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Robert Musil’s Symptomatology: Oswald Spengler and the Clinical Picture of Society

1. Introduction

In 1921, only 3 years after the end of the First World War, Robert Musil warned in his essay

“Die Nation als Ideal und Wirklichkeit” that it would be a grave mistake to simply forget recent

events and move forward. To ignore the particular circumstances and tensions that had caused the

enthusiastic welcome of the outbreak of war on an unprecedented scale would, he argued, inevitably

cause the same destructive tensions to return:

Und selbst wenn Millionen von Menschen sich, ihre Existenz, ihre Lebensziele, ihre

Nächsten, ihren Gesamtbesitz an Heroismus bloß einem Phantom geopfert haben sollten:

kann man denn da einfach wieder zu Bewußtsein erwachen, aufstehen und weggehen wie

nach einem Rausch, das Ganze eine Trunkenheit, eine Psychose, eine Massensuggestion,

ein Blendwerk des Kapitalismus, Nationalismus oder was immer nennend? – Man kann es

ganz gewiß nicht, ohne dadurch ein Erlebnis zu unterdrücken, das nicht erledigt ist, und

gerade dadurch die Ursprünge einer ungeheuerlichen Hysterie in die Seele der Nation zu

senken! (Werke 8: 1061)

This passage reveals that Musil believed that it was necessary to work through the conditions that

had led up to the war, so as to avoid a repetition of the destructive, sacrificial impulses in the period

that followed. Most strikingly, this passage shows that, though Musil is weary of the easy usage of

specific clinical labels to describe the characteristics of society, he nevertheless claims that pre-war

society had been marked by tensions which resulted in forms of behavior that resembled

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pathological ones and the failure to come to terms with these tensions would have catastrophic

consequences. In the essays written in the 1920s, such as the rich but unfinished essay “Der

deutsche Mensch als Symptom” from 1924, Musil repeatedly calls the prevailing behavior, as well

as many popular artistic and intellectual works produced in those times “symptoms.”

In 1921, when Oswald Spengler’s Der Untergang des Abendlandes was among the most

hotly debated literary sensations of the day, Robert Musil chose to take on this sweeping account of

world history as an example of the predominant failures of the intellectual debates of the time. In

his essay “Geist und Erfahrung. Anmerkungen für Leser, welche dem Untergang des Abendlandes

entronnen sind,” Musil writes, in what would appear to be no uncertain terms, that he considered

Spengler’s style of argumentation to be representative of the problematic manner of thought that

was then prevailing: “Ich stelle fest, daβ ich Spengler nicht abwäge, sondern daβ ich ihn angreife.

Ich greife ihn an, wo er typisch ist. Wo er oberflächig ist. Wenn man Spengler angreift, greift man

die Zeit an, der er entspringt und gefällt, denn seine Fehler sind ihre” (Werke 8: 1047-48). Musil felt

that it was no coincidence that Spengler’s Untergang had become such a success. For him, its style

and content matched perfectly the prevailing tastes of the generation living through the crisis years

that followed the First World War, a generation which seemed literally to have gone mad. It is,

therefore, no surprise that throughout the essay Musil repeatedly refers to the flaws he finds in

Spengler’s thought as “symptoms.” In Musil’s diagnosis of the state of society in the years

following the war, his sharp assessment of Spengler’s popular work takes up an important place,

especially because Musil seems to be wavering about which position to adopt towards a

“symptomatic” work such as Spengler’s.

Musil’s use of the word “symptom” in these essays is not a mere figure of speech. Rather,

his entire oeuvre can be regarded as an extensive analysis of the different symptomatic flaws that

were recurring in the intellectual discourses of the time. In this sense it could be further argued that

throughout Musil’s work he attempted in fact to develop a true “symptomatology,” in the dual sense

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of the term: as a sharp assessment of these prevailing symptoms of the age in which he was living

and also as a search for an appropriate response to them.

In this article we will first take a closer look at the different symptoms Musil discerned in

the work of Spengler, paying special attention to the uncertainty he exhibits with regards to how one

might adequately relate to them. Secondly, we will analyze certain key passages wherein Musil

cautiously turns to clinical analogies in order to describe more precisely the broader state of

contemporary society, as he diagnosed it. Here we will see that from his earliest writings to his last,

Musil consistently drew on such analogies. From these diverse fragments we will distil a coherent

theory underlying his use of this clinical imagery: that society suffers from a lack of precision and

an imbalance between the intellect and the feelings, and, moreover that this state resembles certain

forms of pathological behavior. Finally, we will conclude by suggesting that an understanding of

Musil’s “symptomatology” and the diagnosis underlying his use of clinical pictures is necessary for

understanding the development of his magnum opus Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, on which he

started to work in 1924.1 We want to emphasize that this complex, unfinished novel can only be

understood in the light of Musil’s clinical picture of society and the symptoms he wished to counter.

2. The Symptomatic Style of Oswald Spengler

In “Geist und Erfahrung” Musil gave such a harsh description of Spengler’s work that

Jacques Bouveresse has referred to him as “the anti-Spengler” (147). However, a close reading of

the essay reveals that alongside the relentlessly critical passages, Musil also expresses certain

feelings of affinity with Spengler and for what he attempted to achieve in his Untergang. Rather

than expressing an unambiguous antagonism, finding a proper way to relate to Spengler and to his

style of thought seems rather to be the principle concern of Musil’s essay. This relation turns out to

be a lot more subtle of a position than one which could be neatly summarized by the prefix anti-.

