundamental idea: Ulrich has sought to isolate: feeling—Other Condition. Now tries: deed—Moosbrugger. (An idea: he arranges things but is then drawn as a spectator only out of curiosity.) Corresponding to the way he thinks. Finally, orgy of the contemporary horrible blending of qualities into the cultural type.
Fundamental idea: Keep putting depiction of the time up front. Ulrich’s problems and those of the secondary figures are problems of the time!
Comprehensive structural idea:The immanent depiction of the period that led to the catastrophe must be the real substance of the story, the context to which it can always retreat as well as the thought that is implicit in everything.
All the problems, like search for order and conviction, role of the Other Condition, situation of the scientific person, etc., are also problems of the time and are to be regularly presented as such.
Especially the Parallel Campaign is to be presented this way.
Clarisse is an aggressive, Walter a conservative embodiment of the changing times.
Diotima, Arnheim: impotence of the idea of culture, of its accompanying ideology.
This age desires deeds, exactly like the present time, because ideology, or the relation of ideology to the other elements, has failed.
There is today no lack of men of action, but of human deeds.
Man without qualities against deed: The man who is not satisfied by any of the available solutions. (I’m thinking of deed vs. intellect in National Socialism. Of the desire of youth today to find a resolution, etc. “Resolution”: a synonym for deed. Likewise: “conviction.” This is what lends significance to Hans Sepp and his circle.)
The conception of life as partial solution and the like as anachronistic. Derives from the prewar period, where the totality seemed relatively immutable even for the person who did not believe in it. Today all of existence has been thrown into disorder; discussions, contributions, articles, and tinkerings are of no use, people want resolution, yes or no. The didactic element in the book is to be strengthened, a practical formula to be advanced. The opposition: practical-theoretical, the original idea of espionage, gains new importance through this.
Supplement: Up to now the answer has been Walters. Perhaps like this: Ulrich repeats this response from time to time, but no one believes him or even takes it seriously.
Germany’s enthusiasm for National Socialism is proof that a firm mental and spiritual mind-set is what is most important to people. The war was the first attempt.
Politics is only to be understood as education for action; what sovereignty, then, do thinking, feeling, etc., have. National Socialism = dominance of the political more than = part of collectivism.
I probably really ought to make “the idea of the inductive age” the central argument. Induction calls for pre-assumptions, but these may only be employed heuristically and not regarded as immutable. Democracy’s error was the absence of any deductive basis; it was an induction that did not correspond to the motivating mental and spiritual mind-set.
God, thought’s strong approach to Him, was an episode.
From todays vantage point the problem is: the (warlike) man capable of defense is to be preserved, but war is to be avoided. Or: The man without qualities, but without decadence.
What has so far been missing in Volume Two is intellectual humor. The Stumm chapters are no substitute for the theory of the Other Condition and the love between brother and sister being treated without humor. First attempt now in the Monster chapter (lass). Occurred to me as paradigm: The duel is a remnant of courtship rivalry, therefore our conceptions of honor are too. My principles are now nothing more than such an apergu: this awareness must still be added to its serious treatment!
What is the basic theme of the whole second volume? Really, perhaps, the Utopia of the Other Condition. The Utopia of the Other Condition is replaced by that of the inductive way of thinking.
Professor Lindners view of the world: Example of a person who lives “For” and fears the “In”— Augustinian Christianity (therefore future) and incapability of believing— Lindners bearing
arms corresponds to the wearing of swords in the B[riinn] chapter (Ulrich can be aware of the allusion)— His being energetic is not merely German, intended as a profound, irrational trait of the time— The contradictions of the time in the form: One would like to be this way and one would like to be different, and therefore feels oneself a whole man—the most vain time: from lack of metaphysical decisiveness— Credulity in the form of the “For”— His impression of liberalism. This expression of a particular constellation. It needs a strict new pulling together— Since God speaks to him about “For” and “In” it’s not an Ulrich-Agathe problem but a general one— Religion is an institution for people and not for saints— The remarkable phenomenon of emotions not remaining fresh. Dogmatizing and constant reactualizing: aims at God as empiricism, transformation of the intimation that can be experienced into faith that is not experienced (along with: Do and Don’t do, affirmative actions) and distinction between good and goody-good. (The first comes from morality, the second from God)— Acquisition of a bureaucratic language of the emotions.
Ulrich’s relation to politics really reduces to the following: like all people who objectively or subjectively have their own mission, he wants to be disturbed by politics as little as possible. He did not expect that what was important to him could be endangered by it. That in any case even in the existing state of affairs there is already a certain degree of implicit challenge, in other words that it could also get a lot worse, did not cross his mind. For him a politician was a specialist who dedicates himself to the by no means easy task of combining and representing various interests. He would also have been prepared to subordinate himself to a bearable degree and assume some sacrifice.
Ulrich was not unaware that the element of power is part of the concept of politics; he had often considered the question whether anything good could come about without the “supporting” involvement of evil. Politics is command. Astonishingly, his own teacher Nietzsche: Will to power! But Nietzsche had sublimated it into the intellectual. Power stands in contradiction to the principles condition essential for life of the mind. Here two claims to power compete. Power in the political way disappeared from his field of view, as did power in the manner of war. It might exist, but basically it is as primitive as boys fighting.
He now becomes aware of this naivete.
The marasmus of democracy advanced to meet this. The tacit assumption of parliamentarianism was that progress would emerge from all the chatter, that it would yield an increasingly close approach to the truth. It did not look that way. The press, etc. The horrendous notion of “worldviews.” The politicizing of the mind through letting only what is acceptable prevail. Beyond that the fiction of the unity of culture, a fiction that had grown thin and brittle. (Represented by the monarchy.
