No More Learning

"There's no 'and'! " Stumm assured him. "You're rushing things! If a dangerous business involves several ministries, then one of them wants to either shove it off on, or take it away from, one of the others; in both cases the result of these efforts is the creation of an inter- ministerial commission. You only need to remind yourself how many committees and subcommittees the Parallel Campaign had to create at the beginning, when Diotima was still in full command of its ener- gies; and I can assure you that our blessed council was a still life com- pared with what's being worked up today! " The carriage was waiting, the coachman sitting bolt upright on his coach box, but Stumm gazed irresolutely through the open vehicle into the bright-green garden that opened beyond. "Perhaps you can give me a little-known word with 'inter' in it? " he asked, and toted up with prompting nods of his head: "Interesting, interministerial, international, intercurrent, in- termediate, interpellation, interdicted, internal, and a few more; be- cause now you hear them at the General Staff mess more often than the word 'sausage. ' But if I were to come up with an entirely new word, I could create a sensation! "
Ulrich steered the General's thoughts back to Diotima. It made sense to him that the highest mandate came from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from which it in all probability followed that the reins were in Tuzzi's hands: but then, how could another ministry offend this powerful man's wife? At this question Stumm disconso- lately shrugged his shoulders. "You still haven't got it through your head that the Parallel Campaign is an affair of state! " he responded, adding spontaneously: "Tuzzi is slyer than we thought. He himself would never have been able to ascribe such a thing to it, but inter- ministerial technology has allowed him to hand over his wife to an- other ministry! "
Ulrich began to laugh softly. From the message clothed in these rather odd words he could vividly imagine both people: magnificent Diotima-the power station, as Agathe called her-and the smaller, spare Section Chief, for whom he had an absolutely inexplicable
1234 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
sympathy, although he knew Tuzzi looked down on him. It was fear of the moon-nights of the soul that drew him to this man's rational feelings, which were as dryly masculine as an empty cigarette case. And yet, when they had broken over the head of this diplomat, the sufferings ofthe soul had brought him to the point of seeing in every- one and everything only pacifist intrigues; for pacifism was for Tuzzi the most intelligible representation of soulful tenderness! Ulrich re- called that Tuzzi had finally come to regard Arnheim's increasingly open efforts concerning the Galician oil fields-indeed, his efforts concerning his own wife-as merely a divertissement whose purpose was to deflect attention from a secret enterprise of a pacifistic nature: so greatly had the events in his house confused Tuzzi! He must have suffered unbearably, and it was understandable: the spiritual passion that he found himself unexpectedly confronting not only offended his concept of honor, just as physical adultery would have done, but struck directly and contemptuously at his very ability to fonn con- cepts, which in older men is the true retirement home of manly dignity.
And Ulrich cheerfully continued his thought aloud: "Apparently the moment his wife's patriotic campaign became the object of pub- lic teasing, Tuzzi completely regained control over his lost mental faculties, as befits a high official. It must have been then at the latest that he recognized all over again that more things are going on in the lap ofworld history than would find room in a woman's lap, and your Congress for World Peace, which turned up like a foundling, will have woken him with a start! " With coarse satisfaction, Ulrich de- picted to himself the murky, ghost-ridden state that must have come first, and then this awakening, which perhaps did not even have to be associated with a feeling of awakening; for the moment the souls of Arnheim and Diotima, wandering around in veils, started to touch down in reality, Tuzzi, freed from every haunting spirit, again found himself in that realm of necessity in which he had spent almost his entire life. "So now he's getting rid of all those friends of his wife's who are saving the world and uplifting the Fatherland? They always were a thorn in~ side! " Ulrich exclaimed with great satisfaction, and turned queryingly to his companion.
Stumm, portly and lost in thought, was still standing in the door- way. "So far as I know, he told his wife that she owed it to him and
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1235
his position, especially under these changed conditions, to bring the Parallel Campaign to an honorable conclusion. She would get a decoration. But she had to entrust herself to the protection and in- sights of the ministry he had selected for that purpose," he reported conscientiously.
"And so he's made peace with y o u -I mean, with the Ministry of War and Arnheim? "
"It looks that way. Because of the Peace Congress, he seems to have argued with the government for support of the rapid modern- ization of our artillery, and with the Minister of War concerning the political consequences. It is said that he wants to push the necessary laws through Parliament with the help of the German parties, and for that reason is now counseling a German line in domestic politics. Di- otima told me that herself"
'Wait a minute! " Ulrich interrupted. "German line? I've forgotten everything! "
"Quite simple! He always said that everything German was a mis- fortune for us; and now he's saying the opposite. "
Ulrich objected that Section Chief Tuzzi never expressed himself so unambiguously.
"But he does to his wife," Stumm replied. "And between her and me there's a kind of bond ordained by fate. "
'Well, how do things stand between her and Arnheim? " asked Ul- rich, who was at the moment more interested in Diotima than in the concerns of the government. "He no longer needs her; and I suppose that's making his soul suffer! "
Stumm shook his head. "That's apparently not so simple either! " he declared with a sigh.
