max horkheimer and todd cronan schopenhauer and society (1955).pdf

7/27/2019 Max Horkheimer and Todd Cronan SCHOPENHAUER AND SOCIETY (1955).pdf

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SCHOPENHAUER AND SOCIETY (1955)Author(s): Max Horkheimer and Todd CronanSource: Qui Parle, Vol. 15, No. 1 (FALL / WINTER 2004), pp. 85-96Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20686192

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SCHOPENHAUER AND SOCIETY (1955)1Max Horkheimer

The concept of middle class society first ettled into the sciences in Schopenhauer's time. Ithas a long prehistory.With thedecline of the hierarchical order in the Renaissance, the certaintyof a natural arrangement of humanity faded as well, and the formof social relations required justification. But the interest thatwasphilosophically registered in the course of the rising nation-statesdenied at the same time the specific sphere we call society. Incontrast to the great Scholastics, modern philosophy positioned thestate directly against the individual. Although Machiavelli presented the social struggles inFlorence with admirable vividness, inhistheoretical remarks it seems that the republican order or themonarch only bears upon a crowd of individuals; history is notdetermined so much through the dynamic structure of economically and socially conditioned groupings, than directly through thedrives and passions of individuals, both on the part of the government as well as the people. Hobbes thinks similarly to Schopenhauer, who is so clearly related to him.With all his insight intosocial phenomena and epiphenomena, such as that of ideology,and despite his comparison of the statewith an organism, Hobbesunderstands yall of this rimarilyndividualsho are equippedwith power and whose task consists indomination over other individuals. It isnot the case that the state isat the same time in indiQui Parle,Vol. 15, No. 1 Fall/Winter2004


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viduals, who, according to social-contract theory, have joinedtogether for the purpose of security and subjected themselves to aruler; the state ismerely outside and above them. Ifthe state isrepublican, then it is ruled by the many, if it ismonarchic - inHobbes as well as inMachiavelli it has more to do with thestrength than on the form of rule then it oincides with monarchy. The statement ['Etat c'est moi attributed to Ludwig XIV is,asit ere, the result of Hobbesian state-philosophy.Inmodern times, itwas not until the Enlightenment thatthought of social essence was grasped in its wn right. It ominatesthe opposition between the Philosophes de la lumiere andRousseau. IfHelv6tius, entirely in agreement with the rationalisttradition, explains: the fatherland isonly itscitizens; to make areal entity out of the fatherland, means to call up many falsethoughts, then it is Rousseau who establishes the myth of thenation. The fatherland should be itsown entity,which penetratesthe individuals, isconstituted by the general will, and iseternallyself-renewing out of the same general will. The whole of organizedpeople - as a livingpower, as a second nature- reacts powerfully upon the individual, no less sublime and charitable thanunmutilated firstnature. After the purity of conviction has been lostin a mendacious civilization, in the age of the perfected sinfulness, to speak with Fichte, man must find his way back to firstnature on a

higherlevel. The blatant

inequality,the domination of

the few over themany has destroyed the naive virtue of the natural condition; itemerges again as social virtue, as love foruniversalessence, for the fatherland, which one can rightfullyrecognize asone's own. Society is the kernel of Rousseauian philosophy. Rousseau refers not entirely correctly- toMontesquieu. Inhis comparative study of the dependency of national institutionson cultural and natural conditions - in the conservative and static sense -Montesquieu hadputforth he thesis f themediator-role fclergy,aristocracy and corporations between the king and the people; hemade society the object of his analysis. Many German romantics,includingHegel, have followed Rousseau inhis admiration fMontesquieu, and one usually traces back the concept of the


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SCHOPENHAUERAND SOCIETY 87

Volkgeistes to his esprit general. The first f themoderns, however, who did not apply philosophy to society, but rather,developed philosophy out of the idea of society isRousseau, and afterhim Kant, whose practical and historico-philosophical writings arethoroughly based on the idea of the correct society. Independent ofone another, Saint-Simon and Hegel finally distinguished the statefrom society as its wn area of research. With them, society countsas a sphere of its wn structure and energy thatmediates state andindividual as well as individuals among one another; each individual is no less determined by society than by nature and the state.Whereas the theory of society still forms a unitywith philosophyamong the young Hegelians, above all with Marx, itsteps out ofphilosophy with Comte (around 1840) as itsown science, andaccording to the other basic disciplines, it cts as last and highestdiscipline and leaves behind a vacuum. The positivistic period ofsociology, like thinking generally, has dawned.When Schopenhauer speaks of social life, he more oftenmeans sociable being together (la compagnie, lemonde) thanmiddle class society as a whole. However, ifsociety is inquestion,then the affinitywith the Aufk/srers in the proper sense revealsitselffarmore than with Rousseau or the romantics, not tomentionHegel. As particles ofmatter are controlled by mechanical laws, sothe relation of the individual is controlled through psychologicalones.

