The Crack-Up: Nietzsche's Breakdown In Turin

Friedrich Nietzsche's nervous breakdown in Turin, Italy, on January 3, 1889 was as dramatic as its outcome. One morning he witnessed a cab driver mercilessly flogging his horse. Nietzsche's nerves unraveled as he ran across the road and threw his arms over the horse to protect it from the blows. Totally distraught, he broke into tears and fell to the ground. The next eleven years he would be kept in a mental institution, never to write again.

The story is well known, though its causes lesser known. What happened? 

According to historians the event was the climax of years of physical and mental strain. It didn't "just happen" out of thin air. 

When I was young, perhaps in my twenties or so, the words "nervous breakdown" were scary to me. Was a breakdown something like being struck by lightning? Something that happens to you that you have no control over? I don't think so.

First, Nietzsche had physical health problems that included chronic migraines, severe digestive issues and deteriorating eyesight. It's been suggested that he had also contracted syphilis in his youth, a condition that can produce neurological complications later. His immersion in his philosophical work also left him exhausted as he pushed himself beyond his physical limits.  

In the realm of mental health, he alienated friends and suffered from isolation and loneliness. His ideas were often misunderstood and dismissed. Add to this the pain caused by unfulfilled romantic desires. 

Nietzsche with his sister Therese Elisabeth

The breakdown took place after recent personal turmoil that included his break-up with Lou Andreas-Salomé, whose diverse intellectual interests led to friendships with a broad array of distinguished thinkers, including Nietzsche, Freud and Rilke. Nietzche's estrangment from his sister and the lack of acclaim for his works, like Thus Spoke Zarathustra, were likely contributing factors as well. In that last year he was working feverishly on The Case of Wagner and Ecce Homo, among other things. Did he feel inward pressure from an awareness that he was in a race against time?  His letters to friends were becoming increasingly delusional. Did he understand what was happening to him?

The incident in Turin was a trigger.  Overwrought, he began weeping uncontrollably while throwing his arms around the horse. He was never the same. 

Related Links

A Writing Lesson: Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up
I Think, Therefore I Am… Or Am I? Nietzsche Strikes Again

Is That Really What You Want? How Do You Know? Thoughts from The Century of Self.

For with much wisdom comes much sorrow;
the more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes 1:18

A couple weeks ago I saw a question on Quora that intrigued me. Someone asked, "What is the hardest truth?" Several thoughts came to mind, one of them being the awareness of how chained we are by habit, genetic disposition, the formative influence of our upbringing, our tastes, our temperaments… and that to change our selves is exceedingly hard and far more difficult than we imagine.

The irony is that we believe we're free agents. It certainly feels like we're free. I can order anything on this menu that I want, right? I can watch any movie I want. Or read any book I want.

In 2002 the BBC broadcast a four-part documentary called The Century of Self. It's an eye-opening look at recent history from a new angle, from "behind the curtain" as it were.

When we think of influential people in our lives, I doubt that very many of us think of Sigmund Freud. Most people (I have no evidence and am only guessing here) associate Freud with the idea of a patient lying on a couch talking to a psychologist taking notes, or with what seem like strange notions of repressed sexuality, Oedipal complexes and the like. The Century of Self addresses another way in which Freud influenced us, through techniques of mass manipulation developed and implemented by his nephew Edward Bernays, the founder of modern Public Relations (a term which itself is a euphemism for propaganda.)

"By satisfying the masses' inner selfish desires one made them happy, and thus docile." Bernays, this program claims, was central in the development of "the all-consuming self which has come to dominate our world today."

Why are there so many hoarders among us these days? How is it that there are so many storage facilities in existence today, a whole industry that sprang up to store excess stuff, stuff that people don't use or need or know what to do with because they have so much other stuff?

* * * *
The series has four parts. They were:
"Happiness Machines"
"The Engineering of Consent" 
"There is a Policeman Inside All Our Heads; He Must Be Destroyed" 
"Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering"

A description of Part 1 includes this paragraph:

Bernays was one of the main architects of the modern techniques of mass-consumer persuasion, using every trick in the book, from celebrity endorsement and outrageous PR stunts, to eroticizing the motorcar. His most notorious coup was breaking the taboo on women smoking by persuading them that cigarettes were a symbol of independence and freedom. But Bernays was convinced that this was more than just a way of selling consumer goods. It was a new political idea of how to control the masses. By satisfying the inner irrational desires that his uncle had identified, people could be made happy and thus docile.

The BBC PR for this documentary describes the program this way:
To many in politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly, the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

* * * *
There's much more that can be said here, but it's time to start my day. If you have time, the programs are enlightening. You can also read a synopsis here on Wikipedia.

Meantime, life outside goes on all around you. Think about it.