Up to now he had answered Ulrich's questions conscientiously but without emotion, and perhaps for that very reason relatively sensibly. But since the mention of Diotima and Arnheim, he looked as if he wanted to come out with a quite different story, which seemed to him more important than Tuzzi's finding himself. "You might have long thought that Arnheim had had enough of her," he now began. "But they're Great Souls! It may be that you can understand some- thing about such souls, but they are them! You can't say, was there something between them or was there nothing between them? Today they still talk the way they used to, except that you have the
1236 · THE MAN WITH 0 U T QUALITIES
feeling: now there definitely isn't anything between them: They're always talking in what you might call 'last words'! "
Ulrich, remembering what Bonadea, the practitioner of love, had told him about its theoretician, Diotima, held up to Stumm Stumm's own, more measured statement that Diotima was a manual of love. The General smiled thoughtfully at this. "Perhaps we aren't judging it from a broad enough perspective," he generalized discreetly. "Let me preface this by saying that before her I never heard a woman talk that way; and when she starts talking, it's like having ice bags all over me. Besides, she's doing this less often now; but when it occurs to her even today she speaks, for instance, of this World Peace Con- gress as a 'pan-erotic human experience,' and then I feel myself all of a sudden unmanned by her cleverness. But"- a n d he intensified the significance of his words by a brief pause-"there must be some- thing in it-some need, some so-called characteristic of the age- because even in the War Ministry they're beginning to talk that way now. Since this Congress has turned up, you can hear officers of the General Staff talking about love of peace and love of mankind the way they talk about the Model 7 machine gun or the Model82 medi- cal supply wagon! It's absolutely nauseating! "
"Is that why you called yourself a disappointed specialist in love just now? " Ulrich interjected.
"Yes, my friend. You have to excuse me: I couldn't stand hearing you talk so one-sidedly! But officially I derive great profit from all these things. "
"And you no longer have any enthusiasm for the Parallel Cam- paign, for the celebration of great ideas, and such things? " Ulrich probed out of curiosity.
"Even such an experienced woman as your cousin has had enough of culture," the General replied. "I mean culture for its own sake. Besides, even the greatest idea can't stop your ears from getting boxed! "
"But it can cause someone else's getting his ears boxed next time. "
"That's right," Stumm conceded. "But only ifyou use the spiritfor something, not if you serve it selflessly! " Then he looked up at Ul- rich, curious to enjoy along with him the effect ofhis next words, and lowering his voice expectantly, certain of success, he added: "But even ifI would like to, I can't anymore: I've been removed! "
From the Posthumous Papers · 1237
''I'm impressed! " Ulrich exclaimed, instinctively acknowledging the insight of the military authorities. But then he followed another sudden idea and said quickly: "Tuzzi got you into this mess! "
"Not a bit ofit! " Stumm protested, sure ofhimself.
Up to this point the conversation had taken place in the vicinity of the door, and besides the two men there was a third participant who was waiting for them to finish, staring straight ahead so motionlessly that for him the world stopped between the ears of two pairs of horses. Only his fists in their white cotton gloves, through which the reins ran, surreptitiously moved in irregular, soothing rhythms, be- cause the horses, not quite so accessible to military discipline as peo- ple, were getting more and more bored with waiting, and were pulling impatiently at their harnesses. At last the General com- manded this man to take the carriage to the gate and exercise the horses there until he got in; he then invited Ulrich to walk through the garden on foot, so that he could fill him in properly about what had gone on, without being overheard.
But Ulrich thought he saw vividly what it was all about, and at first didn't let Stumm get a word in. "It makes no difference whether Tuzzi took you out of the game or not," he said, "for in this matter you are, ifyou will excuse me, only a minor figure. What's important is that almost at the very moment when he began to get suspicious on account of the Congress and began to face a difficult and onerous test, he simplified his political as well as his personal situation the quickest way he could. He went to work like a sea captain who hears of a big storm coming and doesn't let himself be influenced by the still-dreaming ocean. Tuzzi has now allied himselfwith what repelled him before--Arnheim, your military policies, the German line-and he would also have allied himselfwith. the efforts ofhis wife if, in the circumstances, it had not been more useful to wreck them. I don't know how I should put it. Is it that life becomes easy if one doesn't bother with emotions but merely keeps to one's goal; or is it a mur- derous enjoyment to calculate with the emotions instead of suffering from them? It seems to me I know what the devil felt when he threw a fistful of salt into life's ambrosia! "
The General was all fired up. "But that's what I told you at the beginning! " he exclaimed. "I only happened to be talking about lies, but genuine malice is, in all its forms, an extraordinarily exciting
1238 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
thing! Even Leinsdorf, for instance, has rediscovered a predilection for realpolitik and says: Realpolitik is the opposite ofwhat you would like to do! "
Ulrich went on: "What makes the difference is that before, Tuzzi was always confused by what Diotima and Arnheim were talking about together; but now it can only make him happy, because the loquacity of people who aren't able to seal off their feelings always gives a third person all sorts of footholds. He no longer needs to lis- ten to it with his inner ear, which he was never good at, but only with the outer, and that's roughly the difference between swallowing a disgusting snake or beating it to death! "
"What? " Stumm asked.
"Swallowing it or beating it to death! "
"No, that bit about the ears! "
"I meant to say: it was fortunate for him that he retreated from the
inward side of feeling to the outward side. But perhaps that might still not make sense to you; it's just an idea I have. "
"No, you put it very well! " Stumm protested. "But why are we using others as examples? Diotima and Arnheim are Great Souls, and for that reason alone it'll never work right! " They were strolling along a path but had not got very far; the General stopped. "And what happened to me isn't just an army story! " he informed his ad- mired friend.
Ulrich realized he hadn't given him a chance to speak, and apolo- gized. "So you didn't fall on account ofTuzzi? " he asked politely.
"A general may perhaps stumble over a civilian minister, but not over a civilian section chief," Stumm reported proudly and matter- of-factly. "I believe I stumbled over an idea! " And he began to tell his story.