Societyis held together through the psychological mechanism of anxiety and aggression, inwhich caution at times comes toassist. Since education according to Schopenhauer - and here hestands in contrast toHelv6tius and the others only concerns theintellect and not character, it is clear that this essence of societycannot be changed. Like all thinkers who do not strive to understand the dark sides of the human psyche in their connection withthe socialwhole, but rather irectly ypostatize hem s eternal

characteristics, as a natural condition, Schopenhauer believes inthe endless continuance and naturalness of an essentially repressive society.As much as previous history seems to confirm Schopenhauer's skepticism, as dreadful the attempts, above all, to change


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manifested themselves, the justification for repression belongs tothe world that makes repression necessary. Ifthe social pessimismof Hobbes still had an enlightening, progressive meaning - if itwas indeed all about bringing an end to the religious and civil warsthrough a strong state then itfunctions since the Biedermeierperiod as pure reaction. Voltaire's contempt for the populace refersto the misused masses, who thwarted a better lifeagainst theirowninterests. Schopenhauer, on the other hand, does not see thecanaille inthe plebeian and aristocratic mob, who find pleasure inthemartyrdoms of Greve-place and applaud every act of atrocity,but in the uprisings of 1848. The same thought, the same theory ina different historical moment isa different thought, a different theory. In the nineteenth century, the glorification of strong statepower against the insatiable desires of the mass no longer servesthe rational arrangement of the territory,the unfettering of economic forces, but rather increasingly serves the struggle against alltendencies aiming at reform. Itgives the one who is failing a clearconscience. This is the case in the second half of the century evenmore than in the first. he history of the economy isnot indifferentto Schopenhauer's increasing renown. The triumphs of technologyand the development of industry, hich stand in interaction withone another - Schopenhauer hated the category - did not bringman the expected happier existence. Just s little s the societal differences between approximately 1850 and 1914 had expanded, somuch did theirmeaning, subjectively and objectively, increase. Therelationships become strained, the upswing leads to active insecurity.Germany above all experiences this phenomenon since thefoundation of the Reich. It isnot, likeothers, saturated. The fact thatitowes its unity to military victory establishes itspolitical style.Since agriculture needed protective tariffs ue to external competition, nd industryanted tofeelpowerbehind it nforeignradeand needed a firm hand against socialistic demands on the homefront, ven national-liberals finally saw hope in the quick extensionof army and navy, in the strong state. International competition ledto large alliances, the arms race, and the power blocs. The colonialsystem, the place in the sun, the innerand external crises produced


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inthe unconscious of the people's disappointment and resignation,the overcompensating feeling of guilt- that is all characteristic oftheWilhelminian epoch.Pessimistic philosophy became the rationalization of disturbingconditions in reality. Ithelped to push the absence of facilitations expected by technical progress onto the being of theworld,instead of deriving the upcoming disaster out of a state of society inwhich technology has grown over the head of man. Philosophicalquietism and finde siecle-mood fittogetherwell. Incontrast to theAufk/srer faith in reason and the perfectibility of man, with whomSchopenhauer shares the atomistic picture of society, he insistsonthe senselessness of historical striving, be it in theory or practice,word or deed. And while thewell-founded suspicion against historic movements, especially glorious ones, is contained inSchopenhauer's rejection of the philosophy of history, his affirmation of the existing is contained in the pronouncement of senselessness. In the absence of a sufficient theory of society, however,and above all in the assumption of the practical insignificance of allresults of every creaturely effort, it is difficult to see for whomSchopenhauer demands quiet and order, and why an independentphilosopher's interest in the maintenance of relations should bephilosophically weightier than a dependent unskilled worker'sinterest in the change of such relations. From a strictly logical perspective, philosophical pessimism isno more consistent with rational argumentation for the status quo than with propaganda for acoup. The maintenance, the continuance of an order, in any casedoes not leave the order unchanged. The same society that Schopenhauer wanted to see protected from change finally became,according to its immanent laws, according to its wn concept, a different society. The effective defense of this society contributed in itsown rightoabolishing hepeace and exposingthe o-calledgreattimes nEurope,from hich philosophy as alwaystakenflight.In Schopenhauer's intransigent nominalism in the face ofsociety, however, lies at the same time the rootof his greatness. Justas innature genera are bare abstractions, he says, so in the humanrace only the individuals and their course of life are real, the


