Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain is a classic of Western
Literature. Starting just before
World War I, it follows a middle class bourgeois, Hans Castrop, to a
tuberculosis sanitarium on the top of a mountain (hence the title). His intended 3 – week visit to his cousin,
turns into a seven-year internal odyssey among the sick.
The Magic Mountain is written as a bildungsroman – a genre
wherein the main character develops his character via experience and help from guides.
In this version, an advocate of Enlightenment values Settembrini and the
Nietzscheian Naphta fight over Hans’ soul.
Settembrini is working on an Encyclopedia of suffering in
order to help expunge suffering from the world; Naphta dreams of returning to
Middle Ages values in which people knew their place and accepted suffering and
shortcomings as a part of life. Settembrini’s dreams are based on science and progress;
Naphta’s require and celebrate a bit of violence and oppression to keep man in
order.
And this battle for Hans’ soul reflects that battles over
the Weimar Republic that Mann faced as he wrote the Magic Mountain. Many bought Naphta’s appeal to save
Germany via order during the inter-war period; they killed communists by the
100s and spawned the Third Reich.
In turn, the Weimar Republic called for calm and appealed to Settembrini’s
enlightened ‘republican’ (small r) values.
Hans’ never really buys either proponents’ position. He liked Settembrini’s Enlightenment
ideals, but found them shallow and dull.
And though he admires how easily Naphta destroys Settembrini in
arguments, he understands that Naphta is a misanthropist and a monster.
In an exciting climax, the two intellectuals agree to a
duel. As a pacifist, Settembrini
fires into the air. Naphta then calls him a coward, and commits suicide. The intellectual battles over, Hans
languishes, nowhere in thought, far removed from society, on top of that
mountain.
Eventually, Hans leaves this sanitarium, to go back to the
real world. He leaves arid thought
to engage in life’s day – to –day struggles. Ironically, as World War I is on, he actually returns to the
front lines of a thoughtless battle.
We hope - as the book is a bildungsromans – that he is improved. Perhaps with irony, the narrator tells
us that he hopes love will bloom from this carnage.
As a culturist, I understand the pull between the rational
and the irrational. In Mann’s
sanitarium, wherein bourgeois slowly rot, in the face of Islamic aggression and
ghetto culture, we do nothing out of fear of being called ‘racist.’ I hope the term ‘culturist’ can allow
us to have reasonable discussions about negative impacts of cultural diversity,
sans the ‘r’ word.
But, as a culturist, I study cultural dynamics. I know that dry reasoned debates do not
wake people up as much as the English Defense League smashing the offices of
pro-immigration politicians offices would. So I too am torn between Settembrini’s placid debate and the
evil attraction of Naphta.
The political correctness police should understand that by
using Settembrini’s “universal” (not) “global” (not) Enlightenment values to
stifle any sense of western pride, they are preparing the way for a backlash of
Naphta’s irrational violence. As
such, we culturists need to safely develop national pride and discussions of
cultural diversity. Otherwise, as
with Hans, we will have no option but to cower on a mountain top or join in
mass carnage.
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