To HER DISPLEASURE, AGA THE IS CONFRONTED WITH A HISTORICAL SYNOPSIS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE EMOTIONS
Agathe, meanwhile, had come upon a new group of pages, in which her brother's notes continued in a quite different manner. It ap- peared that he had suddenly made up his mind to ascertain what an emotion was, and to do this conceptually and in a dry fashion. He also must have called up all manner of things from his memory, or read them specifically for this purpose, for the papers were covered with notes relating in part to the history and in part to the analysis of the concept of the emotions; altogether, it formed a collection of fragments whose inner coherence was not immediately apparent.
Agathe first found a hint about what had moved him to do this in the phrase "a matter of emotion! " which was written in the margin at the beginning; for she now remembered the conversation, with its profound oscillations that bared the foundations of the soul, which she and her brother had had on this subject in their cousin's house. And she could see that if one wanted to find out what a matter of emotions was, one had to ask oneself, whether one liked it or not, what emotion was.
This served her as a guide, for the entries began by saying that everything that happens among people has its origin either in feel- ings or in the privation of feelings; but without regard to that, an an- swer to the question of what an emotion was could not be gained with certainty from the entire immense literature that had grappled with the issue, for even the most recent accomplishments, which Ul- rich really did think were advances, called for an act of trust of no small degree. As far as Agathe could see, he had not taken psycho- analysis into account, and this surprised her at first, for like all people stimulated by literature, she had heard it spoken of more than other kinds of psychology. Ulrich said he was leaving it out not because he
1239
I240 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
didn't recognize the considerable merits of this significant theory, which was full of new concepts and had been the first to teach how many things could be brought together that in all earlier periods had been anarchic private experience, but because its method was not really appropriate to his present purpose in a way that would be wor- thy of its quite demanding self-awareness. He laid out as his task, first, to compare the existing major answers to the question of what emotion is, and went on to note that on the whole, only three answers could be ascertained, none ofwhich stood out so clearly as to entirely negate the others.
Then followed sketches that were meant to work this out: "The oldest but today still quite prevalent way of representing feeling pro- ceeds from the conviction that clear distinctions can be made among the state of feeling, its causes, and its effects. This method under- stands by the emotions a variety of inner experiences that are funda- mentally distinct from other kinds-and these are, according to this view, sensation, thinking, and willing. This view is popular and has long been traditional, and it is natural for it to regard emotion as a state. This is not necessary, but it comes about under the vague im- pression of the perception that at every moment of an emotion, and in the middle ofits dynamic changes, we can not only distinguish that we are feeling but also experience, as something apparently static, that we are persisting in a state of feeling.
"The more modem way of representing emotion, on the other hand, proceeds from the obseiVation that it is most intimately as- sociated with action and expression; and it follows both that this view is inclined to consider emotion as a process and that it does not direct its attention to emotion alone but sees it as a whole, together with its origin and forms of expression. This approach originated in physiol- ogy and biology, and its efforts were first directed at a physiological explanation of spiritual processes or, more emphatically, at the physi- cal totality in which spiritual manifestations are also involved. The results of this can be summarized as the second main answer to the problem of the nature of emotion.
"But directing the thirst for knowledge toward the whole instead of its constituent elements, and toward reality instead of a precon- ceived notion, also distinguishes the more recent psychological investigations of emotion from the older kinds, except that its aims
From the Posthumous Papers · 1 2 4 1
and leading ideas are naturally derived from its own discipline. This leads these recent investigations to yield a third answer to the prob- lem ofwhat emotion is, an answer that builds on the others as well as standing on its own. This third answer, however, is no longer in any way part of a retrospective view, because it marks the beginning of insight into the concept formation currently under way or regarded as possible.
"I wish to add, since I mentioned earlier the question of whether emotion is a state or a process, that this question actually plays just about no role at all in the developments I have outlined, unless it be that of a weakness common to all views, which is perhaps not entirely unfounded. If I imagine an emotion, as seems natural in the older manner, as something constant that has an effect both inwardly and outwardly, and also receives input from both directions, then I am obviously faced with not just one emotion but an indeterminate number of alternating emotions. For these subcategories of emotion, language rarely has a plural at its disposal: it knows no envies, angers, or spites. For language these are internal variations of an emotion, or emotion in various stages of development; but without question a se- quence of stages points just as much toward a process as does a se- quence ofemotions. If, on the other hand-which would accord with this and also seem to be closer to the contemporary view-one be- lieves that one is looking at a process, then the doubt as to what emo- tion 'really' is, and where something stops belonging to itself and becomes part of its causes, consequences, or accompanying circum- stances, is not to be solved so easily. In a later place I shall come back to this, for such a divided answer customarily indicates a fault in the way the question is put; and it will, I think, become clear that the question of whether emotion is a state or a process is really an illu- sory one, behind which another question is lurking. For the sake of this possibility, about which I can't make up my mind, I will let this question stand. "
"I will now continue following the original doctrine of emotion, which distinguishes four major actions or basic states of the soul. It goes back to classical antiquity and is presumably a dignified rem- nant of antiquity's belief that the world consists of the four elements
1242 • THE MAN WITH 0 U T QUALITIES
earth, air, fire, and water. In any event, one often hears mention even today offour particular classes ofelements ofconsciousness that can- not be reduced to each other, and in the class of 'emotion' the two feelings 'pleasure' and 'lack of pleasure' usually occupy a privileged position; for they are supposed to be either the only ones, or at least the only ones involving emotions that are not in any way alloyed with anything else. In truth they are perhaps not emotions at all but only a coloration and shading of feelings in which have been preserved the original distinction between attraction and flight, and probably also the opposition between succeeding and failing, and other contrasts of the originally so symmetrical conduct of life as well. Life, when it succeeds, is pleasurable: Aristotle said it long before Nietzsche and our time. Kant, too, said that 'pleasure is the feeling of furthering life, pain that of hindering it. ' And Spinoza called pleasure the 'tran- sition in man from lesser to greater perfection. ' Pleasure has always had this somewhat exaggerated reputation of being an ultimate ex- planation (not least on the part of those who have suspected it of deception! ).
