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

Abstract

In his essays from the early 1920s, Robert Musil repeatedly called the behavior and modes of thinking prevailing in postwar society “symptoms.” Moreover, he claimed that the same conditions that led to World War I were still present after the war. He argued that a process of working through these conditions and the prevailing symptoms was required to avoid another outbreak of large-scale destruction. In the essay “Geist und Erfahrung,” Musil found Oswald Spengler representative of a symptomatic manner of thinking. However, he also showed indecision about how to relate to the symptoms he found in Spengler's writing. Besides describing the problems Musil encountered when clarifying the “symptomatic” style of Spengler, this essay clarifies the “clinical picture” of society Musil repeatedly made throughout his life, which is crucial to understanding what he wanted to achieve with Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften.

Keywords:

• clinical picture
• Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
• ideology
• Robert Musil
• Oswald Spengler
• symptoms
• World War I

Notes

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

²For more on Musil's Ideologiekritik, see Müller, Martens, Luft, and De Cauwer.

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

⁴Musil said this in an oft-cited interview from 1926 with Oskar Maurus Fontana (Gesammelte Werke 7: 939).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stijn De Cauwer

Stijn De Cauwer is a postdoctoral researcher in literature and cultural studies at the University of Leuven. He obtained his PhD on the work of Robert Musil at the University of Utrecht.

James M. Fielding

James M. Fielding is finishing a PhD in philosophy on the work of Ludwig Wittgenstein at Université Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne.