The Spinoza Problem (27 page)

“But you must be tired. Haven’t you’ve been listening to people all day? When did you start this morning?”

“Working since seven. But talking with patients is not the same as talking with you. You and Eugen are all I have left from my life in Estonia—I was an only child, and as you may remember, my father died just before we last met. My mother died two years ago. I treasure the past—perhaps to an irrational degree. And I deeply regret our parting last time on bad terms—all because of my thoughtlessness. So the long version, please.”

Alfred spoke willingly of his life during the past three years. No, it was more than willingness: a warmth seeped through his bones as he spoke, a warmth emanating from sharing his life with someone who truly wanted to hear of it. He spoke of his escape out of Reval on the last train to Berlin, the cattle truck to Munich, the chance meeting with Dietrich Eckart, his job as a newspaper editor, his joining the NSDAP, his impassioned relationship with Hitler. He spoke of major achievements—writing
The Trace of the Jew
and, the previous year, publishing
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
.

The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
caught Friedrich’s attention. Only a few weeks before, Friedrich had heard about the document during a presentation by an eminent historian at the Berlin Psychoanalytic Society on the topic of man’s eternal need for a scapegoat. He had learned that
The Protocols of the Elders of Zion
was reputed to be a summary of speeches given at the 1897 First Zionist Congress in Basel that reveal an international Jewish conspiracy to undermine Christian institutions, bring about the Russian Revolution, and pave the way for Jewish world domination. The speaker at the psychoanalytic conference said that the
Protocols
had recently been republished in its entirety by an unscrupulous Munich newspaper, despite the fact that several major scholarly institutions had demonstrated convincingly that the
Protocols of Zion
was a hoax.
Had Alfred known that it was a hoax?
Friedrich wondered.
Would he have published it nevertheless?
But of this he spoke not a word. In his intensive personal psychoanalysis for the past three years, Friedrich had learned how to listen and learned, also, to think before he spoke.

“Eckart’s health is failing,” Alfred continued, turning to his ambitions. “I am saddened because he has been a wonderful mentor, but at the same time I know his impending retirement will open the path to my becoming editor in chief of the Nationalsozialistische Party newspaper,
Völkischer Beobachter
. Hitler told me himself that I am obviously the best candidate. The paper is growing robustly and is soon to become a daily. But even more I hope my editorial position, coupled with my closeness to Hitler, will eventually lead to my playing a major role in the party.”

Alfred ended his account by sharing a big secret: “I am now planning a truly important book that I will entitle
The Myth of the Twentieth Century
. I hope it will bring home to every thinking person the magnitude of the Jewish threat to Western civilization. It will take many years to write, but
eventually I expect it to be the successor to Houston Stewart Chamberlain’s great work,
The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century
. So that’s my story, up to 1923.”

“Alfred, I’m impressed with what you’ve accomplished in such a short time. But you haven’t finished. Bring me up to the present. What about Brussels?”

“Ah, yes. I told you everything except what you inquired about!” Alfred then described in detail his trip to Paris, Belgium, and Holland. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, he omitted any mention of the visit to the Spinoza Museum in Rijnsburg.

“What a rich three years, Alfred! You must be proud of what you’ve accomplished. I am honored that you’ve trusted me so. I have a hunch that you may not have shared this, especially your aspirations, with anyone before. Right?”

“Right. You’re very right. I haven’t spoken so personally since we last talked. There’s something about you, Friedrich, that encourages me to open up.” Alfred felt himself edging toward telling Friedrich that he wanted to change some basic things about his personality, when the cook appeared with generous helpings of warm Linzer Torte.

“Freshly baked for you and your guest, Dr. Pfister.”

“How kind of you, Herr Steiner. And your son, Hans? How is he this week?”

“His days are better, but the nightmares continue to be awful. Almost every night I hear him screaming. His nightmares have become my nightmares.”

“The nightmares are normal for his condition. Have patience—they will fade, Herr Steiner. They always do.”

“What’s wrong with his son?” asked Alfred after the cook departed.