"But it can really arouse laughter in the case of thinkers who are not quite major and yet are suspiciously passionate. Here let me cite from a contemporary manual a lovely passage of which I would not like to lose a single word: 'What appears to be more different in kind than, for example, joy over an elegant solution to a mathematical problem and joy over a good lunch! And yet both are, as pure emo- tion, one. and the same, namely pleasure! ' Also let me add a passage from a court decision that was actually handed down just a few days ago: 'The purpose of compensation is to bestow upon the injured party the possibility of acquiring the feelings of pleasure correspond- ing to his usual circumstances, which balance the absence of plea- sure caused by the injury and its consequences. Applied to the present case, it already follows from the limited choice of feelings of pleasure that correspond to the age of two and a quarter years, and the ease of providing means for them, that the compensation sought is too high. ' The penetrating clarity expressed in both these examples permits the respectful observation that pleasure and the absence of pleasure will long remain as the hee and the haw of the doctrine of feeling. "
From the Posthumous Papers · 1243
"If I look around further, I discover that this doctrine that care- fully weighs pleasure and the absence of pleasure understands by 'mixed feelings' the 'connection of the elements of pleasure and lack of pleasure with the other elements of consciousness,' meaning by these grief, composure, anger, and other things upon which lay peo- ple place such high value that they would gladly find out more about them beyond the mere name. 'General states offeeling' such as live- liness or depression, in which mixed feelings of the same kind pre- dominate, are called 'unity of an emotional situation. ' 'Affect' is what this connection calls an emotional situation that occurs 'suddenly and violently,' and such a situation that is, moreover, 'chronic' it calls 'passion. ' Were theories to have a moral, the moral of this doctrine would be more or less contained in the words: Ifyou take small steps at the beginning, you can take big leaps later on! "
"But in distinctions such as these, whether there is just one plea- sure and lack ofpleasure or perhaps several; whether beside pleasure and the absence of pleasure there are not also other basic opposi- tions, for instance whether relaxation and tension are not such (this bears the majestic title of singularistic and pluralistic theory); whether an emotion might change and whether, if it changes, it then becomes a different emotion; whether an emotion, should it consist of a sequence of feelings, stands in relation to these the way genus stands in relation to species, or the caused to its causes; whether the stages an emotion passes through, assuming it is itself a state, are conditions of a single state or different states, and therefore different emotions; whether an emotion can bring about a change in itself through the actions and thoughts it produces, or whether in this talk about the 'effect' of an emotion something as figurative and barely real is meant as if one were to say that the rolling out of a sheet of steel 'effects' its thinning, or a spreading out of clouds the overcast- ing of the sky: in such distinctions traditional psychology has achieved much that ought not to be underestimated. Of course one might then ask whether love is a 'substance' or a 'quality,' and what is
1244 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES involved with regard to love in terms of'haeccity' and 'quiddity'; but
is one ever certain of not having to raise this question yet again? "
"All such questions contain a highly useful sense of ordering, al- though considering the unconstrained nature of emotions, this seems slightly ridiculous and is not able to help us much with regard to how emotions determine our actions. This logical-grammatical sense of order, like a pharmacy equipped with its hundred little drawers and labels, is a remnant of the medieval, Aristotelian-scho- lastic observation of nature, whose magnificent logic came to grief not so much on account of the experiences people had with it as on account ofthose they had without it. It is particularly the fault ofthe developing natural sciences and their ~ew kind of understanding, which placed the question of what is real ahead of the question of what is logical; yet no less, too, the misfortune that nature appears to have been waiting for just such a lack of philosophy in order to let itself be discovered, and responded with an alacrity that is by no means yet exhausted. Nevertheless, so long as this development has not brought forth the new cosmic philosophical egg, it is still useful even today to feed it occasionally from the old bowl, as one does with laying hens. And this is especially true for the psychology of the emo- tions. For in its buttoned-up logical investiture it was, ultimately, completely unproductive, but the opposite is only too true for the psychologists of emotion who came after; for in regard to this rela- tion between logical raiment and productivity, they have been, at least in the fine years oftheir youth, well-nigh sans-culottes! "
"What should I call to mind from these beginnings for more gen- eral advantage? Above all that this more recent psychology began with the beneficent sympathy that the medical faculty has always had for the philosophical faculty, and it cleared away the older psychol- ogy ofemotion by totally ceasing to speak ofemotions and beginning to talk instead about 'instincts,' 'instinctive acts,' and 'affects. ' (Not that talk of man as a being ruled by his instincts and affects was new; it became the new medicine because from then on man was exclu- sively to be so regarded. )
From the Posthumous Papers · 1245
"The advantage consisted in the prospect of reducing the higher human attitude ofinspiration to the general invigorated attitude con- structed on the basis of the powerful natural constraints of hunger, sex, persecution, and other fundamental conditions of life to which the soul is adapted. The sequences of actions these determine are called 'instinctive drives,' and these arise without thinking or purpose whenever a stimulus brings the relevant group of stimuli into play, and these are similarly activated in all animals of the same species; often, too, in both animal and man. The individual but almost invari- able hereditary dispositions for this are called 'drives'; and the term 'affect' is usually associated in this connection with a rather vague notion according to which the 'affect' is supposed to be the experi- ence or the experienced aspect of the instinctive action and of drives stimulated to action.
