Maverick Philosopher: Strictly Philosophical

The End of Moderation

Theodor Haecker, Journal in the Night (Pantheon, 1950, tr. Dru), p. 29:

Many a man thinks to satisfy the great virtue of moderation by using all his shrewdness and bringing all his experience to bear upon limiting his pleasure to his capacity for pleasure. But simply by the fact of setting enjoyment as the end, he has radically violated the virtue.

A penetrating observation.  What is the end or goal of moderation? Haecker is rejecting the notion that the purpose of moderation, conceived as a virtue, is to maximize the intensity and duration of pleasure. Of course, moderation can be used for that end -- but then it ceases to be a virtue.

For example, if I am immoderate in my use of alcohol and drugs, I will destroy my body, and with it my capacity for pleasure. So I must limit my pleasure to my capacity for pleasure. And the same holds for lack of moderation in eating and sexual indulgence. The sex monkey can kill you if you let him run loose. And even if one's lack of moderation does not lead to an early death, it can eventuate in a jadedness at odds with enjoyment.

So moderation can be recommended merely on hedonistic grounds. The true hedonist must of necessity be a man of moderation. If so, then the ill-starred John Belushi, who took the 'speedball' (heroin + cocaine) express to Kingdom Come, did not even succeed at being a very good hedonist.

But if enjoyment is the end of moderation, then moderation as a virtue is at an end. Haecker, however, does not tell us what the end of moderation as a virtue is. He would presumably not disagree with the claim that the goal of moderation as a virtue is a freedom from pleasure and pain that allows one to pursue higher goods. He who is enslaved to his lusts his simply not free to pursue a truer and higher life.

Theodor Haecker on Literary Style and a Comparison with Karl Kraus

Theodor Haecker, Tag- und Nachtbücher, 1939-1945, hrsg. Hinrich Siefken, Innsbruck: Haymon-Verlag, 1989, S. 212:

Der persönliche und gute Stil eines Schriftstellers ist die — oft durch große Kunst erreichte — natürliche Einheit zweier Naturen — der Natur des Schriftstellers und der Natur der jeweiligen Sprache, in der er schreibt, denn diese beiden Naturen sind nicht identisch, und die Einheit ist meist nur durch gegenseitige Kompromisse zu erreichen. Es kann einer einen reizvollen persönlichen Stil schreiben, der nur sprachlich gesehen, schlecht ist, weil er die Natur der Sprache im allgemeinen und im besonderen vergewaltigt, und ein braver Schüler kann einen guten Stil schreiben, ohne etwas Persönliches zu verrraten. Der große Schriftsteller ist aber der, in dessen Stil beide Naturen eins geworden sind, die wieder auseinanderzulegen keinem mehr möglich ist.

 A writing style that is at once both personal and good is a natural unity of two natures, the nature of the author and the nature of the language in which he writes. Though natural, this unity is often achieved only by great artfulness since these two natures are not identical and their unity is usually only to be achieved through mutual compromises. A butcher of the language can write in a stimulating personal style while a good schoolboy can achieve a good style without betraying anything personal. The great writer, however, is the one in whose style both natures have become one and indeed in such a way that no one is able to prise them apart again. (tr. WFV)

Here is the way I would put the point. In a great writer, the language itself speaks, not merely the author: the latter deploys and orchestrates the language's own resources. At the same time, the great writer is not a mere conductor, but also a composer who expresses his own unique personal nature in the medium of the language in which he composes. Thus both speak and each is medium to the other.

Haecker's thought strikes me as more accurate than the thought expressed in this effusive, romantic, masochistic, yet intriguing passage of Karl Kraus:

Ich beherrsche die Sprache nicht; aber die Sprache beherrscht mich vollkommen. Sie ist mir nicht die Dienerin meiner Gedanken. Ich lebe in einer Verbindung mit ihr, aus der ich Gedanken empfange, und sie kann mit mir machen, was sie will. Ich pariere ihr aufs Wort. Denn aus dem Wort springt mir der junge Gedanke entgegen und formt rückwirkend die Sprache, die ihn schuf. Solche Gnade der Gedankentrchätigkeit zwingt auf die Knie und macht allen Aufwand zitternder Sorgfalt zur Pflicht. Die Sprache ist eine Herrin der Gedanken, und wer das Verhlätnis umzukehren vermag, dem macht sie sich im Hause nützlich, aber sie sperrt ihm der Schoss. (Beim Wort Genommen, SS. 134-135