1 For a good overview of the genesis and the complications with the gradual publication and editing process of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, see Fanta.

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Musil shows, in fact, a great deal of indecision in this regard. He struggles to find the words

necessary to articulate his understanding of Spengler’s work. Frequently a statement drenched in

irony is followed by another of a very different tone, one of admiration even.

For example, following the passage cited above, in which Musil writes of wanting to

“attack” Spengler’s style for being superficial, representative of the faulty thinking style of the

times, he continues by stating: “Zeiten sind aber nicht zu widerlegen” (Werke 8: 1048) Such a

refutation would take too much time and require an impossible amount of work to complete. All

one can do, Musil concludes, is “ihnen auf die Finger zu sehn und auch hie und da

daraufzuklopfen” (Werke 8: 1048). At a certain moment, he writes that he would find it

inappropriate to ridicule the weaknesses of a book only to replace it with his own, better ideas,

because an essay as such only allows for a brief and rather superficial presentation of the

alternatives. Musil seems here to voice his frustration with the format of the essay, which does not

allow for a lengthy elaboration of the issues raised by Spengler; throughout, he wavers between

rather hard and humorous dismissals of Spengler’s arguments, “rapping him on the knuckles” here

and there, and a more substantive treatment of the subject matter. In the final section of the essay,

Musil feels the need to summarize his reasons for attacking such a popular book, something he had

never found necessary to do before. He thus clarifies once again that he does not want to write a

mere review, but “am berühmten Einzelfall Zeitfehler zu demonstrieren” (Werke 8: 1058).

The questions that matter most here in order to understand the trajectory of Musil’s stylistic

development are the following: How does one respond to a symptomatic style of thinking? Which

style is appropriate in order to counter such a condition? As long as one restricts oneself to a

concrete instance, such as Spengler’s, one can indeed describe these symptoms one after another

and dismiss them. But, as Musil has indicated, to counter the symptoms of an entire era, it does not

seem adequate to refute, to attack, or to merely rap it on the knuckles. Such a task would require a

much slower, more elaborate and meticulous process. Nonetheless, as we will presently see, Musil’s

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attempt at articulating just what he found so disagreeable in Spengler did lay the foundation for that

slower, more elaborate work which was to follow later in his life. Let us look, therefore, at the

symptoms that Musil first discerned in Spengler’s writing, with special attention to how he

positions himself towards them.

Musil, who studied engineering among other disciplines, begins his essay by pointing out

the many factual mistakes that Spengler makes when he speaks about mathematics. He offers a

number of hilarious imitations of Spengler’s way of grouping the most diverse elements together

under the same rubric and how he poses as a knowledgeable connoisseur on such matters. Citing a

list of mathematical phenomena dealt with by Spengler, Musil writes: “Aber in Wahrheit ist, wie

Spengler da Zahlengebilde höherer Ordnung aufzählt, nicht fachkundiger als ob ein Zoologe zu

Vierfüβlern die Hunde, Tische, Stühle und Gleichungen vierten Grades zusammenfassen würde!”

(Werke 8: 1043) Musil makes it clear, however, that it would be futile to point out each of the many

errors in Spengler’s book, for: “Die vorgeführten, ohne lang suchen zu müssen aus vielen

herausgegriffenen Beispiele sind nicht Irrtümer in Einzelheiten, sondern eine Art des Denkens!”

(Werke 8: 1044) What he wishes to emphasize here is that Spengler is representative of a certain

style or way of thinking that operates through problematic and imprecise analogies, which are then

used in the service of the most absurd arguments. He thus precedes to mock Spengler by

demonstrating the “morphological connection” between yellow butterflies and Chinese people

(Werke 8: 1044). At a later point he even provides a formula for Spengler’s reductionist style of

reasoning (Werke 8: 1053).

In such passages, especially those concerning Spengler’s arguments about science and

mathematics, Musil is certainly rapping him on the knuckles; however, as the essay continues,

Musil demonstrates a greater willingness to actually engage with Spengler’s arguments. While he

finds Spengler’s rubrics of scientific phenomena laughable, he is nonetheless right, Musil argues, to

stress that scientific activities are a dynamic, culturally colored activity. But his epistemology is

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one-sided. Musil adds that Spengler forgets that science is not solely culturally colored, that it is not

the pure product of dynamic social activities. There are objective principles outside of cultural

concerns: monkeys, stone-age man, Archimedes and a panther, he notes in a humorous example, all

know how to use something as a lever, after all (Werke 8: 1045).