Throwback Thursday: Twentieth Century Death Tolls

"Women will get the vote, and will become the peer of man in education, in literature, in art, in science, in the home, the church and the state." ~ Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 1900

In 1900, there was a great confidence about the new century. It would be a century of wonder and achievement. Freud, it was said, introduced his Interpretation of Dreams that year because the time was ripe for a new golden age in human history. There was even optimism that housework chores would no longer be a chore. It would be an era of Utopian Paradise.

I am reminded here of an article I was reading about twenty-five years ago along the same line that in the 21st century our robots would do our housework. At the time I was painting an apartment and, looking out the window at a street person rummaging the dumpster I thought, "That guy will never have a robot."

The ivory tower visions of optimists need a dose of reality-based rootedness once in a while. It is true that human achievements in the 20th century were nothing short of astonishing (manned flight, walking on the moon, telecommunications, etc.) but there has been a dark side as well. And a lot of that dark side is not going away, no matter how hard we try to avoid looking. When people study what really happened in the past, it is easy to understand why some are uneasy about the future as well.

Milton Leitenberg, of the Center for International and Security Studies, published a 2003 paper which gave very detailed estimates for all major conflicts between 1945 and 2000. His estimate for the total century is based on the following numbers:
• World War I mortality, between 13 and 15 million.
• The Armenian Genocide of 1915, 1 million.
• The Russian civil war of 1918–1922 and the Polish-Soviet conflict towards its end, deaths of over 12.5 million in Russia alone.
• The Chaco War, between Paraguay and Bolivia, 1928–1933, approximately 3 million deaths.
• The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, 600,000 deaths.
• Various colonial wars, approximately 1.5 million deaths.
• World War II, deaths of between 55 and 65 million.
• Wars/conflicts between 1945 and 2000, deaths of 40 million.
• Soviet collectivization and "dekulakization" 16 million to 50 million, though some included in World War II totals in these estimates.
• Deaths under Mao, between 16 million and 30 million.

Adding in a variety of other pogroms and civil wars, he comes to a final estimate of 216 million. This does not include what he calls "structural violence": deaths in under-developed nations because of crime, poverty, environmental degradation, disease, malnutrition not part of famine, contaminated water and lack of available medicine. He estimates that this reached 17 or 18 million per year by 2000.

No wonder Larry Norman closed one of his most famous songs, "Only Visiting This Planet," with the words, "This world is not my home."

"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." ~ Robert Burns

THIS BLOG ENTRY ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN JUNE 2008

20th Century Death Tolls

"Women will get the vote, and will become the peer of man in education, in literature, in art, in science, in the home, the church and the state." ~ Brooklyn Daily Eagle, December 1900

In 1900, there was a great confidence about the new century. It would be a century of wonder and achievement. Freud, it was said, introduced his Interpretation of Dreams that year because the time was ripe for a new golden age in human history. There was even optimism that housework chores would no longer be a chore. It would be an era of Utopian Paradise.

I am reminded here of an article I was reading about twenty-five years ago along the same line that in the 21st century our robots would do our housework. At the time I was painting an apartment and, looking out the window at a street person rummaging the dumpster I thought, "That guy will never have a robot."

The ivory tower visions of optimists need a dose of reality-based rootedness once in a while. It is true that human achievements in the 20th century were nothing short of astonishing (manned flight, walking on the moon, telecommunications, etc.) but there has been a dark side as well. And a lot of that dark side is not going away, no matter how hard we try to avoid looking. When people study what really happened in the past, it is easy to understand why some are uneasy about the future as well.

Milton Leitenberg, of the Center for International and Security Studies, published a 2003 paper which gave very detailed estimates for all major conflicts between 1945 and 2000. His estimate for the total century is based on the following numbers:
World War I mortality, between 13 and 15 million.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915, 1 million.
The Russian civil war of 1918–1922 and the Polish-Soviet conflict towards its end, deaths of over 12.5 million in Russia alone.
The Chaco War, between Paraguay and Bolivia, 1928–1933, approximately 3 million deaths.
The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939, 600,000 deaths.
Various colonial wars, approximately 1.5 million deaths.
World War II, deaths of between 55 and 65 million.
Wars/conflicts between 1945 and 2000, deaths of 40 million.
Soviet collectivization and "dekulakization" 16 million to 50 million, though some included in World War II totals in these estimates.
Deaths under Mao, between 16 million and 30 million.

Adding in a variety of other pogroms and civil wars, he comes to a final estimate of 216 million. This does not include what he calls "structural violence": deaths in under-developed nations because of crime, poverty, environmental degradation, disease, malnutrition not part of famine, contaminated water and lack of available medicine. He estimates that this reached 17 or 18 million per year by 2000.

No wonder Larry Norman closed one of his most famous songs, "Only Visiting This Planet," with the words, "This world is not my home."

"Man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn." ~ Robert Burns