I do not dominate language; she dominates me completely. She is not the servant of my thoughts. I live in a relation with her from which I receive thoughts, and she can do with me what she will. I follow her orders. For from the word the fresh thought springs, forming retroactively the language that created it. The grace of language, pregnant with thought, forces me to my knees and makes a duty of my expenditure of trembling conscientiousness. Language is a mistress of thought. To anyone who would reverse the relationship, she makes herself useful but denies access to her womb. (tr. WFV)

I might have translated Herrin as 'dominatrix' if I wanted to accentuate the masochistic tone of the passage. 'Mistress' is obviously to be read as the female counterpart of 'master.'

Theodor Haecker, Tag- und Nachtbücher, 1939-1945, hrsg. Hinrich Siefken, Innsbruck: Haymon-Verlag, 1989, S. 212:

Der persönliche und gute Stil eines Schriftstellers ist die — oft durch große Kunst erreichte — natürliche Einheit zweier Naturen — der Natur des Schriftstellers und der Natur der jeweiligen Sprache, in der er schreibt, denn diese beiden Naturen sind nicht identisch, und die Einheit ist meist nur durch gegenseitige Kompromisse zu erreichen. Es kann einer einen reizvollen persönlichen Stil schreiben, der nur sprachlich gesehen, schlecht ist, weil er die Natur der Sprache im allgemeinen und im besonderen vergewaltigt, und ein braver Schüler kann einen guten Stil schreiben, ohne etwas Persönliches zu verrraten. Der große Schriftsteller ist aber der, in dessen Stil beide Naturen eins geworden sind, die wieder auseinanderzulegen keinem mehr möglich ist.

 A writing style that is at once both personal and good is a natural unity of two natures, the nature of the author and the nature of the language in which he writes. Though natural, this unity is often achieved only by great artfulness since these two natures are not identical and their unity is usually only to be achieved through mutual compromises. A butcher of the language can write in a stimulating personal style while a good schoolboy can achieve a good style without betraying anything personal. The great writer, however, is the one in whose style both natures have become one and indeed in such a way that no one is able to prise them apart again. (tr. WFV)

Here is the way I would put the point. In a great writer, the language itself speaks, not merely the author: the latter deploys and orchestrates the language's own resources. At the same time, the great writer is not a mere conductor, but also a composer who expresses his own unique personal nature in the medium of the language in which he composes. Thus both speak and each is medium to the other.

Haecker's thought strikes me as more accurate than the thought expressed in this effusive, romantic, masochistic, yet intriguing passage of Karl Kraus:

Ich beherrsche die Sprache nicht; aber die Sprache beherrscht mich vollkommen. Sie ist mir nicht die Dienerin meiner Gedanken. Ich lebe in einer Verbindung mit ihr, aus der ich Gedanken empfange, und sie kann mit mir machen, was sie will. Ich pariere ihr aufs Wort. Denn aus dem Wort springt mir der junge Gedanke entgegen und formt rückwirkend die Sprache, die ihn schuf. Solche Gnade der Gedankentrchätigkeit zwingt auf die Knie und macht allen Aufwand zitternder Sorgfalt zur Pflicht. Die Sprache ist eine Herrin der Gedanken, und wer das Verhlätnis umzukehren vermag, dem macht sie sich im Hause nützlich, aber sie sperrt ihm der Schoss. (Beim Wort Genommen, SS. 134-135

I might have translated Herrin as 'dominatrix' if I wanted to accentuate the masochistic tone of the passage. 'Mistress' is obviously to be read as the female counterpart of 'master.'

Theodor Haecker on the Teaching of Latin

The following is from Theodor Haecker's Tag-und Nachtbücher 1939-1945, translated into English by Alexander Dru as Journal in the Night (Pantheon Books, 1950), pp. 114-115.) I have made a couple of corrections in the translation. The following entry was written in 1940 in Hitler's Germany. The National Socialists seized power in 1933 and their 'one thousand year Reich' collapsed under the Allied assault in 1945. Haecker, a Christian, was bitterly opposed to the Nazi regime. Haecker's Journal provides keen insight into a dark time when an entire society went off the rails.

420. The principal cause of the present situation: the falling away from God, disobedience towards God, is of course interwoven with many subsidiary causes. One of these is the mass use and thus misuse of higher education. Newman warned against it. Why, he said, should fathers whose sons are to go into trade or business have their sons taught Latin and Greek? Latin and Greek are a violation of the understanding of the average child, and a torture if the teacher is unreasonable. By far the greater proportion of those of our Führers who studied the humanities were below the average as scholars. They are revenging themselves horribly, full of poisonous ressentiment for the drudgery and sweat and the inferiority complex which a too high ideal of education brought upon them.

'Higher education' translates Gymnasium. The Newman in question is John Henry Cardinal Newman. The "mass use and thus misuse" of higher education is immeasurably worse now in the USA than it was then in Germany. Some things simply cannot be made into mass consumption items. Philosophy is one of them. You may try to make it relevant to Joe Sixpack, but only by diluting it and without profiting Joe much in any case. The average person wants and needs job training, not education in the strict sense of the term.

The other side of the coin, however, is that an elitism such as that of Newman would have made it impossible for many of us from the lower orders to have received the education we did receive, watered-down thought it may have been. There are tough questions here. Democratization brings with it leveling and insipidity. But is a rigid class-structure that permits no social mobility really preferable?

I went to an excellent high school in which two years of Latin were required of all. The requirement has since been eliminated. I see that as a grave loss, but then I went further in the humanities, studying Latin for my doctoral comprehensives and making use of it in my research. One may reasonably ask whether my fellow students who most of them retain next to nothing of those two years of Latin would have been better served by two years of Spanish, say, especially now that the Reconquista is well under way.

The following is from Theodor Haecker's Tag-und Nachtbücher 1939-1945, translated into English by Alexander Dru as Journal in the Night (Pantheon Books, 1950), pp. 114-115.) I have made a couple of corrections in the translation. The following entry was written in 1940 in Hitler's Germany. The National Socialists seized power in 1933 and their 'one thousand year Reich' collapsed under the Allied assault in 1945. Haecker, a Christian, was bitterly opposed to the Nazi regime. Haecker's Journal provides keen insight into a dark time when an entire society went off the rails.

420. The principal cause of the present situation: the falling away from God, disobedience towards God, is of course interwoven with many subsidiary causes. One of these is the mass use and thus misuse of higher education. Newman warned against it. Why, he said, should fathers whose sons are to go into trade or business have their sons taught Latin and Greek? Latin and Greek are a violation of the understanding of the average child, and a torture if the teacher is unreasonable. By far the greater proportion of those of our Führers who studied the humanities were below the average as scholars. They are revenging themselves horribly, full of poisonous ressentiment for the drudgery and sweat and the inferiority complex which a too high ideal of education brought upon them.

'Higher education' translates Gymnasium. The Newman in question is John Henry Cardinal Newman. The "mass use and thus misuse" of higher education is immeasurably worse now in the USA than it was then in Germany. Some things simply cannot be made into mass consumption items. Philosophy is one of them. You may try to make it relevant to Joe Sixpack, but only by diluting it and without profiting Joe much in any case. The average person wants and needs job training, not education in the strict sense of the term.

The other side of the coin, however, is that an elitism such as that of Newman would have made it impossible for many of us from the lower orders to have received the education we did receive, watered-down thought it may have been. There are tough questions here. Democratization brings with it leveling and insipidity. But is a rigid class-structure that permits no social mobility really preferable?

I went to an excellent high school in which two years of Latin were required of all. The requirement has since been eliminated. I see that as a grave loss, but then I went further in the humanities, studying Latin for my doctoral comprehensives and making use of it in my research. One may reasonably ask whether my fellow students who most of them retain next to nothing of those two years of Latin would have been better served by two years of Spanish, say, especially now that the Reconquista is well under way.