Degeneration (Nordau)

Degeneration

Author	Max Nordau
Original title	Entartung
Language	German
Genre	Social criticism
Publication date	1892
Publication place	Hungary
Text	Degeneration at Internet Archive

Degeneration (German: Entartung, 1892–1893) is a two-volume work of social criticism by Max Nordau.^[1][2][3]

Within this work he attacks what he believed to be degenerate art and comments on the effects of a range of social phenomena of the period, such as rapid urbanization and its perceived effects on the human body^{[clarification needed]}. Nordau believed degeneration should be diagnosed as a mental illness because those who were deviant were sick and required therapy^{[dubious – discuss][neutrality is disputed]}.^[3] These comments stemmed from his background as a trained physician, taught by the Parisian neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.^{[3][peacock prose]}

Summary

Nordau begins his work with a "medical" and social interpretation of what has created this degeneration in society. Nordau divides his study into five books. In the first book, Nordau identifies the phenomenon of fin de siècle in Europe. He sees this as first being recognised, though not originating, in France, describing this phenomenon as "a contempt for the traditional views of custom and morality." He sees it as a sort of decadence, a world-weariness, and the wilful rejection of the moral boundaries governing the world. He uses examples from French periodicals and books in French to show how it has affected all elements of society. Nordau also accuses society of becoming more and more inclined to imitate what they see in art^{[neutrality is disputed]}. He sees in the fashionable society of Paris and London that "[e]very single figure strives visibly by some singularity in outline, set, cut or colour, to startle attention violently, and imperiously to detain it. Each one wishes to create a strong nervous excitement, no matter whether agreeably or disagreeably."^{[This quote needs a citation]}

Nordau establishes the cultural phenomenon of fin de siècle in the opening pages, but he quickly moves to the viewpoint of a physician and identifies what he sees as an illness^{[undue weight? – discuss]}:

In the fin-de-siècle disposition, in the tendencies of contemporary art and poetry, in the life and conduct of men who write mystic, symbolic and 'decadent' works and the attitude taken by their admirers in the tastes and aesthetic instincts of fashionable society, the confluence of two well-defined conditions of disease, with which he [the physician] is quite familiar, viz. degeneration and hysteria, of which the minor stages are designated as neurasthenia.

^{[full citation needed]} The book deals with numerous case studies of various artists, writers and thinkers (Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to name a few), but its basic premise remains that society and human beings themselves are degenerating, and this degeneration is both reflected in and influenced by art^[vague].

Nordau identifies a degenerate component^{[definition needed]} in the contemporary, widespread practice of spiritualism in France^[vague]. He argues that ^{[neutrality is disputed]} excessive modernization leads to a return of the irrational, including renewed interest in magic^{[editorializing]}. In this way, Nordau presents a reversal of the sociological theories of disenchantment and rationalization.^{[4][original research?]} Among the systems Nordau criticizes as degenerate and spiritualistic is Jean-Martin Charcot's systematization of hypnosis, which was an important predecessor to Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis.^{[5][original research?]}

Politics

Nordau did not invent the concept of "degeneracy", which had been used by "racialist" Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau in his essay on the Inequality of the Human Races; but did coin the concept of "Degenerate Art" as a form of social contagion that spread "immoral" or "degenerate" ideas, and as a symptom of this perceived "degeneracy"; a concept which would be eagerly seized by the Nazi Party in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich (1937), and be further developed into book burnings and the formation of the Reichskulturkammer to control and censor the discussion, creation, and dissemination of art under the guise of preventing "degeneracy."^[6]

This phrase would find itself incorporated into psycho-physiognomy, a pseudoscientific belief that an individual's mental and "moral" health were determined by the shape or dimensions of their face; this would play a crucial role in developing concepts of scientific racism and eugenics.

Notable critics would include Sigmund Freud, who remarked in his 1905 work Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality that "It may well be asked whether an attribution of 'degeneracy' is of any value or adds anything to our knowledge." ^{[full citation needed]}

Editions and translations

Degeneration has been translated into English by Howard Fertig, based on the second German edition of the text.^[7] Fertig's translation has been digitized and reprinted several times.

References

1. Nordau, Max Simon (1896). Entartung. Wellcome Library. Berlin : C. Duncker.
2. Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration.
3. Peters, Olaf (Spring 2016). "Fear and Propaganda: National Socialism and the concept of "Degenerate Art"". Social Research. 83 (1): 39–66. doi:10.1353/sor.2016.0015.
4. Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 182–5. ISBN 978-0-226-40336-6.
5. Josephson-Storm (2017), p. 184.
6. Wampole, Christy. "The Idea of Cultural Degeneration has an Unsavoury Pedigree". Aeon. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
7. Nordau, Max (1968). Degeneration. Translated by Fertig, Howard. H. Fertig. ISBN 0865274940.

• "Max Nordau and His 'Degeneration'", Introduction to Max Nordau, Degeneration, xi–xxxiv, New York: Howard Fertig, 1968.