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A review by msand3
The Confusions of Young Törless by Robert Musil
5.0
One of the complex issues the Left has been trying to understand in the last month is not why so many hate groups lined up in support of Donald Trump (that explanation is relatively straight-forward), but instead how it was possible for so many regular, law-abiding, "moral" Americans, who don't appear on the surface to hold prejudicial views, to cast their ballots for a man who is not only the antithesis of an ethical leader, but who is also, admittedly even to some Trump voters, morally repulsive.
Robert Musil's The Confusions of Young Törless attempts to understand the psychological framework behind this question, among many other topics. It is a brilliant novel of ideas that examines the duality of man, the nature of authoritarianism, the connections between sexuality and aggression, and the psychological development of modern (post-Enlightenment) man. In short, Törless is a young boy at a military boarding school who faces his own inner struggle to understand man's darker side, including his confused sexuality, while going along with the bullying, physical torture, and sexual violence perpetrated by older classmates (Reiting and Beineberg) against a student named Basini, to whom all three are sexually attracted and repulsed at the same time. Törless begins to take part in the abuse more and more, even as he begins to identify with Basini. (Indeed, precisely because he begins to identify with Basini, the abuse becomes a type of lashing out at this fact that Törless denies to accept within himself.) The novel is famous for its examination of the psychosexual causes behind the authoritarian mentality, as well as for looking forward to the rise of fascism in Europe.
But on another level, the novel is about the unknown and unknowable spaces that constitute the connective tissues of our reality -- from the struggle to understand our sexuality to the mystery of our dreamworld and subconscious desires. In one central section (which happens to occur exactly in the middle of the text) Törless ponders the impossible contradictions of imaginary numbers in mathematics. They don't really exist, but simply by accepting the possibility that they might exist -- and by going about our mathematical calculations as if they did -- we can get useful results that impact real numbers and calculation. The metaphor Törless uses is that of two piers connected by an unknown empty space that we must somehow traverse. And this is the impossibility of existence -- of knowing ourselves, our world, and each other. It is also the impossibility of communication or even of literature. In each case, we must step into the void and assume the impossible must exist if we to are function in the real world. The irony is that this knowledge neither comforts nor reassures Törless (or us), but only adds to the anxiety of his existence. Young Törless is about what happens when insecurity leads us to fill those empty spaces with fear, violence, and self-loathing, giving us a false sense of security that we can somehow safely traverse the void between our known outer world and our unknown inner world. And so what we accept as "reality" hangs in the balance between those two worlds. (As Dylan sings, "I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man / like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand....")
There are certainly parallels to what Jung would term (years later) the "Shadow" and man's attempt at individuation, as well as a Freudian framework of reason/instinct; however, incredibly, Musil wrote this novel before reading any of Freud's work (according to scholar Ritchie Robinson's introduction to the Oxford edition). Adding to Törless's own struggle to understand this duality is his realization that he actually enjoys witnessing Basini's torture, even as it repulses him. Although he tells himself that his attraction is merely due to his own desire to study this dark side of his psyche, he knows that in studying it, he is necessarily feeding into it. Whereas Reiting gets his kicks from physically dominating Basini, and Beineberg rattles off some half-cocked (pardon the pun) plan to study Basini's soul, it is Törless who becomes the worst torturer because Basini recognizes that Törless sees himself in Basini's submission. In his observation to understand the underlying why of it all, Törless forces Basini to acknowledge complicity in his own torture, accepts that he (Törless) could just as easily be in Basini's place, and realizes that all the boys go along with the torture because they are trapped in a psychological order of domination/submission that cannot be escaped -- an order that exists beyond moral precepts.
By the end of the novel, neither religion nor science/philosophy (as represented by the two schoolmasters who teach those subjects) can help or understand Törless. In a way, these two authority figures who, along with the headmaster, sit in judgement of Törless are not unlike the three boys themselves who assert their authority over Basini. The cycle continues and, as Musil reveals near the end of the novel, Törless will end up becoming a civil, law-abiding adult with a moral detachment, repressing his own dark desires to dominate others while disrespecting those who are oppressed and condemning those who attempt to resist.
And so Musil, at the age of 25, charts the development of the amoral ascetic (Beineberg, who rejects all perceived moral flaws in himself by ruthlessly and obsessively studying and condemning them in others), the fascist (Reiting, who demands obedience and desires to lead his classmates to attack, torture, and punish their weaker peers), and, to borrow a concept from Adorno, the "authoritarian personality" (Törless, who recognizes these impulses in others, but nonetheless goes about his life in a type of moral detachment so as to live a civil life).
By the end of the novel, Törless has developed a strictly-structured super-ego that will guide his detached morality for the rest of his life. And here, somewhere between Beineberg and Törless, we find the ideal subject for a dictatorial regime (an interpretation Musil himself advanced in the 1930s): average, law-abiding, Trump-supporting "moral" citizens who ritualistically mow the lawn and who, in the words of songwriter P.F Sloan, "hate (their) next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace."