What is symptomatic in Spengler’s work, therefore, is first of all its imprecision. It is a

feature that Musil further argues is closely connected to a second symptom: an aversion to

empirical thinking, to the maths and the sciences. Musil points out that all serious philosophy has

one foot in empiricism. It is concerned with the relation between a priori and experiential elements,

which in turn always involves a certain constraint on thought. This implies a slow, meticulous and

precise form of thinking, requiring one to go over the same details time and again, rather than

subsuming them under a grander theory which would not be tied down to them. In the symptomatic

style of Spengler, such precision is conceived as too restrictive, too strong a limitation upon the free

flow of ideas. But such a pure flight of imprecise speculation, uninhibited by attention to detail and

empirical scrutiny, will for Musil always turn out to be inadequate:

Sieht man in Empiristen nur den von Gott in die Tiefe gebannten Luzifer, so möge man doch

nicht vergessen, was das Hauptargument für ihn ist: die Unzulänglichkeit aller

philosophischen Engel. Zur Ehre eines Höheren einen solchen, so gut ich es vermag, in

teilweise gerupftem Zustand zu zeigen, nahm ich Spengler als Beispiel. (Werke 8: 1049)

Musil thus wants to “pluck” the “philosophical angel” Spengler, bringing him and his high-flown

abstractions back to solid ground, like an Icarus with his wings melted.

However, if at times Musil finds in Spengler’s speculations no connection to the reality it

claims to encompass, he also finds what he calls a “Dörrfischrationalität” (Werke 8: 1059), which

reveals itself in the converse: an obsession precisely with facts. Musil clarifies this idea by drawing

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a distinction between two different realms of experience and knowledge, what he calls the ratioide

and the nicht-ratioide (Werke 8: 1049-50). While, in the first, regularities and causal explanations

can be formulated, clearly communicated, and transmitted, in the realm of the non-ratioid this is not

possible. Concerning the non-ratioid, we cannot rely on strictly defined concepts but only on what

Musil calls pulsating ideas, analogies instead of equations, probabilities instead of laws. Musil

refers here to the experience that he has called elsewhere in his writings “the other condition:” the

sensation wherein our ordinary disposition to the world suddenly slides away and makes room for a

more mystical, intensive experience in which new connections and affinities between things are felt.

Musil is at the same time more empirical and more mystical than Spengler. What matters for

him is how to bring these two domains together, rather than attempting to make a strict separation

between them, as Spengler has done. Here we find the third symptom Musil identifies in Spengler’s

style of thought: the division of experience into a series of problematic binary oppositions. In “Geist

und Erfahrung” he formulates a list of such oppositions that are to be found in Spengler’s work: the

rational and the irrational, empirical thought and intuition, Erlebnis and Erkennen, culture and

civilization, and so forth. But it is also here that we can see Musil’s approach to Spengler gradually

shift. He ceases to write in such satirical and dismissive tones as before. He continues to reject the

lack of precision in the way that these binary categories have been defined and presented as strict

oppositions; however, he does not reject their existence as such. Where earlier in the essay Musil

had warned against replacing Spengler’s ideas with his own, he now retains Spengler’s notions and

proceeds to redefine them. He wavers between his earlier feelings of irritation and the patience

required to take on the greater problem that Spengler’s work illustrates.

This new willingness to tackle the wider issues is visible, for example, in Musil’s response

to the then fashionable term intuition, which figures prominently in Spengler’s work. Initially, he

reveals his frustration and impatience at its widespread use:

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Ich beantrage, alle deutschen Schriftsteller möchten sich durch zwei Jahre dieses Wortes

enthalten. Denn heute steht es so damit, daβ jeder, der etwas behaupten will, was er weder

beweisen kann, noch zuendegedacht hat, sich auf die Intuition beruft. In der Zwischenzeit

möge jemand die zahllosen Bedeutungen dieses Worts aufklären. (Werke 8: 1053)

However, having initially expressed this dismissive sentiment, Musil nevertheless continues to

clarify some of the substantial problems surrounding the use of the term. He notes, for example, that

the popularity of the term intuition derives from the fact that

man das Wichtigste nicht sagen und behandeln kann, daβ man bis zum Extrem skeptisch

in ratione ist (also gerade gegen das, was nichts andres hat als daβ es wahr ist!), dagegen

unerhört gläubig gegen alles, was einem gerade einfällt, daβ man die Mathematik

bezweifelt, aber an kunsthistorische Wahrheitsprothesen glaubt wie Kultur und Stil, daβ

man trotz Intuition beim Vergleichen und Kombinieren von Fakten das gleiche macht, was

der Empirist macht, nur schlechter, nur mit Dunst statt der Kugel schieβt: das ist das

klinische Bild des durch übermäβigen, fortgesetzten Intuitionsgenuβ erweichten Geistes,

Schöngeistes unserer Zeit. (Werke 8: 1055)

What bothers Musil above all is the binary nature of such dualisms and the lack of precision with

which they are applied. The boundaries between the rational and the irrational are not so easily

drawn—as he points out that there is also such a thing as strictly rational intuition (Werke 8: 1053).

Though Musil finds it admirable in certain respects, Spengler’s attempt to analyze the state of

contemporary society in terms of strictly defined binary oppositions, exhaustive and mutually

exclusive, ultimately misses its mark, like shooting with mist.

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3. The Clinical Picture of Society

In “Geist und Erfahrung” Musil describes Spengler’s argumentation as “symptomatic.” He

recognizes, however, that such symptomatic thought is not unique to Spengler. An inadequate and

imprecise way of formulating one’s thoughts and a prevailing imbalance between the rational and

the irrational—where the former is dismissed as mere empiricism and the second affirmed as direct

“intuitive knowledge”—is, in fact, the very “clinical picture” of the broader times in which he was

living.

