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Otto Weininger Notes
ad35& Brilliance of Weininger's book (Sex
and Character). The obvious brilliant and cultured time
& place from which he comes. Compared with my own efforts, conscious
I am writing in a time degraded by journalism. What is the audience I address
but the kind of public that might read 'quality' newspapers' & a few
magazines like Time Out, & why should I address such an audience? Because what other one is there?
ad38 His rejection of empirical psychology from the point of view of
Kantian freewill, later made so much of by existentialists. Of course there are
difficulties with empirical psychology and what statements it feels moved to
make about the value and purpose of life. Difficulties answered by the will to
power. Assertion of freewill like a subjective interpretation
of the will to power. If some psychological system lays
down the supposed path to happiness I am of course free to reject that, but why
might I feel motivated to do so? Freewill seems an almost meaningless
explanation except insofar as it is a confession of relativism, a refusal to
judge or classify people's ideas about themselves. Against Weininger, Dollards book Caste and Class in a Southern Town
suggests the extent to which character, intelligence and capacity are the
result of social position. One might put up a similar case for inferiority of
the Negro or even the Irish. Linking of maleness with
acceptance of categorical imperative, too tendentious and dogmatic.
Going too far in saying what genius must be like, in
so doing he manages to abut the freedom he claims for it. Much of what he says
about memory is fine, his idea of the polarity of male
and female is brilliant in its way. Concede his own
genius.
ad40 Spengler
described Weininger as a great Jewish mystic, a late religious consciousness
destroyed in the agony of an essentially Magian
dualism. His dismissal of science and of the analytic or
empirical mode of thought, too cavalier. A very young man and a Germanic
cultural patriot, perhaps he underestimated the power of some things that are
not said. His Christianity in his lack of appreciation of the need for negation
blasphemy etc., thus of the satisfaction that can be provided by some forms of
pure science or analytical philosophy.... Weininger wants to capture the forces
of life into a particular doctrine, he even seems to want assent to that on the
part of those worthy to represent life. He attacks Nietzsche for wanting to
shock. How could he understand Satan?
ad42 Original genius as expression of essential male principle. ..Kantian, Fichtean concept of ethics.
Fichtean ethics seems to me to be a form of western
approximation to the dance of Shiva. It is an alternative to nirvana, action
deified. Wittgenstein
noted how Weininger puts the whole of human character in hierarchy of
valuation. He cannot accept that there is simply variety, diversity, and
different forms of fulfilment. Phallic worship he sees as satanic. Phallus as Dante's central pillar of Hell. .. his is a Christian way deeply intolerant. To
think in terms of an ethical imperative. ..attempting
to define the good too closely is the cardinal error. thus the strange
confusion by which a purportedly virile and life giving idea becomes coercive
and repressive....genius lies....even on his own principles there are different
escapes from the devilish female matter than the one he proposes.. typically Christian… Jewish attachment to the
commonplace resulting from he slavishness inculcated
by their religion. dogmatic statements of greatness of
Kant and Wagner. Intellectual equivalent of wine snobbery. etc
etc
ad55& Wittgenstein's
criticism of Weininger's hierarchical arrangement of human nature. Similar to what one would
presume would be Nietzsche's.
The will to power concept is a thorough repudiation of dualism, ie there is no
downward force only upward according to their various natures.
ae79 Woman, says Weininger, is not even animal but plant like. The
plant image emphasises the profoundly biological nature of sexual attraction.
Misogyny may be interpreted as a flaw in oneself. One receives what one gives.
Woman is delightful insofar as she can reflect your own delight and your
confidence in yourself. To look for more than that may be a grave mistake.
Woman is the object of desire. But false expectations may viciously rebound.
Your taste, your love, ultimately sexual, but what underlies it all? Different women desire different men, that makes for human
variety but if you are lucky there are enough for you. See yourself also as a
plant, the most fundamental nature of the instinct, its essence. Your self confidence, your definition, yourself. The extent
to which that is what you are. The nature of woman is to respond to that, to be
attracted to that. Perhaps insofar as she threatens it she is responding to a
weakness a fear that is in yourself.
af125& Weininger on erotics
and aesthetics.
The nude. 'The love bestowed by the man is the
standard of what is beautiful and what is hateful in woman'. Other
quotes. Sympathy for Weininger's rejection of sex and
his concentration on such concepts as the genius. I could see where his
frustration led him to such a position....there is an emotional arousal akin to
sexual excitement but which finds its release in aesthetic contemplation. 'In
fact the sexual impulse is in reality opposed to the conception of beauty'.
af160& Machismo as low and repellent. But the rejection of that is not
to be embracing either of feminism or of homosexuality. What concerns Weininger
are the values of creativity and genius. Prospect of sex inducing confusion. Machismo
trivialising the pursuit of the will, turning it into a question of style,
actually feminising it. Affirmationism identifies with glories in the
will. It is prepared to accept suffering. What it must not do is to identify
the joy of life too closely with the object of some particular desire. That
produces an anxiety obsessed way of living rather like salvationism.
Importance of memory.
ai146 People say that Hegel was committed to liberal values. In one
sense that may be so but it seems incidental. Part of his excitement is that of
an alternative to the English model of civilisation. It is that of a state
which knows, and in which all kinds of ideas of protest find themselves a place
in constructing the future, usually as a part of something even more exciting
than themselves. Take Weininger's ideal of culture. His
inclusion of Carlyle's 'Heroes and Hero-worship' & all sorts of
other books as part of a general wisdom. As if all the separate insights
all put together make a whole. Compare him here with Colin Wilson's Outsider.
A different conception of science to the empiricist.
aj188 In the case of male homosexuality one can understand it in terms
of weakness. Inadequacy. That seems a simple
explanation. But then what is lesbianism? Weininger actually sees it as a good
and positive thing, womanhood trying to overcome its limitations.
aj371 Weininger on Jewish versus Aryan father son relations. Quote. our culture has an ever restless rebellious quality.
Affirmation is to be found amongst forms which look hideous to the elders.
ak304 Many of the influences on Wittgenstein were very
peripheral to his main thought. It is obvious why Wittgenstein was
attracted to Spengler
and Weininger, they were interesting and persuasive
writers. Many academic commentators seem to lack the philosophical temperament, they are not sufficiently challenged by doubt.
al10 Note that Walter Duranty was another
Weininger fan. He got himself into trouble by recommending the book after the
2nd world war
al112 If there is no such thing as a genius then women are men's equals
if not superiors.....So rare to come across a real genius. Was Gurdjieff a
genius? Hegel? Ouspensky Boehme? DH.
am37 Gunter Grass. Eddie Amsel reading
Weininger (Dog Years)
am49 Wittgenstein
grew up in an atmosphere of Viennese anti-Semitism. Weininger as influenced by
Chamberlain. In such an atmosphere even basic Christianity took an anti Judaic
taint.
aq89
aq207 The femininity of the Jew, idea emphasised by Weininger. The pull back to normality, to family, childhood. Phases of woman's existence. How often does she represent
something higher? Only for a brief phase of her existence, as
when looking or a mate. Opposing male deviance, as
well as male originality. From the little girl's
aversion to the roughness of boys to the mature woman's approval of severe
punishments for offenders.
ap175 On the difference between Jewish and gentile relations of father
and son.
ap238 Comedy in Martin Eden. His quoting of
Weininger while supposedly in love.
ap332 Weininger on matchmakers, relate to the Jewish agony aunt.