"This also mostly assumes, either emphatically or discreetly, that all human actions are instinctive actions, or combinations from among such actions, and that all our emotions are affects or parts or combinations of affects. Today I leafed through several textbooks of medical psychology in order to refresh my memory, but not one of their thematic indexes had a mention of the word 'emotion,' and it is really no mean accomplishment for a psychology of the emotions not to contain any emotions! "
"This is the extent to which, even now, a more or less emphatic intention dominates in many circles to substitute scientific concepts meant to be as concrete as possible for the useless spiritual observa- tion of the soul. And however one would originally have liked emo- tions to be nothing more than sensations in the bowels or wrists (which led to such assertions as that fear consists of an accelerated heartbeat and shallow breathing, or that thinking is an inner speaking and thus really a stimulation of the larynx), what is honored and es- teemed today is the purified concept that reduces all inner life to chains of reflexes and the like, and this serves a large and successful school by way of example as the only permissible task of explaining the soul.
"So if the scientific goal may be said to be a broad and wherever possible ironclad anchoring in the realm of nature, there is still
1246 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
blended with it a peculiar exuberance, which can be roughly ex- pressed in the proposition: What stands low stands firm. In the over- coming of a theological philosophy of nature, this was once an exuberance of denial, a 'bearish speculation in human values. ' Man preferred to see himself as a thread in the weave of the world's car- pet rather than as someone standing on this carpet; and it is easy to understand how a devilish, degrading desire for soullessness also rubbed off on the emptiness of the soul when it straggled noisily into its materialistic adolescence. This was later held against it in reli- giously straitlaced fashion by all the pious enemies of scientific think- ing, but its innermost essence was nothing more than a good-natured gloomy romanticism, an offended child's love for God, and therefore also for his image, a love that in the abuse of this image still has un- conscious aftereffects today. "
"But it is always dangerous when a source of ideas is forgotten without this being noticed, and thus many things that had merely derived their unabashed certainty from it were preserved in just as unabashed a state in medical psychology. This gave rise in places to a condition of neglect involving precisely the basic concepts, and not least the concepts of instinct, affect, and instinctive action. Even the question of what a drive is, and which or how many there are, is an- swered not only quite disparately but without any kind of trepida- tion. I had an exposition before me that distinguished among the 'drive groups' of taking in food, sexuality, and protection against dan- ger; another, which I compared with it, adduced a life drive, an asser- tion drive, and five more. For a long time psychoanalysis, which incidentally is also a psychology of drives, seemed to recognize only a single drive. And so it continues: Even the relationship between in- stinctive action and affect has been determined with equally great disparities: everybody does seem to be in agreement that affect is the 'experience' of instinctive action, but as to whether in this process the entire instinctive action is experienced as affect, including exter- nal behavior, or only the internal event, or parts of it, or parts of the external and internal process in a particular combination: sometimes one of these claims is advanced, sometimes the other, and sometimes both simultaneously. Not even what I wrote before from memory
From the Posthumous Papers · 1247 without protest, that an instinctive action happens 'without intention
or reflection,' is correct all the time. "
"Is it then surprising ifwhat comes to light behind the physiologi- cal explanations of our behavior is ultimately, quite often, nothing but the familiar idea that we let our behavior be steered by chain reflexes, secretions, and the mysteries ofthe body simply because we were seeking pleasure and avoiding its opposite? And not only in psy- chology, also in biology and even in political economy-in short, wherever a basis is sought for an attitude or a behavior-pleasure and its lack are still playing this role; in other words, two feelings so paltry that it is hard to think ofanything more simpleminded.
The far more diversified idea ofsatisfying a drive would indeed be capable of offering a more colorful picture, but the old habit is so strong that one can sometimes even read that the drives strive for satisfaction because this fulfillment is pleasure, which is about the same as con- sidering the exhaust pipe the operative part of a motor! "
And so at the end Ulrich had also come to mention the problem of simplicity, although it was doubtless a digression.
"What is so attractive, so specially tempting to the mind, that it finds it necessary to reduce the world ofemotions to pleasure and its lack, or to the simplest psychological processes? Why does it grant a higher explanatory value to something psychological, the simpler it is? Why a greater value to something physiological-chemical than to something psychological, and finally, why does it assign the highest value of all to reducing things to the movement of physical atoms? This seldom happens for logical reasons, rather it happens half con- sciously, but in some way or other this prejudice is usually operating. Upon what, in other words, rests this faith that nature's mystery has to be simple?
"There are, first, two distinctions to be made. The splitting up of the complex into the simple and the minuscule is a habit in everyday life justified by utilitarian experience: it teaches us to dance by im- parting the steps, and it teaches that we understand a thing better after we have taken it apart and screwed it together again. Science,
1248 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
on the other hand, uses simplicity really only as an intermediate step; even what appears as an exception subordinates itself to this. For ul- timately science does not reduce the complex to the simple but reduces the particularity of the individual case to the generally valid laws that are its goal, and which are not so much simple as they are general and summarizing. It is only through their application, that is to say at second hand, that they simplify the variety of events.