Read this novel to dig deeply into the defining social, psychological, and political themes of 20th century modernity, but also to get a glimpse into the gestation of 21st century American Trumpism.
Robert Musil's The Confusions of Young Törless attempts to understand the psychological framework behind this question, among many other topics. It is a brilliant novel of ideas that examines the duality of man, the nature of authoritarianism, the connections between sexuality and aggression, and the psychological development of modern (post-Enlightenment) man. In short, Törless is a young boy at a military boarding school who faces his own inner struggle to understand man's darker side, including his confused sexuality, while going along with the bullying, physical torture, and sexual violence perpetrated by older classmates (Reiting and Beineberg) against a student named Basini, to whom all three are sexually attracted and repulsed at the same time. Törless begins to take part in the abuse more and more, even as he begins to identify with Basini. (Indeed, precisely because he begins to identify with Basini, the abuse becomes a type of lashing out at this fact that Törless denies to accept within himself.) The novel is famous for its examination of the psychosexual causes behind the authoritarian mentality, as well as for looking forward to the rise of fascism in Europe.
But on another level, the novel is about the unknown and unknowable spaces that constitute the connective tissues of our reality -- from the struggle to understand our sexuality to the mystery of our dreamworld and subconscious desires. In one central section (which happens to occur exactly in the middle of the text) Törless ponders the impossible contradictions of imaginary numbers in mathematics. They don't really exist, but simply by accepting the possibility that they might exist -- and by going about our mathematical calculations as if they did -- we can get useful results that impact real numbers and calculation. The metaphor Törless uses is that of two piers connected by an unknown empty space that we must somehow traverse. And this is the impossibility of existence -- of knowing ourselves, our world, and each other. It is also the impossibility of communication or even of literature. In each case, we must step into the void and assume the impossible must exist if we to are function in the real world. The irony is that this knowledge neither comforts nor reassures Törless (or us), but only adds to the anxiety of his existence. Young Törless is about what happens when insecurity leads us to fill those empty spaces with fear, violence, and self-loathing, giving us a false sense of security that we can somehow safely traverse the void between our known outer world and our unknown inner world. And so what we accept as "reality" hangs in the balance between those two worlds. (As Dylan sings, "I am hanging in the balance of the reality of man / like every sparrow falling, like every grain of sand....")
There are certainly parallels to what Jung would term (years later) the "Shadow" and man's attempt at individuation, as well as a Freudian framework of reason/instinct; however, incredibly, Musil wrote this novel before reading any of Freud's work (according to scholar Ritchie Robinson's introduction to the Oxford edition). Adding to Törless's own struggle to understand this duality is his realization that he actually enjoys witnessing Basini's torture, even as it repulses him. Although he tells himself that his attraction is merely due to his own desire to study this dark side of his psyche, he knows that in studying it, he is necessarily feeding into it. Whereas Reiting gets his kicks from physically dominating Basini, and Beineberg rattles off some half-cocked (pardon the pun) plan to study Basini's soul, it is Törless who becomes the worst torturer because Basini recognizes that Törless sees himself in Basini's submission. In his observation to understand the underlying why of it all, Törless forces Basini to acknowledge complicity in his own torture, accepts that he (Törless) could just as easily be in Basini's place, and realizes that all the boys go along with the torture because they are trapped in a psychological order of domination/submission that cannot be escaped -- an order that exists beyond moral precepts.
By the end of the novel, neither religion nor science/philosophy (as represented by the two schoolmasters who teach those subjects) can help or understand Törless. In a way, these two authority figures who, along with the headmaster, sit in judgement of Törless are not unlike the three boys themselves who assert their authority over Basini. The cycle continues and, as Musil reveals near the end of the novel, Törless will end up becoming a civil, law-abiding adult with a moral detachment, repressing his own dark desires to dominate others while disrespecting those who are oppressed and condemning those who attempt to resist.
And so Musil, at the age of 25, charts the development of the amoral ascetic (Beineberg, who rejects all perceived moral flaws in himself by ruthlessly and obsessively studying and condemning them in others), the fascist (Reiting, who demands obedience and desires to lead his classmates to attack, torture, and punish their weaker peers), and, to borrow a concept from Adorno, the "authoritarian personality" (Törless, who recognizes these impulses in others, but nonetheless goes about his life in a type of moral detachment so as to live a civil life).
By the end of the novel, Törless has developed a strictly-structured super-ego that will guide his detached morality for the rest of his life. And here, somewhere between Beineberg and Törless, we find the ideal subject for a dictatorial regime (an interpretation Musil himself advanced in the 1930s): average, law-abiding, Trump-supporting "moral" citizens who ritualistically mow the lawn and who, in the words of songwriter P.F Sloan, "hate (their) next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace."
Read this novel to dig deeply into the defining social, psychological, and political themes of 20th century modernity, but also to get a glimpse into the gestation of 21st century American Trumpism.