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nations and their lives are mere abstractions. 2 He expressed noenthusiasm forRousseauian myth. He denies the existence of thecollective and insistson living individual entities, on man and animal with their needs and passions, their striving after existence[Dasein] and well-being, and theirmisery. Inthe presentation of hisdoctrine ithas been well noted that he describes thewill to happiness as blind and insatiable. Fewer however have noticed that hedid notmeasure merely the universe by this happiness, but also theintelligible order. Kant and Rousseau also saw that in the course ofcivilization the welfare of the individual did not improve steadily;it oes not appear as the aim of history. Schopenhauer and his successors however, not tomention university philosophy, have nevertheless justified history, have indeed made its justification thetask of comprehensive constructions. Schopenhauer's philosophyon the other hand- and notmerely in itspractical, but also in itstheoretical part- withheld from reality the honor of embedding itin a gold-mine of eternity. His rejection of the coup ismotivatedneither by the categorical imperative, nor the objective spirit, northrough a concealed philosophical sense, but rather explicitly bythe freedom that he is blessed with by his monetary means andpension. The fearof being exposed to social realitywithout means,no less than his gratitude towards the defenders of an order fearedby him, passes no kind sentence over this. The sense of the businessman, which he adopted from his father, the impartialitywhichowes itselfto the talent of being at home even inother countriesand languages, and educated sobriety have with Schopenhauerbecome philosophical. Behind the pessimism that let itselfbe ideologically used in theWilhelminian age, behind the contempt ofcontemporary business inall spheres stands the unwavering interest in the earthly and otherworldly fate of the individual. Philosophy has to take account and because the balance is negative, theSaint is right in the end. He who bets on the world is deceived.ThroughSchopenhauer'smistrust f reformnd revolution heexisting snotglorified.The caution of the businessman organizes the innermost elements of his doctrine. The transcendental aesthetic attains such


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great meaning in theWorld asWill and Representation because itdemonstrates the subjectivity of the principle of individuation.Since space and time do not concern the things inthemselves, themultiplicity of all men and things proves itself o be semblance, justas the efforton behalf of one's own well-being at the expense ofothers proves to be a bad investment. The successful one in thisworld reckons himself richon the basis of illusions. The doctrine ofthe ideality of pure intuition corrects a mistaken calculation. Thefact that someone will injure themajority for the sake of wealthand power does not brand him so much a sinner as one who isbruised, forwhat he receives isactually nothing. Philosophy existsso that one isn'tmade a fool of. Schopenhauer's work is dominated throughout by this instinct,and it is,among all his successors,passed on unadulterated toNietzsche.The characteristics of an enlightened citizen of the eighteenthcentury come forwardmore powerfully in the superior, thoroughlycultured style and details than in the conception of the whole. Nolinguistic gesture that feigns at depth inorder to rendermeaninglessness and death meaningful by a sleight-of-hand, no theology of

Nothingness, no replacement of the philosophy of history througha historicization of Being, inwhich the victims do not appear andthe hangmen hide themselves - none of thiswould be compatiblewith the clear tone of Schopenhauer's writings. As much as hemaintains the thesis of the unalterability of sufferingand nastiness,and as much as he stresses the uselessness of protest, his style formsinequal measure a singular protest against that fact that it is so. Thehorror is not to be idolized, and its interpretation into somethingpositive he regards as wicked. If irreconcilability with the eternalcycle of disaster is understood as sublimated revenge, then Schopenhauer was a vindictive philosopher. It iscertainly the case thathe perceives thenegative through hemedium of the historicaldecline of hisown social form f existence. itizensofhis kinddisappear. But if eneral interest inprogress for the better can simultaneously register in the emancipatory literature of a particularsocial class, in its ptimism, then in the philosophy of itsdownfall,the interest in so-called progress ispreserved in itspessimism. The