"And so everywhere in life two simplicities contrast with each other: what it is beforehand and what it becomes afterward are sim- ple in different senses. What it is beforehand, whatever that may be, is mostly simple because it lacks content and form, and therefore is generally foolish, or it has not yet been grasped. But what becomes simple, whether it be an idea or a knack or even will, both entails and participates in the power of truth and capability that compel what is confusingly varied. These simplicities are usually confused with each other: it happens in the pious talk of the simplicity and innocence of nature; it happens in the belief that a simple morality is closer in all circumstances to the eternal than a complicated one; it happens, too, in the confusion between raw will and a strong will. "
When Agathe had read this far she thought she heard Ulrich's re- turning steps on the garden gravel and hastily shoved all the papers back into the drawer. But when she was sure that her hearing had deceived her, and ascertained that her brother was still lingering in the garden, she took the papers out again and read on a bit further.
53
THE D AND L REPORTS
When General Stumm von Bordwehr began expounding in the gar- den why he thought he had stumbled over an idea, it soon became evident that he was talking with the joy that a well-rehearsed subject provides. It began, he reported, with his receiving the expected re-
From the Posthumous Papers · 1249
buke on account of the hasty resolution that had forced the Minister of War to flee Diotima's house. "I predicted the whole thing! " Stumm protested confidently, adding more modestly: "except for what came afterward. " For in spite of all countermeasures, a whiff of the distressing incident had got through to the newspapers, and had surfaced again during the riots of which Leinsdorf became the sac- rificial lamb. But on Count Leinsdorf's way back from his Bohemian landholdings, in a city where he was trying to catch the train- Stumm now spelled out what he had already indicated in Agathe's presence-his carriage had happened to get caught between the two fronts ofa political encounter, and Stumm described what happened next in the following manner: "Of course their demonstrations were about something entirely different: some regulation or other con- cerning the use oflocal national languages in the state agencies, or an issue like that, something people have got so upset about so often that it's hard to get excited about it anymore. So all that was going on was that the German-speaking inhabitants were standing on one side of the street shouting "Shame! " at those across the way, who wanted other languages and were shouting "Disgrace! " at the Germans, and nothing further might have happened. But Leinsdorf is famous as a peacemaker; he wants the national minorities living under the Mon- archy to be a national people, as he's always saying. And you know, too, if I may say so here where no one can hear us, that two dogs often growl around each other in a general way, but the moment someone tries to calm them they jump at each other's throats. So as soon as Leinsdorf was recognized, it gave a tremendous impetus to everyone's emotions. They began asking in chorus, in two languages: 'What's going on with the Commission to Establish the Desires of the Concerned Sections of the Populace, Your Excellency? ' And then they shouted: 'You fake peace abroad, and in your own house you're a murderer! ' Do you remember the story that's told about him that once, a hundred years ago, when he was much younger, a co- quette he was with died during the night? This was what they were alluding to, people are saying now. And all this happened on account of that stupid resolution that you should let yourself be killed for your own ideas but not for other people's, a stupid resolution that doesn't even exist because I kept it out of the minutes! But obviously word got around, and because we had refused to allow it, now all of
I250 • THE MAN WITH0 UT QUALITIES
us are suspected ofbeing murderers ofthe people! It's totally irratio- nal, but ultimately logical! "
Ulrich was struck by this distinction.
The General shrugged his shoulders. "It originated with the Min- ister ofWar himself. Because when he had me called in after the row at Tuzzi's, he said to me: 'My dear Stumm, you shouldn't have let it get so far! ' I responded as well as I could about the spirit ofthe times, and that this spirit needs a form ofexpression and, on the other hand, a footing too: in a word, I tried to prove to him how important it is to look for an idea in the times and get excited about it, even ifjust now it happens to be two ideas that contradict each other and give each other apoplexy, so that at any given moment it's impossible to know what's going to develop. But he said to me: 'My dear Stumm, you're a philosopher! But it's a general's job to know! Ifyou lead a brigade into a skirmish, the enemy doesn't confide in you what his intentions are and how strong he is! ' Whereupon he ordered me once and for all to keep my mouth shut. " Stumm interrupted his tale to draw breath, and went on: "That's why, as soon as the Leinsdorfbusiness came up on top ofthat, I immediately asked to speak to the Minister; because I could see that the Parallel Campaign would be blamed again, and I wanted to forestall it. 'Your Excellency! ' I began. 'What the populace did was irrational, but that might have been expected, because it always is. That's why in such cases I never regard it as reason, but as passion, fantasies, slogans, and the like. But aside from this, even that wouldn't have helped, because Count Leinsdorf is a stubborn old fellow who won't listen to anything! ' This is more or less what I said, and the Minister of War listened the whole time, nod- ding but not saying anything. But then he either forgot what he had just been chewing me out about or must have been in a really bad temper, because he suddenly said: 'You are indeed a philosopher,
Stumm! I'm not in the least interested in either His Excellency or the people; but you say reason here and logic there as if they were one and the same, and I must point out to you that they are not one and the same! Reason is something a civilian can have but can get along without. But what you have to confront reason with-which I must demand from my generals-is logic. Ordinary people have no logic, but they have to be made to feel it over them! ' And that was the end of the discussion," Stumm von Bordwehr concluded.
