Schopenhauer's Beard
Schopenhauer was asked: " Why do men have beards?" To which he replied that the beard served as a mask, necessary for defense [sic?] against women, who, by nature, are skilled in the arts of deception, which is to say, acting, dissimulation, lying, secrecy, and mimicry, to mention but the first associations that effortlessly spring to mind. " !!! (taken from the introduction of The People of the Sierra by Julian Pitt-Rivers, 1971)
If we agree that Schopenhauer was a man who was capable of reasoning, then we cannot use ignorance as a defence for his attitude. Some sources refer to his relationship with his mother, Joanna, as a possible origin for this 'perspective'. I would go further and say that it has something to do with cowardice. Women back then were an easy target - the majority having little or no formal education and certainly no political clout. I don't believe that all the men he met were honest, straight-talkers etc etc - nor all the women, possessed the above characteristics. So let's take a closer look at the adjectives he chose. They appear to be the ones we use when have been 'unlucky in love'. You know, s/he was a rat - type of accusations.... Why didn't he use his intellectual prowess to discover the source of his discontent. There's little point in identifying what's wrong with another, when you can't work out what's wrong with yourself. Come out, come out, from behind your mask Arthur !!!
For an entirely readable account of Schopenhauer (esp in regard to his concept of the 'will to live') see http://flatrock.org.nz/topics/society_culture/sex_and_schopenhauer.htm
It's written against a backdrop of a burgeoning romance between a couple who meet in London - and the portrayal of Schopenhauer's views are not so extreme as the mask quote above - allowing us to perhaps understand his insights into human nature - without getting 'our backs up' !
posted by Mary at
1:30 pm
2 Comments:
finally i get to comment on these pressing issues ( it's taken me 3 months to work out how to blog)
Really interesting to read your piece stardev, i agree with you that it is a poor excuse if we put down schopenhauer's discriminatory attitude towards women down to his relationship with his mother.
In the lecture on Nietzsche it was also said that the negative attitude he had towards women was also due to to himself being brought up by women. Wasn,t Nietzsche schopenhauer's prodigy, it's interesting to note that both these two who has similar upbringings also had similar attiudes towards women.
I don't for a minute believe that schopenhauer was the only person with this attitude. During this time it would'nt suprise me if a similar attitude persists more generally among men. However i do think that as time has moved on what was exceptable behaviour 100 years ago would not necessaraly be excepted today. If Schopenhauer's point was to shock and offend it may well have worked during the 1870's but i dont think today that his views are taken seriously.
By
ollie, at 12 December 2004 at 16:54
Schopenhauer's Beard - the unearthed chapter
Guess what I am going to say to this? hahahahaha - you guessed it, I think Schopenhauer is completely right BUT I think his theories have to be taken in accordance with the whole of his work. He wasn’t a misogynist-well he kind of was- BUT he was more of a misanthropist. Who can blame him either? This is the funniest quote I read about Schopenhauer;
“Schopenhauer is sent to London to learn English at a boarding school, Eagle House in Wimbledon. After receiving a latter from him, his friend Lorenz Mayer replies, ‘I am sorry that your stay in England has induced you to hate the entire nation’
Alain De Botton, The consolations of philosophy, published by penguin London 2000, page 172, line 13.
If you have got to stand up for someone that controversial just simply for the humour! Onto the subject though, his mother did try and force him to be something he didn’t want to be, yet another quote;
“Schopenhauer’s mother complains of her son’s passion for ‘pondering on human misery’”
Alain De Botton, The consolations of philosophy, published by penguin London 2000, page 173, line 7.
Anyway the point is he was being forced by his mother to do something he never wanted to do - give up his beliefs to service the higher affluent life with their views and perspectives. Here we can start to see why he didn’t like women, or rather labelled them (ORIGINALLY) with taboo’s.