Democracy had not yet been stripped of its skin.) Whatever was good in this life was done by individuals.
Today there are only dishonorably acquired convictions.
N.B.: If Ulrich looks away from his Other Condition adventure: The relation of power to mind will always be there, but it can take on sublimated forms (and will perhaps do so, after it has run through a series of collective attempts that are now just beginning).
If Ulrich imagined this practically: One would have to begin with the schools, no, one has no idea where not to begin! That is the individual’s feeling of being abandoned, etc., which leads Ulrich to his experiment and to crime.
“If Europe doesn’t join together, in the foreseeable future European culture will be destroyed by the yellow race.” “Unless Japan harnesses all its energies, then…” etc. This could be reduced to the formula: they would rather destroy their own culture themselves! It’s comical, this hot, sudden, and doubtless momentarily not disreputable passion for one’s culture.
Incidentally, behind this also lies the experience that dependent countries are treated ruthlessly. Just like dependent people.
It’s the feeling for one’s own well-worn groove. Progress would be something shared and unifying.
They defend culture instead of having it.
The person with culture is alone all over the world.
There are only the two views: Culture! Then everything that happens is perverse. Or: Power! or similar struggle between animal species. Between chosen peoples. A vision that could be great in certain circumstances but is completely unfounded, since the peoples involved have no goal beyond self-assertion.
Differently: A spirit rules without having been completely developed. Then someone comes along and imposes something different. In other words, perhaps: The totality is changed by an individual / produces him, many say. It seems to people to be absurdity, insanity, criminality. After a short time they adapt to it. Carrot-stick, the notorious lack of character and despicableness of people, what is it really? And spirit is always only a decorative frill in a room, the room can be laid out for it. That’s why mind and spirit are never constant but change with the change in power.
A useful pendant to government bureaucracy.
Connected with this: Nietzsche predicted it. The mind lives more or less the way a woman does: it subjects itself to power, is thrown down, resisting, and then finds pleasure in the process. And prettifies, makes reproaches, persuades in matters of detail. Offers pleasure. What need was it leaning on there?
Ulrich-Agathe is really an attempt at anarchy in love. Which ends negatively even there. That’s the deeper link between the love story and the war. (Also its connection to the Moosbrugger problem.) But what remains in the end? That there is a sphere of ideals and a sphere of reality? Guidelines and the like? How profoundly unsatisfying! Isn’t there a better answer?
Utopia of Precision: Ideal of the three treatises is characterized as the most important expression of a state of mind that is extremely sharp-sighted toward what is nearest and blind toward the whole. A laconic frame of mind. The less something is written about, the more productive one is. Presumably, therefore, one should conduct all human business in the manner of the exact sciences. That is the ideal of the precise hfe. It means that one’s lifework ought also to consist only of three poems or three treatises, in which one concentrates oneself in the extreme; for the rest, one ought to keep silent, do what is essential, and remain without emotion wherever one does not have creative feeling. One should be “moral” only in the exceptional cases and standardize everything else, like pencils or screws. In other words, morality is reduced to the moments of genius, and for the rest treated merely reasonably.
It is determined that this (utopian) person as man of action is already present today; but precise people don’t bother about the Utopias plotted out inside them.
In connection with this, the nature of Utopias is described as an experiment in which the possible alteration of one element of life, and its effects, are observed. A possibility released from its inhibiting bond to reality and developed.
The Utopia of Precision yields a person in whom a paradoxical combination of precision and vagueness occurs. Aside from the temperament of precision, everything else in him is vague. He places Utile value in morality, since his imagination is directed toward changes; and, as demonstrated, his passions disappear and in their place something like the primitive fire of goodness appears.
More developed version: Inductive attitude also toward his own affects and principles.
Addendum: It should be noted about “vagueness” that what occurs in its place is not a vacuum but simply the rational morality of a social, technical sobriety that jumps in. (The present version rehes rather too much on the Other Condition.)
But that implicidy assumes that the “nongenius” relationships could be regulated through reason. This is contested, and to a great degree properly so; the motor of social action is affect. We therefore have to see to what extent that is satisfactorily taken into consideration in what comes later.
Provisional summation: We have hit upon Ulrich’s three Utopias: The Utopia of inductive thinking or
of the give
n social condition;
the Utopia of life in love;
the Utopia of the Other Condition.
Of these, the Utopia of inductive thinking is in a certain sense the worst! That would be the standpoint to be adopted from a literary point of view (which justifies the other two Utopias). But this demonstration, or the representation that goes along with it, is only completed with the end (war). An apparent interim summary: the museum chapter. The journey into the Millennium places the other two Utopias in the foreground and disposes of them as much as possible. But a good deal about the Utopia of inductive thinking occurs in the Stumm, Parallel Campaign, Lindner, Schmeisser, and Moosbrugger chapters. So it is not necessary to master the Utopia of inductive thinking down to the last detail around the diary chapters, but it probably is necessary to be familiar with its important general characteristics.
War and the age. Notes
Individualism is coming to an end
This is of no concern to Ulrich
But the right thing to do would be
to rescue something from it.
I am struck in my notes on Mo6r [Gyulia Moor, On Eternal Peace: Outline of a Philosophy of Pacifism and Anarchism (Leipzig, 1930)— TRANS.] how the just-concluded Kellogg Treaty is immediately being interpreted by France according to its needs of the moment.
States are really such that they not only take account of aesthetic needs but also actually obey them, while interpreting the ideas involved the way passionate people do. (Hans Sepp would therefore be only an overt instance.) What is it that plays the role of the affect in this. Evidently the affects arising for statesmen through responsibility. In this regard, responsibility is as much a national egotism as is the individual and party egotism of the politician who is dependent on his people.