Throughout Musil’s life, from his earliest essays and notebook entries to his very last

writings, Musil was drawn to such imagery and consistently employed it to describe the state of

society, while nonetheless remaining cautious about transposing concrete clinical categories to

society. The first prominent example of such a clinical analogy was made after a visit to a

psychiatric institution in Rome, on the 30th of March, 1913, together with Alice von Charlemont,

who would later serve as the model for Clarisse in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. This visit is

described extensively in notebook number 7 (Tagebücher 278-81), but Musil also inserted these

initial impressions of the visit into an essay from the same year, regarding the political situation of

the time, entitled “Politisches Bekenntnis eines jungen Mannes.” Ultimately, the visit left such a

strong impression upon him that even many years later he would use the notebook entry in the

chapter “Die Irren begrüssen Clarisse” of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften. Although in each of these

works Musil makes a slightly different emphasis or adopts a different vocabulary, we can

nonetheless find a consistent theoretical analysis throughout. This visit, and the way in which Musil

sought to describe it, formed the blueprint for all of his subsequent “clinical imagery” of society.

The guided visit to the different wards of the mental facility is described by Musil with great

emphasis on the disturbing impact the inmates had upon him and the other visitors, especially with

regards to their contorted features and wild physical gesticulation. The notebook entry culminates

with a man in an isolation cell, whose erratic, compulsive behavior, and incomprehensible cries, are

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described in disturbing detail. What struck Musil most was that the inmates seemed to be caught up

in impulsive gesticulations, which they could not stop from doing even if it led to nothing but

further agitation and, finally, exhaustion. Their repetitive contortions and spasms wore them out,

leaving them both physically and mentally broken. Yet, they continued to make the same gestures

over and over again, as if it were the only possible thing for them to do. The inmates’ extreme

emotional and physical expenditure seemed to the visitors an absurd and self-tormenting form of

madness.

Musil found the inmates’ agitation striking because he sensed in their plight a similarity to

the condition of contemporary society. He makes this link explicit in his 1913 essay “Politisches

Bekenntnis eines jungen Mannes:” “Ich war vor eine Stunde zu Besuch im römischen Irrenhaus […]

Damit es nicht wie eine Pointe erscheint, sage ich es gleich jetzt: so erschein mir alles, wie unsre

Situation.” Musil recalls:

In einer Einzelzelle tobte ein nackter Mann; wir hörten schon von weitem ihn schreien.

[…] Immer die eine Bewegung machte er, ein Herumwerfen des Oberkörpers mit einem

Ruck aller Muskeln und dazu immer den gleichen Griff mit der einen Hand, als wollte er

jemandem etwas erklären. Und schrie etwas, das keiner verstand, immer das gleiche. Für

ihn war wohl jenes Bedeutungsvolle, das er deutlich zu machen, der Welt ins Ohr zu

hämmern hatte, für uns war es ein zerstoβener unförmiger Schrei. (Werke 8: 1014)

What struck Musil most about the Roman inmate was his lack of understanding coupled with an

excess of emotionally driven acts. The frustrated, compulsive agitation, combined with

incomprehension and impotency, was for Musil a striking image of the present condition.

This image recurs once again in the crucial chapter “Ein Vergleich” from Der Mann ohne

Eigenschaften, where the members of the parallel campaign—Ulrich, Leinsdorf, Stumm and

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Arnheim—are trying to form a picture of the times. For Leinsdorf, it seems as if both the people and

their institutions are in a state of total unaccountability: “Da tauchten immer wieder Ideen auf, die

man noch nicht kannte, erhitzten die Leidenschaften und verschwanden nach Jahr und Tag wieder;

[…] aber herausgekommen war noch nie etwas dabei!” But Leinsdorf goes one step further:

Wenn man das millionenfach verkleinern könnte und sozusagen auf die Ausmaße eines

Einzelkopfes bringen, so gäbe es darum genau das Bild der Unberechenbarkeit,

Vergeßlichkeit, Unwissenheit und eines närrischen Herumhopsens, das sich Graf Leinsdorf

immer von einem Verrückten gemacht hatte (Werke 3:1017)

We see here once again this image of a wild expenditure of passion in actions that ultimately

amount to nothing constructive. It involves a huge amount of frenzy, activity and emotional energy,

but it all seems in the end to be futile, inadequate and frustrating. The times seem to reflect

collectively what for him, in a single individual, would be called lunacy. It is an impression that is

affirmed by Ulrich:

Sie bemerken, daß die Welt sich heute nicht mehr an das erinnert, was sie gestern gewollt

hat, daß sie sich in Stimmungen befindet, die ohne zureichenden Grund wechseln, daß sie

ewig aufgeregt ist, daß sie nie zu einem Ergebnis kommt, und wenn man sich das in einem

einzigen Kopf vereinigt dächte, was so in den Köpfen der Menschheit vorgeht, würde er

wirklich unverkennbar eine ganze Reihe von bekannten Ausfallserscheinungen zeigen, die

man zur geistigen Minderwertigkeit rechnet (Werke 3:1021)

To this, General Stumm agrees fully and wonders what the name of such a mental illness would be.