“I can’t speak to you of any particular patient, Alfred—doctor’s code of confidentiality. But I can tell you this: remember that crowd of men you saw in the waiting room? They are all, every single one, afflicted with the same thing—shell shock. And it is so in every waiting room for nervous disorders in every hospital in Germany. They all are suffering greatly: they’re irritable, unable to concentrate, subject to terrible bouts of anxiety and depression. They never stop reliving their trauma. During the day horrifying images intrude into their mind. During the night in nightmares they see their comrades blown apart and their own deaths approaching.
Though they feely lucky to have escaped death, they all suffer from survivor guilt—guilt that they have survived while so many others perished. They ruminate about what they could have done to save their fallen comrades, how they might have died in their stead. Rather than feel proud, many feel like cowards. This is a gigantic problem, Alfred. I’m speaking of a whole generation of German men afflicted. And of course, in addition to this there is the grief of the families. We lost three million in the war, and almost every family in Germany lost a son or a father.”

“And, all,” Alfred added immediately, “probably made so much worse by the tragedy of the satanic Versailles Treaty, which made all their suffering pointless.”

Friedrich noted how adroitly Alfred swung the discussion toward his knowledge base of politics but ignored that. “An interesting speculation, Alfred. To address it we’d need to know what is going on in the waiting rooms of Paris and London military hospitals. You may be in a great position to explore that question for your paper, and, frankly, I wish you would write about it. All the publicity we can get will help. Germany needs to take this more seriously. We need more resources.”

“You have my word. I’ll write a story about it as soon as I return.”

As they both slowly enjoyed their linzer torte, Alfred turned to Friedrich. “So you’ve finished your training now?”

“Yes, most of my formal training. But psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning. If you see anything about me that might help me know more about myself, please do not hesitate to point it out.”

“I can’t possibly imagine that. What could I see? What could I tell you?”

“Anything you notice. Perhaps you might catch me looking at you in an odd way, or interrupting you, or using an inapt word. Maybe I’ll misunderstand you or ask clumsy or irritating questions . . . anything. I mean it, Alfred. I want to hear it.”

Alfred was speechless, almost destabilized. It had happened again. He had once more entered Friedrich’s strange world, with radically different rules of discourse—a world he encountered nowhere else.

“So,” Friedrich continued, “you said you were in Amsterdam and had to return to Munich. But Berlin is not exactly on the way.”

Reaching into his overcoat pocket, Alfred pulled out Spinoza’s
Theological-Political Treatise
. “A long train ride was the perfect venue for reading this.” He held the book up to Friedrich. “I finished this on the train. You were so right to suggest it to me.”

“I’m impressed, Alfred. You
are
a dedicated scholar. Not many like you around. Aside from professional philosophers, very few people read Spinoza after their university days. I would have thought that by now, with your new profession and all the shattering events in Europe, you’d have forgotten all about old Benedictus. Tell me what you thought of the book?”

“Lucid, courageous, intelligent. It’s a devastating critique of Judaism and Christianity—or, as my friend Hitler puts it, the ‘whole religious swindle.’ However, I do question Spinoza’s political views. There is no doubt he is naïve in his support for democracy and individual freedom. Only look at where those ideas have led us to in Germany today. He seems almost to be advocating an American system, and we all know where America is heading—to a half-caste mulatto disaster of a country.”

Alfred paused, and both men took their last bites of the linzer torte, a true luxury in such lean times.

“But tell me more about the
Ethics
,” he continued. “
That
was the book that offered Goethe so much tranquility and vision, the book that he carried in his pocket for a year. Do you remember offering to be my guide, to help me learn how to read it?”

“I remember, and the offer stands. I just hope I’m up to it, because I’ve been cramming my mind with the small and big thoughts of my profession. I haven’t thought of Spinoza since I was with you. Where to begin?” Friedrich closed his eyes. “I’m transporting myself back to university days and listening to my philosophy professor’s lectures. I remember him saying that Spinoza was a towering figure in intellectual history. That he was one lonely man who was excommunicated by the Jews, whose books were banned by Christians, and who changed the world. He claimed that Spinoza introduced the modern era, that the enlightenment and the rise of natural science all began with him. Some consider Spinoza as the first Westerner to live openly without any religious affiliation. I remember how your father publicly scorned the church. Eugen told me he refused to set foot in church, even at Easter or Christmas. True?”