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black and white schema of rise and fall does suffice for the socialestimation of cultural phenomena.Where Schopenhauer reportson history,war, crusades, inquisition, he sounds likeVoltaire, forwhom he, like Goethe andNietzsche, felt the greatest respect.With Voltaire he shares not onlythe assertiveness with which he rejects freewill and theodicy, butalso and above all the defense of religion forpragmatic reasons andas a folk-ethics. To be sure,when it is a matter of determining thetruth f faith Schopenhauer isfarmore radical than the determinedFrench theist,whose criticism did not apply at all to religion but tofanaticism. Both keep to philosophy instead of revelation, butSchopenhauer sought information about the essence of theworld,about thisworld and the next and claims in no way tomiscalculate. For him, the private man, the question about the fate of thesoul, death, and original innocence lies closer to the center of histhoughts than forVoltaire, themilitant writer, towhom a more justorder in thisworld was closer to his heart. However, the fact thatSchopenhauer brought the same piercing intellect into play inmetaphysics as theAufkkirer did inworldly criticism, the fact thathe considered and dedicated himself to the ultimate things not onlywith transparent, logical methods - one only needs to think of thededuction via analogy bywhich he expanded the perception of theinner sense to the very foundation of his system- but also with acultivated, psychological experience thatwas freeof an employee'sfear and equal to that of the great novelists - this unification ofdepth and businesslike impartialitymade his work the expressionof a never again recurring constellation and a key to the history ofphilosophy.Just s theOther stands out against its ill inSchopenhauer'sdark view of theworld, his insistence on the bad society pointstowards a better one.3 In some places to be sure the passion ofthought strives beyond the verdict of social pessimism. Already inthefirstolumeof theWorld asWill andRepresentation,ne fi dsthethoughtf Cockaigne, 4 hich in n enlightened tate ouldbe realized with a trulyharmonious order. Of course, he heaps onreasons why itnevertheless doesn't work: the fact thatwe remain


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so distant from thisgoal, the useless leisure, the boredom thatmustarise, the private littlebusinesses and finallywar and overpopulation. The thought of societal good ismore decisively formulated inthe second volume of the Parerga: If furtherprogress at the samerate ismade inthe development ofmachinery, the result after timemay be that the efforts of human labor will be almost entirelysaved, just as are those of horses to a large extent even now, forwecould, of course, conceive of a certain universality of mental culture in the human racewhich, however, is impossible so long as alarge part thereof must apply itself to heavy physical labor.Irritabilityand sensibility in general as well as in particular arealways and everywhere in antagonism just because on and thesame vital force underlies both. Further, since artesmolliunt mores[theartsmitigate manners and customs], wars on a large scale androws or duels on a small will then perhaps disappear entirely fromtheworld, just as both have now become much rarer. It isnot, however,my purpose here towrite a Utopia. 5 Whatever was not intentional is fulfilled more fundamentally by the negative diagnosesthan by deviations into the positive. The manner inwhich those bitterand humane recognitions were confirmed inmost recent historystill exceeds the premonition of the evils that as isquoted insection 62 of theWorld asWill and Representation - only a boldimagination can conjure up in the mind. 6 At the same time, oneneed not thinkonly of the fanaticism, the endless persecutions, andthe cruel expulsions and extermination of entire national and reli

gious groups, which Philalethes describes in the Dialogue onReligion,7 they found theirmonstrous afterlife in the century ofHitler and Stalin; it isenough to recall the everyday lifeof societyincountries where the struggle against the poor has been most successfully carried out. An infiniteamount has been achieved; notmerelyeconomic crises,but also the crisesof liberal nstitutionswere banished again and again. Schopenhauer's utopian outlook isall but realized, however the pressure did not give way. In spite oftheunimaginable ncrease f theforces fproduction, ife id notbecome easier with advancing alleviation. The abating misery --which, tobe sure, till xists n hemiddle ofcivilization inregions


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like Southern Italy itappears most blatantly), lies not merely asthreat, inside and outside, inthe ambush, but the improvement hascreated new, ideal and real, burdens.It ould be easy inSchopenhauer's sense tomake the presentspeak. People multiply quicky, those bound to technological needseven more quickly. Ifthe number of inhabitants in a country hasdoubled since 1900, then at the same time the special types of newappliances, which the man on the street must acquire, partlybecause of his occupation, partly because of the indispensableprestige, have multiplied a thousandfold. The civilizing effect ofsuch equipment is unmistakable: the progressive abolition ofdomestic voluntary work forwomen, the assimilation of the existence of worker and entrepreneur, the democratization of existence. And civilization is not the opposite of culture, as itwasclaimed by the agents of the third Reich, but itsprerequisite. Thecompulsorily accepted shift f economic energies to the instrumentis also unmistakable. The acquisition of automobiles and radiosbecomes indispensable and within reach, the investment ina serious private librarybecomes a rarerand much less rewarding luxury;one learns the summary and conclusion of books on broadcastsand the press, nuance only counts for the expert. Inany case, thissame shift results in the favorable reduction ofworking hours, butit an only be converted into leisure to a modest extent. Before thevarious instruments of mass-entertainment can fight boredom inone's free-time (which itself is reduced by the way to and from

work), themaintenance of the apartment and the appliances await,a maintenance thateven a well-paid worker must take care of himself as a result of the rising prices for household work and repairs.Women themselves are pursuing careers. Monthly payments forthese ever more comfortable appliances continue until the appliances themselves ecomeobsoleteand need tobe replacedbystillmore 'comfortable ones. It is therefore a matter of keeping stepwith the obligations that each alleviation of labor imposes on us.The psychic nergy hat s t thedisposalof the individual or ersonal interests is, however, by nature limited, and the great internalexpense that he life f thewhole (whichreproduces tselfithout


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external compulsion) currently demands of the individual - thetense attention atwork as well as inmechanically transmitted pleasure requires much of this energy. Perhaps Helvetius was notwrong, when he connects boredom, which Schopenhauer onlyviews as evil and at best as responsible for superstitions,8with correct culture, since he sees boredom as the ground of the imagination. The boundary between leisure and boredom isblurry; peoplearrive at neither. In technical civilization, people become so thoroughly cured of their ponderousness that they forget resistance.Resistance however is the soul of Schopenhauerian philosophy.His idea of the compensation of progress through fresh suffering, inwhose execution the representation of the better imposesitself, ould today find rich illustrativematerial, even if ne looksonly to the freewestern countries and closes one's eyes to the needand terror in the East. As one who spoke disdainfully about smoking and of the childlike games of people that require no spiritualexertion, Schopenhauer could wrathfully point to mass-culturetoday and its dvertisements, which would have found forhim theirproper place. But in the negative - critique of the present condition, inwhich the structural has absolutely risen in power, hewould have to advance to the recognition that the power and intention of the individual who enters into the whole isas much determined by it s itby the individual. The totalityof social relationscurrently

constitutes itself s arealitywith

its wn lawfulness. It isthe society thatproduces itself nd changes from socially connected individuals and not the individual isolated from society thatgrants provision and protection in itsparticular distribution andgradation. It is individuals and groups- which always have different effects depending on their place in society and which fulfilltheir function as it rises from the power-play of the whole - andnot independent affects and ideas, that form the foundation of theinstitutions that are decisive for right and wrong. The whole, inwhich thepersonwho is free nd independent is-Ai-visocietyreports and slaves away, generates culture and mass-culture, thestate of thewhole determines the state of language, indeed all intellectual realms; like the development of organs to experience and


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advance intellectual realms, thewhole causes the rise of technology and higher life expectancy, the necessary production ofmachines and consumer goods, as well as their irrational force. Thesuperhuman social being isproduced by men; without their activity nd against itswill, itwould be able to do nothing, it isonlystrong through their power and yet it ffects in turnall individuals.

Justas few of the psychological laws are derived from thesocial - such attempts to run indulge insuperficiality- so are fewof the social laws derived from the psychological. The interplayofboth, like that of individual and society, is ineach epoch, indeedineach historical moment, different. If he psychic mechanisms inall individuals, taken in isolation, are the same, then they have adifferent effect in every differentwhole. Every general solutionremains abstract, even the pessimistic, ifonly because practicedoes not merely depend on truth,but truthdepends also on theactions of man. This iswhat the doctrine of the primacy of practical reason inKant meant. In the face of his legacy,which ispreserved everywhere in Schopenhauer's philosophy, psychologismcarries so littlestanding as the social universalism of every type.Translated By Todd Cronan

1 Gesammelte Schriften, Band 7: Vortr?ge und Aufzeichnungen, 1949-1973, ed.Gunzelin Schmid Noerr (Frankfurt m Main: S. Fischer, 1985), 43-54.2 Schopenhauer, S?mtliche Werke, ed. Grisebach, vol. II (Leipzig o.J.), 519.3 Cf. HeinzMaus, Kritikm Justemieu. Eine sozialphilosophishcetudie?berSchopenhauer (Bottrop i. .), 1940.4 Schopenahuer, S?mtliche Werke, vol. I, 51.5 Schopenhauer, S?mtliche Werke, vol. V, 254f.6 Schopenhauer, S?mtliche Werke, vol. I, 51.7 Schopenhauer, S?mtliche Werke, vol. V, 372ff.8 Schopenhauer, S?mtliche Werke, vol. I, 17.

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