Ulrich gives one of his enigmatic answers: “…das ist sicher nicht das Bild einer bestimmten

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Geisteskrankheit; denn was einen Gesunden von einem Geisteskranken unterscheidet, ist doch

gerade, daß der Gesunde alle Geisteskrankheiten hat, und der Geisteskranke nur eine!” (Werke

3:1021)

Ulrich’s definition of the normal and the mad individual may sound hyperbolic, but we see

here clearly the clinical picture of the times that Musil strove to articulate. In a “normal” person

different traits complement one another, creating a balance between feelings and understanding. It

becomes a mental illness—though the comparison with a concrete clinical category is rejected—

when one is stuck in just one of those traits and it thus comes to dominate all other possibilities.

Pathology is here portrayed as a reduction in the sphere of one’s possibilities: being stuck in a single

pattern, which blocks one from acting adequately in order to resolve problematic conditions as they

arise.

The most elaborate and theoretically rich description of this clinical picture of society is

formulated by Musil in his 1937 public lecture, entitled “Über die Dummheit,” delivered for the

Austrian Werkbund in Vienna shortly before Musil went into exile. Completely unpacking the

wealth of ideas that Musil raises in this lecture would not be possible here. We may, nonetheless,

have a closer look at the clinical picture of the times that he evokes here once again, but in greater

detail than ever before.

Musil begins the essay by stating how difficult it is to define the notion of “stupidity,”

having searched in vain for authors who might have achieved this in the past. Using a wealth of

examples, he counters the common-sense view of stupidity as a lack of intelligence. Referring to

brutality as a form of “applied stupidity,” such as “stupid” reactions to art, Musil wishes to make

clear that stupidity has just as much to do with feeling as it does with reason or intellect. He calls it

an “Affektstörung,” to which people in masses seem even more vulnerable than individuals (Werke

8: 1277).

Stupidity is not so much a lack of intelligence, then, but a failure of understanding with

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respect to a given situation, which is in turn compensated by an emotional excess. Musil associates

this with a person crying out such explicatives as “How stupid!,” “How vulgar!,” or “How sick! ,”

when faced with something objectionable. Such emotional cries are for him the most inadequate

and imprecise form of judgment, for with this one wants to object to something but does not know

how to crystallize one’s objection. One is unable to assess precisely what one finds objectionable so

that it may lead to a more adequate, purposive response. Musil writes:

Diese Handlungsweise hat die Form völliger Verwirrung, sie ist planlos und scheinbar von

der Vernunft wie von jedem rettenden Instinkt verlassen; aber ihr unbewuβter Plan ist der,

die Qualität der Handlungen durch deren Zahl zu ersetzen, und ihre nicht geringe List

beruht auf der Wahrscheinlichkeit, daβ sich unter hundert blinden Versuchen, die Nieten

sind, auch ein Treffer findet. (Werke 8: 1283)

He compares this reaction to a sweeping spread of bullets, or the throw of a hand grenade, which

hopes that a stray bullet or shred of shrapnel might actually hit the target and thus eliminate the

cause of the unease.

A striking example that Musil uses to demonstrate this kind of behavior is that of flinging

books to the ground “als lieβen sie sich so entgiften” (Werke 8: 1283). Public book burnings had

already taken place—with Musil’s works being on the black list—rousing in people exactly the type

of blind destructive emotion that leads to the false feeling that “sound actions” are being taken. This

kind of behavior, Musil clarifies, “ist nicht sowohl ein Mangel an Intelligenz als vielmehr deren

Versagen aus dem Grunde, daβ sie sich Leistungen anmaβt, die ihr nicht zustehen” (Werke 8: 1287)

The judgment, or rather the failure of judgment, that Musil describes here “vertritt nicht, was

es vorstellt, sondern ein Gemisch von Vorstellungen, Gefühlen und Absichten, das es nicht im

mindesten auszudrücken, sondern nur zu signalisieren vermag” (Werke 8: 1281). Its lack of

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precision flares the emotions up: “und das Gemeinsame aller dieser, sonst so ungleichartigen, Worte

ist es, daβ sie im Dienst eines Affektes stehn und daβ es gerade Ungenauigkeit und ihre

Unsachlichkeit sind, was sie im Gebrauch befähigt, ganze Bereiche besser zutreffender, sachlicher

und richtiger Worte zu verdrängen” (Werke 8: 1282). Given in 1937, this lecture is obviously a

commentary on the escalating political situation in Europe and Musil makes this clear throughout

his talk. While he does not want to compare it to a specific category of mental illness, in it he

nonetheless diagnoses a dangerous disease: “Die damit angesprochene Dummheit ist keine

Geisteskrankheit, und doch ist sie die lebensgefährlichste, die dem Leben selbst gefährliche

Krankheit des Geistes” (Werke 8: 1288). For if this kind of stupidity is not acknowledged, Musil

clarifies, it could spread and become institutional, especially in increasingly uncertain times:

Und schlieβlich wäre auch noch einzuwenden, daβ sich gelegentlich keiner so klug verhält,

wie es nötig wäre, daβ jeder von uns also, wenn schon nicht immer, so doch von Zeit zu

Zeit dumm ist. Es ist darum auch zu unterscheiden zwischen Versagen und Unfähigkeit,

gelegentlicher oder funktioneller und beständiger oder konstitutioneller Dummheit,

zwischen Irrtum und Unverstand. Es gehört zum wichtigsten, weil die Bedingungen des

Lebens heute so sind, so unübersichtlich, so schwer, so verwirrt, daβ aus den

gelegentlichen Dummheiten der einzelnen leicht eine konstitutionelle der Allgemeinheit

werden kann. (Werke 8: 1289)

Musil ends this section of his incredibly rich address with a remark to those who might object that it

is problematic to transpose clinical observations to a whole society. He is fully aware that such a

seamless transposition would not be scientifically sound. Nonetheless: “man dürfte heute wohl

vielfach von einer ‘sozialen Imitation geistiger Defekte’ sprechen können; die Beispiele dafür sind

recht aufdringlich” (Werke 8: 1289).

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At the end of his lecture Über die Dummheit, Musil provides a few suggestions regarding

how one might counter the imprecise and ineffective behavior he has described. If this stupidity is

characterized by imprecision, imbalance and inadequacy, what we then require is rather “soundness

and efficiency.” While “soundness and efficiency” are clear enough in the more limited

psychological context, Musil recognizes that what such responses entail in daily life is far from

unambiguous. Modesty and an awareness of one’s margin of error is, therefore, what he prescribes

at the end of the essay as a cure for the ailments of his times. Musil admits, however, that the

achievement of a proper balance between reason and emotion is not something that may be

presumed or taken for granted: “und so lächerlich die unbeschwerte Subjektivität ist, so lebens-, ja

denkunmöglich ist natürlich ein völlig objektives Verhalten; beides auszugleichen, ist sogar eine der

Hauptschwierigkeiten unserer Kultur” (Werke 8: 1288). Finding this balance is a task that will have

be taken up again and again. Furthermore, as the principle challenge of Musil’s times, it is a search

that will inevitably fail from time to time. Modesty and an awareness of error are, therefore, crucial

in order to avoid the systematic failure that Musil cautioned against.

What is central here is to recognize what is “significant” from what is “stupid,” imprecise,

and ineffective. When Musil attempts to define “the significant” at the end of the lecture, he

emphasizes that the significant combines intellect and feeling in a manner that allows one to address

new challenges as they arise:

Das Bedeutende vereint die Wahrheit, die wir an ihm wahrnehmen können, mit den

Eigenschaften des Gefühls, die unser Vertrauen haben, zu etwas Neuem, zu einer Insicht,

aber auch zu einem Entschluβ, zu einem erfrischten Beharren, zu irgend etwas, das

geistigen und seelischen Gehalt hat und uns oder anderen ein Verhalten ‘zumutet’; so lieβe

sich sagen, und was im Zusammenhang mit der Dummheit das wichtigste ist, das

Bedeutende ist an der Verstandes- wie an der Gefühlsseite der Kritik zugänglich. (Werke 8:

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1290)

Musil comes to a similar conclusion in “Geist und Erfahrung,” where he touches briefly on such

issues; however, as we have seen, Musil is by no means solely negative in his evaluation of

Spengler there. Throughout the essay, he repeatedly expresses his admiration for what Spengler

attempted to achieve. He admires the fact that Spengler does at least dare to undertake such a vast

and ambitious project. But, crucially, it lacks a foundation: “Ich bewundere den leidenschaftlichen

Vorsatz, der die ganze Weltgeschichte in neue Denkformen pressen will. Daβ es nicht gelingt, ist

nicht nur Spenglers Schuld, sondern liegt auch am Mangel jeder Vorarbeit” (Werke 8: 1051). A little

further on, Musil repeats this sentiment: “Weit ausholende ideologische Versuche wie der Spenglers

sind sehr schön, aber die leiden heute darunter, daβ zu wenig innere Möglichkeiten vorbearbeitet

sind” (Werke 8: 1056). What exactly does he mean when he calls Spengler’s Untergang an

“ideological attempt,” which suffers from a lack of preparatory work?

4. Preparing the Ground: Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften

Musil repeatedly insisted on the importance of ideology in our daily lives, claiming that

even our smallest actions and thoughts have an ideological basis, and this “[a]uch heute noch

Trotzdem alle Welt sich über sie lustig macht” (Werke 8: 1379).2 Ideology creeps into the smallest

and most intimate moments of our existence, from our values to our disposition towards the world.

Our daily lives are not simply colored by ideology but completely shaped by it. The reason for this

omnipresence of ideology is that without the roles, shapes and patterns provided by society, we

would drown in existential angst and insecurity. In Musil’s view, people cannot cope with the

contingency and frailty of their existence:

Der persönliche Tod, die Winzigkeit des Erdkügelchens im Kosmos, das Geheimnis der 2 For more on Musil’s Ideologiekritik, see Müller, Martens, Luft or De Cauwer.

17

Persönlichkeit, die Frage des Fortlebens, Sinn und Sinnlosigkeit des Daseins, das sind

Fragen, die der Einzelne in den meisten Fällen als ohnedies nicht beantwortbar zeit seines

Lebens abweist, und die er dennoch wie Wände eines Raums sein ganzes Leben

umschlieβen fühlt.

