Ulrich, the protagonist of Robert Musil’s unfinished and perhaps unfinishable novel, The Man Without Qualities (1930-1944), is a philosopher in denial.
Thank you for letting us listen in on this fascinating conversation (and keeping it to 1'15"!). Novelists of the late 19th to early 20th c. were very much concerned about the effects of modern deracination, our loss of rootedness not just in place and time but also our own bodies and various social structures that shape our identities. I wonder whether Musil is truly anti-philosophical, then, or rather depicting the futility of philosophy in a modern culture that valorises celebrity and other qualities that do not inhere in the individual but in their circumstances. Or perhaps it's the impossibility of forming great ideas when one is trying to live a disembodied, modern life, where, thanks to technology, we're largely free of natural limits on our speed, strength, etc.--the thing we're least able to control is our emotional life, which perhaps is why love affairs figure so prominently in Musil's work. In the passage about Plato that Agnes read, for example, it seems not that Musil is saying he wasn't a great thinker, but that intellectual depth has no place in the modern social environment. I'm reminded of a very prescient short story by EM Forster, his only foray into science fiction that I know of, called The Machine Stops (published in the Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909; pdf available here: https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf). The story is eerily accurate about our current state--video'd conversations between people on different continents has become the norm, and the disdain for nature and the life of the body has reached its logical extreme. If you don't already know this story, I think you both would find it fascinating.
Also for the tech people! : the elimination of pauses when one of you is speaking gives the dialogue a rather rushed quality at times! Kinda jumpcutty. Mostly on your side, Justin. Otherwise really wonderful!
Thank you for letting us listen in on this fascinating conversation (and keeping it to 1'15"!). Novelists of the late 19th to early 20th c. were very much concerned about the effects of modern deracination, our loss of rootedness not just in place and time but also our own bodies and various social structures that shape our identities. I wonder whether Musil is truly anti-philosophical, then, or rather depicting the futility of philosophy in a modern culture that valorises celebrity and other qualities that do not inhere in the individual but in their circumstances. Or perhaps it's the impossibility of forming great ideas when one is trying to live a disembodied, modern life, where, thanks to technology, we're largely free of natural limits on our speed, strength, etc.--the thing we're least able to control is our emotional life, which perhaps is why love affairs figure so prominently in Musil's work. In the passage about Plato that Agnes read, for example, it seems not that Musil is saying he wasn't a great thinker, but that intellectual depth has no place in the modern social environment. I'm reminded of a very prescient short story by EM Forster, his only foray into science fiction that I know of, called The Machine Stops (published in the Oxford and Cambridge Review in 1909; pdf available here: https://www.ele.uri.edu/faculty/vetter/Other-stuff/The-Machine-Stops.pdf). The story is eerily accurate about our current state--video'd conversations between people on different continents has become the norm, and the disdain for nature and the life of the body has reached its logical extreme. If you don't already know this story, I think you both would find it fascinating.
Great Stuff. Why not make it embeddable so I can share the video on 3 Quarks Daily, for example? Just sayin'... :-)
Good idea, I didn’t know it wasn’t. I’ll ask my tech people!
There is a way to get "embed code" which gives this:
<div class="substack-post-embed"><p lang="en">Agnes and Justin on Robert Musil’s “The Man Without Qualities” by Justin Smith-Ruiu</p><p></p><a data-post-link href="https://www.the-hinternet.com/p/agnes-and-justin-on-robert-musils">Read on Substack</a></div><script async src="https://substack.com/embedjs/embed.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
But that just produces a link to the post, instead of embedding the video. This is for your tech people! :-) <3
😲
Thank you for renewing these symposia.
Also for the tech people! : the elimination of pauses when one of you is speaking gives the dialogue a rather rushed quality at times! Kinda jumpcutty. Mostly on your side, Justin. Otherwise really wonderful!
Nice lighting.
Always on point, Jay!