39. The Laughing Lady

In my lecture "On the Literary Revolution in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century", which took place on December 8 [1897] in the Berlin "Freie Litterarische Gesellschaft", I said the following: "In this century, a radical change in the view of the world and of life has taken place; the whole religious emotional life of a part of European humanity has become different from that of the past centuries. Such an intensive change of views has not occurred for a long time in the development of world history. The world view of humility, which is filled with the feeling of dependence on higher, supernatural powers, has been replaced by the world view of pride, which is based on the awareness that man is a free, independent being, that he should be the master of his own destiny. Ludwig Feuerbach expressed it with clear, sharp words that all ideas of higher powers are products of human thought, that the revelation of God is nothing other than the revelation, the self-development of the human being. Self-conscious man thus places himself at the head of creation; he now knows that he can only direct himself and that in earlier epochs of world history he placed the thoughts of his own soul, according to which he directs himself, above himself as higher powers. Those people into whose emotional life such thoughts have passed are alien to the people of the first half of the century, even those who are among the greatest. The tone of feeling in the writings of such great men is like the sound of a foreign language to them. But even today there are only a few who are imbued with the new sentiments. They are opposed by the great masses and also by a multitude of important spirits whose souls are still dominated by the old feelings. We contemporary people - I said - can hardly communicate with these people of the "old feelings. The words from their mouths have a completely different meaning than ours."

The next day, a report in the "Frankfurter Zeitung" about the trial of Bruno Wille, the well-known representative of a modern liberal world view, who gave speeches in Vienna and Graz about the "religion of joy" and was therefore charged with disturbing existing religions, provided me with confirmation of my assertions. Wille contrasted the "religion of affliction" with the "religion of joy" in his own way, which I do not want to make mine exactly. The religion of tribulation makes this world an inferior world, a vale of tears. The religion of joy offers people the opportunity to draw happiness and salvation from this world and to do without the prospect of an afterlife. It is the contrast in feelings that matters when we speak of the old and new worldviews. How one comes to terms with the dogmas is only a consequence of the contrast in feelings.

Only those who feel in the sense of the old dogma can recognize the old dogma. The dogma is only there to put the content of feeling into thoughts, into words.

Two people faced each other in the Graz trial against Bruno Wille. A man with the old feelings, the judge, and a young man, a student, the witness Schmauz, who had grown up in the new feelings.

The following dialog took place:

Chairman: Did Wille negate the concept of God?

Witness: That has been repeatedly criticized by Catholic theologians. Even St. Thomas, whom Pope Leo XIII presented as a great philosopher of the Catholic Church, did extensive research on this matter.

Chairman: And when ten thousand people have done research, the dogma must not be shaken.

Witness: The dogma is fixed, but it is subject to constant further development and research. Nothing can be prescribed that contradicts reason ...

Chairman: Anything can be prescribed! Do you consider the teachings of Wille to be unbelief?

Witness: Every Catholic must adhere to science!

Chairman (to the clerk): I ask that this statement be recorded. (To the Court): I state that I and the witness do not understand each other, and I therefore abandon the interrogation.

This statement by the president of the Graz court is symptomatic of our times. There are two opposing worlds of feeling that cannot understand each other. Arrogant as I am, I don't want to play with these ideas after all. The lack of understanding is not based on mutuality. We already understand others. We can think our way into them, just as we can think our way into Plato's and Aristotle's contemporaries. We understand the reactionaries. But they don't understand us. And we are even arrogant enough to believe that progress is based on them gradually learning to understand us. We are even much more tolerant than they are. Just try if we have so little respect for personal opinions that we would think of putting someone in prison for being Catholic or Protestant Orthodox. We do not count prison among the tools of logic.

But we can be forgiven for one thing. Sometimes the clash between the old and new worldviews makes us smile. Sometimes that's the only way we can express ourselves. That's why the "laughing lady" in the Graz trial is a personality I want to take seriously.

I quote sentences from the Frankfurter Zeitung: "The presiding judge then explained that it was clear from Will's statements that he did not believe in hell at all, but also that he did not believe in a God who could punish. The defense counsel then asked the main witness for the prosecution, police commissioner Papez, how he imagined hell.

President: The witness does not need to answer that, because that is in any case a completely subjective view.

Police Commissioner Papez points out what the Catechism and the Bible teach about hell. Here the president interrupts him with the following words:

"I notice a lady in the audience who likes to laugh all the time; in any case, this is disturbing and inappropriate; I must ask you to refrain from this; we have a very serious hearing here and not at all the purpose of entertaining ourselves."

The theory of the comic is not yet complete. We don't really know what the opposites must be that make the human laugh muscles twitch. The lady's laughter can be judged either way. Perhaps it was trivialities that aroused the lady's laughter muscles. Or was the lady supposed to have a symbolic meaning? Nietzsche says: Truth is a woman. The "laughing philosophy" in the gallery. That wouldn't be a bad title for a book that a serious joker could write. World history could have the quirk of wanting to express itself through a lady just when it wants to laugh. After all, world history is still supposed to be the world court. But world history is clever. It knows that it can't use us, serious men, when it wants to laugh. We are too pathetic for it. That's where the ladies come in. It's easier for them to laugh. One lady said to me after my lecture: "Why get so excited about things that every sensible person today thinks like you?" Yes, ladies like that live on the "blissful islands", where you don't know how difficult the battle for the new world view will be for us.