Ich glaube auch, daβ wenig Menschen ganz unberührt davon bleiben, daβ es statt

ihres Lebens auch ein anderes gäbe (Werke 8: 1357)

It is here that ideology steps in by providing clear norms, roles, values and belief systems. It

provides a meaningful order that people can adopt and identify with to avoid a constant existential

crisis. In “Der deutsche Mensch als Symptom,” Musil claims that people are in essence shapeless.

Musil called this idea das Theorem der menschlichen Gestaltlosigkeit (Werke 8: 1368-71).3 This

shapeless form will take up the pre-existing molds, moral norms and values of society.

But this avoidance of anxiety is not enough to bind a person to a specific moral system. It

needs a larger and more persuasive framework to make that connection feel seamless and natural,

something that keeps on guarantying the continuance of the belief in that order. This is the role

ideology will play, as becomes clear in this working hypothesis from “Der deutsche Mensch als

Symptom:” “Ideologie ist: gedankliche Ordnung der gefühle; ein objektiver Zusammenhang

zwischen ihnen, der den subjektiven erleichert” (Werke 8: 1379). Ideology is for Musil a form of

organizing principle, something which gives coherence and direction to one’s feelings, thoughts and

acts.

In Musil’s view, what had led to the situation culminating in a world war of unprecedented

proportions was precisely a crisis in the functioning of ideology as an organizational principle. At

the end of the nineteenth century, people gradually lost faith in the life-roles and life forms they

were supposed to take up. Adopting the same kind of profession and lifestyle as their fathers or

3 It goes without saying that with this view, Musil was going directly against the prevailing racial or nationalist views on human beings.

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mothers was now felt to be hopelessly outdated and out of sync with a rapidly changing society.

Once such a loss of faith had occurred it became impossible to simply adopt the old ways of life:

“man kann nicht wieder in abgelegte Bindungen hineinkriechen” (Werke 8: 1363). But at the same

time, people were in need of firm guidelines more than ever. Musil begins “Das hilflose Europa

oder Reise vom Hundertsten ins Tausendste” by pointing out what he explicitly calls a symptom. He

claims that people had seen a lot in the recent years of war but that they were not able to grasp what

had really happened: “Wir waren also vielerlei und haben uns dabei nicht geändert, wir haben viel

gesehen und nichts wahrgenommen. Darauf gibt es, glaube ich, nur eine Antwort: Wir besaβen nicht

die Begriffe, um das Erlebte in uns hineinzuziehn” (Werke 8: 1076). Post-war Germany and Austria

seem like a madhouse: people seek guidance in sects, long for leaders and prophets, deride ‘reason’

and embrace the irrational. They long for a fullness of experience, something firm which can chase

away the feeling of confusion and uncertainty. Facile theories are developed by popular intellectuals

and opinion makers to explain the collapse into war.

While Musil warns that the causes for such a huge catastrophe are diverse, he nevertheless

explains:

So lag auch in der Art, wie die Welt auf den Krieg zutrieb, vor allem ein Mangel an

geistiger Organisation; das Nichternstnehmen der Anzeichen und hintreibenden Kräfte,

ebenso wie auch der gegenwirkenden Kräfte ging aus seiner Situation hervor, wo

ideologische Fragen in ihrer Unordnung und Windigkeit für “schöngeistig” galten (Werke

8: 1089)

The fact that the outbreak of war came so quickly and was received by the masses with festive joy

revealed nothing less than a desire for destruction. Musil writes that people sometimes crave a

“metaphysischen Krach,” the “offenbar menschliche Bedürfnis, von Zeit zu Zeit das Dasein zu

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zerreißen und in die Luft zu schleudern, sehend, wo es bleibe” (Werke 8: 1090). Such a craving has

to be understood as a longing to destroy the prevailing form of existence and society because it is

felt as too stifling:

Sieht man die Erscheinung von dieser Seite an, so muβ man hinzufügen, daβ es sich nicht

(nämlich nur scheinbar) um den Zusammenbruch einer bestimmten Ideologie und

Mentalität handelt […], um der Inhalt einer Ideologie also, sondern um das periodische

Zusammenbrechen aller Ideologien. Sie befinden sich stets in einem Miβverhältnis zum

Leben, und dieses befreit sich in wiederkehrenden Krisen von ihnen wie wachsende

Weichtiere von ihren zu eng gewordenen Panzern. (Werke 8: 1090)

Musil recognized that the same situation persisted in post-war Germany, though it still was in ruins

from the previous war. The flow of information, the scientific and technological developments, the

political and social challenges and the diversity of modern society were so overwhelming that

finding an adequate organizing principle was an enormous problem. Musil writes that the problem

of organization in modern society is a concern only taken up by the sciences. Instead of simply

accepting this imbalance, this “Aneinandervorbeileben von Verstand und Seele,” an organizing

principle will have to combine both the intellect and the feelings: “Wir haben nicht zuviel Verstand

und zuwenig Seele; sondern wir haben zuwenig Verstand in den Fragen der Seele” (Werke 8: 1092).

A guiding ideology, adequate for the complexity of modern existence, will only be possible if it can

break with the narrow opposition between feelings and intellect:

Was man Intellektualismus im üblen Sinn nennt, die modische intellektuelle Hast unsrer

Zeit, das Abwelken der Gedanken vor der Reife, hat darin einen Grund, daβ wir mit unsren

Gedanken Tiefe suchen und mit unsren Gefühlen Wahrheit und ohne die Verkehrtheit zu

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merken, jede Weile darüber enttäuscht sind, daβ es uns schlieβlich nicht gelingt. (Werke 8:

1056)

Against the negative evaluation of “intellectualism” of his day, Musil affirms the intellect. It is not

the intellect that is problematic, but the fact that we have not yet explored all that it can do.

It is from the sciences that Musil would adopt an important feature in his search for a new

guiding principle for human behavior. The problem is that people treat ideologies in terms of

substance and ideals instead of in terms of function:

denn es fehlte nicht an der Idealität, sondern schon an den Vorbedingungen für sie. […]

Die Lösung liegt weder im Warten auf eine neue Ideologie, noch im Kampf der einander

heute bestreitenden, sondern in der Schaffung gesellschaftlicher Bedingungen, unter denen

ideologische Bemühungen überhaupt Stabilität und Tiefgang haben. Es fehlt uns an der

Funktion, nicht an Inhalten! (Werke 8: 1091)

This important statement is easy to misunderstand. A “substantial” view of ideology will tend to

render the guiding model inflexible and idealized, unable to cope with new facts and challenges.

This lack of capacity to face new problems is what will cause an unbearable and destructive

situation. A functional ideology, however, will always be a provisional, flexible model, open to

readjustment in the face of new facts or problems. It is only this that will bring a more lasting

stability.

When Musil wrote “Geist und Erfahrung,” he did not only have scathing, harsh words for

Spengler, who he considered to be representative of a symptomatic style of thinking. He also

respected Spengler’s Untergang as a search for “intellektuelle Versuchsgrundlagen für die

Gestaltung des inneren Lebens” (Werke 8: 1056) Musil had great admiration for such an attempt to

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create a new form of guiding framework, but it is too “sweeping.” It is doomed to failure because

Spengler remains stuck in the symptomatic style of thinking endemic to his times, with its rigid

categorical distinctions and imprecise formulations inept for the complexities of modern life. It does

not have the “ground prepared” for such a task. Such an undertaking would require, first of all, the

meticulous process of examining Spengler’s central notions, removing them from their current

formulations, and once again opening them up for scrutiny and redefinition.

Musil had already begun to sense that the brief format of the essay does not allow for the

elaborate preparatory work required for addressing the broader symptomatic thought of his times.

Certainly, it allowed him a few raps on the knuckles and an indication of some of his most

prominent faults, but it could not allow for the meticulousness needed to move beyond the

symptomatic style that prevailed more generally. In place of the short essays—as well as the other

formats Musil experimented with, —it was thus in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften that Musil

developed a style that would allow for the length, the precision, the combination of sharp intellect

and deep affect, that are needed to move beyond the state of society which resembled for him that of

a clinical disorder. Though he made use of notes and impressions that are older, at the time Musil

started to write Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften he had already begun, in his essays of that period, to

assess the conditions which had left both the German and the Austro-Hungarian empire in ruins.

Moreover, he warned that these conditions were by no means over. To counter these conditions,

which could (and would) bring even more bloodshed and destruction, mere description or

condemnation was not enough. It is in the nature of symptoms that they allow a process of working

through, of a lengthy, detailed belaboring. It is such an experience of working through the prevailing

symptoms that Musil was after with Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, a novel about the period before

the war but intended to tackle the problems after the war. This explains why Musil claimed that he

had not written a historical novel, but that he was interested in what was typical for a given

situation.4 With his novel, Musil did not want to write a historical portrait or provide a set of 4 Musil said this in an oft-cited interview from 1926 with Oskar Maurus Fontana (Werke 7: 939).

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normative guidelines, but rather help to “prepare the ground.” With the compositional style that

Musil sought to develop in Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften, we see that he aimed to develop a style

that would bring together precisely these elements, which he found lacking elsewhere: a

combination of precise, scrutinizing, ratioid intellect and the affect-driven insight of the non-ratioid

realm. Such a style would allow one to take important concepts out of their symptomatic use and re-

examine them in a more adequate manner, which was needed to overcome the common use of

problematic notions.

Bibliography

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De Cauwer, Stijn. A Diagnosis of Modern Life : Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften as a

Critical-Utopian Project. Brussels: P.I.E. Peter Lang, 2014. Print.

Fanta, Walter. “The Genesis of Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.” A Companion to the Work of Robert

Musil. Eds. Philip Payne, Graham Bartram and Galin Tihanov. Rochester, New York: Camden

House, 2007. 251-284. Print.

Luft, David S. Eros and Inwardness in Vienna, Weininger, Musil, Doderer, Chicago: Chicago

University Press, 2003. Print.

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Eigenschaften. München: Salzburg, 1972. Print.

Musil, Robert. Tagebücher. Ed. Adolf Frisé. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1976. Print.

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Musil, Robert. Gesammelte Werke in neun Bänden. Ed. Adolf Frisé. Reinbek bei Hamburg:

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