From the Posthurrwus Papers · I 25 I
"I can't say I understand that at all," Ulrich remarked, "but it seems to me that on the whole, your Second-Highest Generalissimo was treating you not ungraciously. "
They were strolling up and down the garden paths, and Stumm now walked a few paces without replying, but then stopped so vio- lently that the gravel crunched beneath his boots. "You don't under- stand? " he exclaimed, and added: "At first I didn't understand either. But little by little the whole range of just how right His Excellency the Minister of War was dawned on me! And why is he right? Be- cause the Minister ofWar is always right! Ifthere should be a scandal at Diotima's, I can't leave before he does, and I can't divine the fu- ture of Mars either; it's an unreasonable thing to ask of me. Nor can I fall into disgrace, as in Leinsdorf's case, for something with which I have as little connection as I do with the birth of my blessed grand- mother! But still, the Minister of War is right when he imputes all that to me, because one's superior is always right: that both is and isn't a banality! Now do you understand? "
"No," Ulrich said.
"But look," Stumm implored. "You're just trying to make things difficult for me because you don't feel involved, or because you have a feeling for justice, or for some such reason, and you won't admit that this is something a lot more serious! But really you remember quite well, because when you were in the army, people said to you all the time that an officer must be able to think logically! In our eyes, logic is what distinguishes the military from the civilian mind. But does logic mean reason? No. Reason is what the army rabbi or chap- lain or the fellow from the military archives has. But logic is not reason. Logic means acting honorably in all circumstances, but con- sistently, ruthlessly, and without emotion; and don't let anything con- fuse you! Because the world isn't ruled by reason but must be dominated by iron logic, even if the world has been full of idle chat- ter since it began! That's what the Minister ofWar was giving me to understand. You will object that in me it didn't fall upon the most barren ground, because it's nothing more than the old tried-and-true mentality ofthe military mind. Since then I've got more ofthat back, and you can't deny it: we must be prepared to strike before we all start talking about eternal peace; we must first repair our omissions and weaknesses so as not to be at a disadvantage when we join the
1252 • THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
universal brotherhood. And our spirit is not ready to strike! It's never ready! The civilian mind is a highly significant back-and-forth, an up- and-down, and you once called it the millennia! war of faith: but we can't let that destroy us! Somebody has to be there who, as we say in the military, has initiative and takes over the leadership, and that's the vocation of one's superior. I see that now myself, and I'm not entirely certain whether before, in my sympathy for every spiritual endeavor, I wasn't sometimes carried away. "
Ulrich asked: "And what would have happened if you hadn't real- ized that? Would you have been discharged? "
"No, that wouldn't have happened," Stumm corrected him. "Pre- suming, ofcourse, that I still showed no deficiency in military feeling toward power relationships. But they would have given me an infan- try brigade in Wladisschmirschowitz or Knobljoluka, instead of let- ting me continue at the crossroads of military power and civilian enlightenment and still be of some use to the culture we all share! "
They had now gone back and forth several times on the path be- tween the house and the gate, near which the carriage was waiting, and this time, too, the General turned around before they reached the gate. "You mistrust me," he complained. ''You haven't even asked me what actually happened when the Peace Congress sud- denly materialized! "
'Well, what did happen? The Minister ofWar called you in again, and what did he say? "
"No! He didn't say anything! I waited a week, but he said nothing more," Stumm replied. And after a moment of silence he couldn't restrain himself any longer and proclaimed: "But they took 'Report D' away from me! "
''What is 'Report D'? " Ulrich asked, although he had some idea.
" 'Report Diotima,' of course," Stumm responded with pained pleasure. "In a ministry, a report is prepared for every important question, and that had to be done when Diotima began to use the gatherings at her house for a patriotic notion and after we found out about Arnheim's active involvement. This report was assigned to me, as you will doubtless have noticed, and so I was asked what name it should be given, because you can't just stick such a thing in a row like something in medical supplies or when you do a commissary course, and the name Tuzzi couldn't be mentioned for interministerial rea-
From the Posthumous Papers · 1253
sons. But I couldn't think ofanything appropriate either, so finally, in order not to say either too much or too little, I proposed calling it 'Report D': for me, 'D' was Diotima, but no one knew that, and for the others it sounded really terrific, like the name of a directory, or maybe even like a secret to which only the General Staff has access. It was one of my best ideas," Stumm concluded, adding with a sigh: "At that time I was still allowed to have ideas. "
But he did not seem entirely cheered up, and when Ulrich- whose mood of falling back into the world was almost used up, or at least its oral supply of talkativeness was pretty well consumed-now fell into silence after an appreciative smile, Stumm began to com- plain anew. "You don't trust me. After what I've said, you think I'm a militarist. But on my honor, I fight against it, and I don't want to simply drop all those things I believed in for so long. It's these mag- nificent ideas that really make people out of soldiers. I tell you, my friend, when I think about it I feel like a widower whose better half has died first! " He warmed up again. "The Republic of Minds is of course just as disorderly as any other republic; but what a blessing is the superb idea that no person is in sole possession of the truth and that there are a host of ideas that haven't yet even been discovered, perhaps because of the very lack of order that prevails among them! This makes me an innovator in the military. Of course, in the Gen- eral Staff they called me and my 'Report D' the 'mobile searchlight battery,' on account of the variety of my suggestions, but they really liked the cornucopia I was emptying! "
"And all that's over? ''
"Not unconditionally; but I've lost a lot of my confidence in the mind," Stumm grumbled, seeking consolation.
"You're right about that," Ulrich said dryly.
