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.

25

Porcupin

es,

Genius,

and

the

Misanthr

opist`s

Guide

to

Human

Relations

hips

_________________________

Bythe time I was thirty I

was heartily sick and

tired of having to regard

as my equals creatures

who were not really so at

all. As long as a cat is

young it plays with paper

pellets because it

regards these as alive

and as something similar

to itself. It has been

the same for me with

human bipeds.

_________________________

The porcupine fable, one of the best–known passages in all of Schopenhauer`s

work, conveys his frosty view of human relationships.

One cold winter`s day a number of porcupines huddled together quite closely

in order, through their mutual warmth, to prevent themselves from being

frozen. But they soon felt the effects of their quills on one another, which

made them again move apart. Now, when the need for warmth once again

brought them together, the drawback of the quills was repeated so they were

tossed between two evils, until they discovered the proper distance from

which they could best tolerate one another. Thus the needs for society, which

springs from the emptiness and monotony of men`s lives, drives them together

but their many unpleasant and repulsive qualities once more drive them apart.

In other words, tolerate closeness only when necessary for survival and

avoid it whenever possible. Most contemporary psychotherapists would

unhesitatingly recommend therapy for such extreme socially avoidant stances. In

fact the bulk of psychotherapy practice is addressed to such problematic

interpersonal stances—not only social avoidance but maladaptive social behavior

in all its many colors and hues: autism, social avoidance, social phobia, schizoid

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!

• «Do not tell a friend what your enemy ought not to know.»

• «Regard all personal affairs as secrets and remain complete strangers, even

to our close friends.... with changed circumstances their knowledge of the

most harmless things about us may be to our disadvantage.»

• «Giving way neither to love nor to hate is one half of world wisdom: to

say nothing and believe nothing, the other half.»

• «Distrust is the mother of safety» (a French proverb, cited approvingly).

• «To forget at any time the bad traits of a man`s character is like throwing

away hard–earned money. We must protect ourselves from foolish

familiarity and foolish friendship.»

• «The only way to attain superiority in dealing with men is to let it be seen

you are independent of them.»

• «To disregard is to win regard.»

• «If we really think highly of a person we should conceal it from him like a

crime.»

• «Better to let men be what they are than to take them for what they are

not.»

• «We must never show anger and hatred except in our actions.... it is only

the cold–blooded animals that are poisonous.»

• «By being polite and friendly, you can make people pliable and obliging:

hence politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.»