I think within the quote;
Schopenhauer was asked: " Why do men have beards?" To which he replied that the beard served as a mask, necessary for defense [sic?] against women, who, by nature, are skilled in the arts of deception, which is to say, acting, dissimulation, lying, secrecy, and mimicry, to mention but the first associations that effortlessly spring to mind. " !!! (taken from the introduction of The People of the Sierra by Julian Pitt-Rivers, 1971)
He was actually accusing women of cowardice, and it can be argued he had a point. Within those times they wouldn’t revolute, they wouldn’t stand up for their ‘rights’ symbolising the cowardice in them and furthermore they wouldn’t be a confident person within the prescience of men. Yes it is true they were ‘knocked straight back down’ - oppressed if you like - but they didn’t show the confidence to back their opinions up. Let us look at contemporary society and characters such as Ghandi, Martin Luthor King and Mother Teresa who all rebuked the coercion from political oppression. Previous to Schopenhauer women were ’unable’ to ’stand-up for themselves’, why? I also want to point out he is against all humans and as previously stated who can blame him?
Lets take an example, a ‘townie’ or in the north (Midlands) known as a ‘chave’. They are these vagabonds with nothing but malevolent aspirations trying to create chaos within a community. Who wants to be associated with a community like that? Well, the public obviously do! These are the people they support when paying their taxes! Which leaves us with the idea that humans want society so they can destroy it the individual… lets face it, we are naturally ‘destroyers’.
Let us look at another example if you still need convincing, from the Matrix ‘Agent Smith’ refers to us as a cancer and how can we disagree? We are! We look for natural resources to use up and destroy before moving onto another place. Are we still looking to move to some other planet complete with an atmosphere? Why do we need to? Because we have destroyed this one - we are the cancer of the planet. How do we justify this? We claim we are more important that others! Surely this is just subjective, this is like coercing others to do things under duress. I’m sure if we asked a talking elephant whose more important humans or elephants, I’m sure they’d say elephants. Peter Singer had a good idea in attaching rights to animals but this will never happen - it can therefore be argued we were born to destroy. No surprise then to find so many misanthropists!
One more example straight from the great man Schopenhauer. He was a huge ‘dog-lover’ and was completely opposed to the idea of dogs being attached to a lead. He believed if a dog was attached to a lead the dog was justified to attack his or her owner. Could we imagine a world whereby a dog dragged us on a lead? Another example of animal oppression and something to add currency to the facts.
Onto women then. I can use examples from my life here, a girl I once knew (naming no names, most people know her though and will recognise this paradigm when announced,) could not tell me what the word intelligent meant (, this is not a person insult - read on to see where the point comes in). Obviously I was rather shocked but when I then found out she knew what the word elope meant I was even more surprised. This can be interpreted as a great example of a ‘woman’s’ social life for me personally. Most reading this will not be able to empathise here simply because I’m presuming you all know what intelligent means! In ‘a woman’s’ social life (as a stereotype of course) its all about how to win around ‘the right man/woman’ - depending on your preference. We see it present in magazines, cosmopolitan in the 70s used to tell women how to look more attractive, if you think this is out of date proceed go to a club. Women there are dressed to sexually entice, there is no doubt in my mind they wouldn’t freeze themselves to death risking the possibility of pneumonia without cause. There seems to be an ulterior motive behind all of these things, manipulation has got to be the answer. How do they do it? How do they keep their ‘oppression’ going? Through their ’acting, dissimulation, lying, secrecy, and mimicry’. This is not to say all women do this, but a large majority tend too. They do not do it wittingly, but without knowledge of what they are really doing. Although not all are like this, on the whole they tend to be ‘sadistic, evil, manipulative and calculating with an evanescence of unwillingness.’
This is not to say men can’t control themselves, but I have no interest in standing up for men! I too can empathise with Schopenhauer in his misanthropy and his pessimism upon the subject.
*These are arguments I do not necessarily agree with. As you can tell I am a misanthropist but the premises by which this syllogism works are not my own. I have said this to be controversial, as its more fun protecting and preserving a controversial opinion.
By
Chris Sparks, at 2 January 2005 at 02:07
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