more on Schopenhauer

Today I came to campus for no other reason than to avoid the martial law district of Brazil Street, which is still pretty hard to enter and exit. I passed through the library and picked up some more Schopenhauer essays.

One can only have mixed feelings about Schopenhauer. On the one hand, he’s just a grouchy old misogynistic crank who focuses on the bad side of everything. On the other hand, he writes wisely much of the time, and beautifully all of the time.

In what sense is Schopenhauer “wise”? In the sense that he is one of those philosophers who says things that sink down into the very fabric of your view of the world, and stay there. He often says things that you can use as practical tools to become more reflective.

Even while rereading just two of his essays (the famous ones on the ages of life and on reading), I realized that about 5 or 6 of his remarks were ones I had found so compelling 10 or 12 years ago that I had simply adopted them as practical maxims ever since. One of them was his famous advice not to read recently published or currently popular books automatically if you can avoid it, since in that case you are just getting caught up in the whirlwind of whatever the Zeitgeist happens to be interested in. And I realized that that remark did change my habits about how quickly I pick up new books. Now I tend to wait a little while until the storm has passed and the reviewers are silent.

There are cases where you can’t or don’t wish to avoid picking up new books, of course. But I do tend to share Schopenhauer’s distaste for contemporary literary magazines and reviews, since there’s always more Montaigne or Tacitus to read first. Give things a few years to see if they look like they’re panning out. (And presumably, readers of this blog are aware that I’m by no means hostile to innovation. I just don’t think it does any harm to read a book 3-5 years after its appearance in many cases, rather than instantly. But you have to use your judgment, because there are things you need to jump on right away.)

I also think Schopenhauer’s basic outline of the different periods of life is correct, though I wouldn’t put such a hopelessly pessimistic spin on them as he does. In particular, the idea that each person’s character shines best in one period of life is very strong, and it is perhaps also the case that each nation’s virtues are best suited to one particular historical era. (Like many people, I’m expecting Asian dominance of the world before too long.)

One striking moment is when Schopenhauer refers to age 50 as “an age when one has outlived most of one’s contemporaries.” The fact is well-known, but rarely do we hear it expressed so starkly by someone who actually lived in such a time. I still remember my high school teacher (born on the West Side of Chicago in the 1930’s) reflecting on how many of his classmates had died from various diseases between Kindergarten and the end of high school.

It is also important when Schopenhauer talks about how slowly time seems to move when you are young compared with later. I feel the same way about that remark now as I did over a decade ago… I don’t think it’s youth per se that makes time move slowly. I think it’s novelty, and that’s part of why I travel so much. I still remember how during my first semester in Egypt, each day seemed triple the normal length, for the simple reason that my brain was encountering all sorts of unfamiliar stimuli. Other faculty members here have made similar remarks. But it fades away over time, and now living in Egypt, while still interesting, is almost as normal to me as living in Iowa. Indeed, the effect is now almost reversed– on visits home, U.S. Dollars feel as strange in my pocket as pirate gold. America is becoming foreign to me. If it becomes foreign enough, I may actually be able to stomach the thought of moving back some time.