"Now you're saying that too? "
"I've always said it. I always warned you, even before the Minister
did. Mind is only moderately suited to governing. "
Stumm wanted to avoid a lecture, so he said: "That's what I've al-
ways thought too. "
Ulrich went on: "The mind is geared into life like a wheel, which it
drives and by which it is also driven. "
But Stumm let him go no further. "Ifyou should suspect," he in-
terrupted, "that such external circumstances were decisive for me,
1254 · THE MAN WITH0UT QUALITIES
you would be humiliating me! It's also a matter ofa spiritual purifica- tion! 'Report D' was, moreover, taken from me with great respect. The Minister called me in to tell me himself that it was necessary because the Chief of the General Staff wanted a personal report on the Congress for World Peace, and so they immediately took the whole business out of the Office for Military Development and at- tached it to the Information Offices of the Evidenzbiiro-"
"The Espionage Department? " Ulrich interjected, suddenly ani- mated again.
"Who else? Whoever doesn't know what he wants himself at least has to know what everyone else wants! And I ask you, what business does the General Staffhave at a Congress for World Peace? To inter- fere with it would be barbarous, and to encourage it in a pacifist way would be unmilitary! So they observe it. Who was it who said 'Readi- ness is all'? Well, whoever it was knew something about the military. " Stumm had forgotten his sorrow. He twisted his legs from side to side, trying to cut off a flower with the scabbard of his sword. ''I'm just afraid it will be too hard for them and they'll beg me on their knees to come back and take over my report," he said. "After all, you and I know from having been at it for nearly a year how such a con- gress ofideas splits up into proofs and counterproofs! Do you really believe-disregarding for the moment the special difficulties of gov- erning-that it's only the mind that can produce order, so to speak? "
He had now given up his preoccupation with the flower and, frowning and holding the scabbard in his hand, gazed urgently into his friend's face.
Ulrich smiled at him and said nothing.
Stumm let the saber drop because he needed the fingertips of both white-gloved hands for the delicate determination of an idea. "You must understand what I mean when I make a distinction be- tween mind and logic. Logic is order. And there must be order! That is the officer's basic principle, and I bow down to it! But on what basis order is established doesn't make the slightest bit of difference: that's mind-or, as the Minister of War put it in a rather old-fash- ioned way, reason-and that's not the officer's business. But the offi- cer mistrusts the ability ofcivilian life to become reasonable by itself, no matter what the ideas are by which it's always trying to do so. Be-
From the Posthurrwus Papers · 1255
cause whatever mind there has ever been at any time, in the end it's always led to war! "
Thus Stumm explained his new insights and scruples, and Ulrich summarized them involuntarily in an allusion to a well-known saying when he asked: "So you really mean to say that war is an element of God's ordained ordering of the world? "
"That's talking on too high a plane! " Stumm agreed, with some reservation. "I ask myself straight out whether mind isn't simply dis- pensable. For if I'm to handle a person with spurs and bridle, like an animal, then I also have to have a part ofthe animal in me, because a really good rider stands closer to his steed than he does, for example, to the philosophy oflaw! The Prussians call this the scoundrel every- one carries inside himself, and constrain it with a Spartan spirit. But speaking as an Austrian general, I'd rather put it that the better, finer, and more ordered a nation is, the less it needs the mind, and in a perfect state it wouldn't be needed at all! I take this to be a really tough paradox! And by the way, who said what you just said? Who's it from? "
"Moltke. He said that man's noblest virtues-courage, renuncia- tion, conscientiousness, and readiness to sacrifice-really develop only in war, and that without war the world would bog down in apa- thetic materialism. "
'Well! " Stumm exclaimed. "That's interesting too! He's said some- thing I sometimes think myself! "
"But Moltke says in another letter to the same person, and there- fore almost in the same breath, that even a victorious war is a misfor- tune for the nation," Ulrich offered for consideration.
''You see, mind pinched him! " Stumm replied, convinced. ''I've never read a line of him; he always seemed much to<;> militaristic for me. And you can really take my word for it that I've' always been an antimilitarist. All my life I've believed that today no one believes in war anymore, you only make yourself look ridiculous if you say you do. And I don't want you to think I've changed because I'm different now! " He had motioned the carriage over and already set his foot on the running board, but hesitated and looked at Ulrich entreatingly. "I have remained true to myself," he went on. "But if before I loved the civilian mind with the feelings of a young girl, I now love it, if I
1256 · THE MAN WITH0 UT QUALITIES
may put it this way, more like a mature woman: it's not ideal, it won't even let itself be made coherent, all of a piece. That's why I've told you, and not just today but for a long time, that one has to treat peo- ple with kindness as well as with a firm hand, one has to both love them and treat them shabbily, in order for things to come out prop- erly. And that's ultimately no more than the military state of mind that rises above parties and is supposed to distinguish the soldier. I'm not claiming any personal merit here, but I want to show you that this conviction was what was speaking out of me before. "
"Now you're going to repeat that the civil war of '66 came about because all Germans declared themselves brothers," Ulrich said, smiling.
"Yes, of course! " Stumm confirmed. "And now on top of that ev- erybody is declaring themselves brothers! That makes me ask, what's going to come of it? What really comes happens so unexpectedly. Here we brooded for almost a whole year, and then it turned out quite differently. And so it seems to be my fate that while I was busily investigating the mind, the mind led me back to the military. Still, if you consider everything I've said, you'll find that I don't identify my- self with anything but find something true in everything; that's the essence, more or less, ofwhat we've been talking about. "
After looking at his watch, Stumm started to give the sign to leave, for his pleasure at having unburdened himselfwas so intense that he had forgotten everything else. But Ulrich amicably laid his hand on him and said: "You still haven't told me what your newest 'little job' is. "
Stumm held back. "Today there's no more time. I have to go.