He looked Alfred in the eyes, and Alfred nodded, “True.”

“So in some real way your father was beholden to Spinoza. Before Spinoza, such an open opposition toward religion would have been unthinkable. And you were perceptive in spotting his role in the rise of democracy in America. The American Declaration of Independence was inspired by the British philosopher John Locke, who was in turn inspired by Spinoza. Let’s see. What else? Ah, I remember my philosophy professor particularly emphasizing Spinoza’s adherence to immanence. You know what I mean by this?”

Alfred looked uncertain as he rotated his hands quizzically.

“It contrasts with ‘transcendence.’ It refers to the idea that this worldly existence is all there is, that the laws of nature govern everything and that God is entirely equivalent to Nature. Spinoza’s denial of any future life was monumentally important for the philosophy that followed, for it meant that all ethics, all codes of life meaning and behavior must start with
this
world and
this
existence.” Friedrich paused. “That’s about all that comes to mind . . . Oh yes, one last thing. My professor claimed that Spinoza was the most intelligent man who ever walked the earth.”

“I understand that claim. Whether you agree with him or not, he is clearly brilliant. I’m certain that Goethe and Hegel and all our great thinkers recognized this.”

And yet how could such thoughts have come from a Jew?
Alfred started to add, but refrained. Perhaps both men took care to avoid the topic that had led to such acrimony in their last meeting.

“So, Alfred, do you still have your copy of the
Ethics
?”

The cook stopped by the table and served tea.

“Are we keeping you?” Friedrich asked after looking around and discovering that he and Alfred were the only diners left in the room.

“No, no, Dr. Pfister. A lot to do. I’ll be here for hours yet.”

After the cook left, Alfred said, “I still have my
Ethics
but haven’t opened it for years.”

Blowing on his tea and taking a sip, Friedrich turned back to Alfred. “I think now is the time to start reading it. It is a difficult read. I took a yearlong course in it, and often in class we spent an entire hour discussing one page. My advice is to go slow. It’s inexpressibly rich and addresses almost every important aspect of philosophy—virtue, freedom, and determinism, the nature of God, good and evil, personal identity, mind-body relationship. Perhaps only Plato’s
Republic
had such a wide scope.”

Friedrich looked around again at the empty restaurant. “Regardless of Herr Steiner’s polite demurrals, I fear we’re keeping him here late. Let’s go to my room, and I can jog my memory by a quick scan of my Spinoza notes and also get Eugen’s address for you.”

 

 

 

F
riedrich’s room in the doctors’ dormitory was Spartan, containing only bookcase, desk, chair, and a tidily made-up bed. Offering Alfred the chair, Friedrich handed him his copy of the
Ethics
to peruse while he sat on the bed leafing through an old folder of notes. After ten minutes, he began: “So, a few general comments. First—and this is important—do not be discouraged by the geometric style. I don’t believe any reader has ever found this congenial. It resembles Euclid, with precise definitions, axioms, propositions, proofs, and corollaries. It’s devilishly hard to read, and no one is certain why he chose to write in this manner. I remembering your saying that you gave up trying because it seemed impenetrable, but I urge you to stay with it. My professor doubts that Spinoza actually thought in this manner but rather regarded this as a superior pedagogical device. Perhaps it seemed the natural way of presenting his fundamental idea that nothing is contingent, that everything in Nature is orderly, understandable, and necessitated by other causes to be exactly that which it is. Or perhaps he wanted logic to reign, to make himself entirely invisible and let his conclusions be defended by logic, not by recourse to rhetoric or authority, nor prejudged on the basis of his Jewish background. He wanted the work to be judged as a mathematical text is judged—by the sheer logic of his method.”