The Schopenhauer Cure

A Novel

Irvin D. Yalom

To my community of older buddies who grace me with their friendship, share life`s

inexorable diminishments and losses, and continue to sustain me with their wisdom and

dedication to the life of the mind: Robert Berger, Murray Bilmes, Martel Bryant, Dagfinn

Føllesdahl, Joseph Frank, Van Harvey, Julius Kaplan, Herbert Kotz, Morton Lieberman,

Walter Sokel, Saul Spiro, and Larry Zaroff.

20

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.