The Spinoza Problem

by Irvin D. Yalom

Goethe wrote that he was in a restless state, and reading Spinoza gave him a remarkable sedative for his passions. Spinoza’s mathematical approach provided a wonderful balance for his disturbing thoughts and led to calmness and a more disciplined way of thinking that allowed him to trust his own conclusions and to feel free from the influence of others.”

“Freedom from the influence of others. Balance. Calm, disciplined way of thinking.”

They say Goethe carried the Ethics in his pocket for a whole year.

He opened his copy of the Ethics and read:

Different men can be affected differently by the same object. The same man can be affected differently at different times by the same object.

Spinoza is simply saying that each of us can be differently affected by the identical external object. Your reaction to Hitler may be quite different from the reaction of other men. Others may love and

honor him as you do, yet their entire well-being and self-regard may not be so entirely dependent on their experience of him.

How can that be explained? Only by assuming there are different inner worlds perceiving the single event.”

I’m only making the point that your relationship to Hitler is to some degree a function of your own mind.

My point is simple. We must start with the goal of altering yourself, rather than attempting to alter Hitler’s behavior.”

“Let’s take a look at what he says about freeing oneself from the influence of others,” said Friedrich, scanning his notes. “That is one of the things Goethe learned from Spinoza. Here’s a relevant passage in Part 4, a section called ‘Of Human Bondage’: ‘When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune.’ That describes what’s happening to you, Alfred. You’re prey to your emotions, buffeted by waves of anxiety, fear, and self-contempt. Does that sound right?”

“Spinoza continues by saying that if your self-esteem is based on love from the multitude, then you will always be anxious because such love is fickle. He refers to this as ‘empty self-esteem.’”

“Goethe and Spinoza both insisted that we should never tie our fate to something corruptible or fickle. On the contrary Spinoza urges that we love something incorruptible and eternal.”

“That being?” “That being God or Spinoza’s version of God, which is entirely equivalent to Nature. Recall Spinoza’s phrase that influenced Goethe so much: ‘Whosoever truly loves God must not desire God to love him in return.’ He’s saying that we live in folly if we love God in the expectation of receiving God’s love in return. Spinoza’s God is not a sentient being. If we love God, we cannot receive love in return, but we do receive some other good.”

“Which other good?” “Something that Spinoza refers to as the highest state of blessedness—Amor Dei Intellectualis. Here, lis...

Thus in life it is important before all things to perfect the understanding, or reason. . . In this man’s highest happiness consists; indeed blessedness is nothing else but contentment of spirit

which arises from the intuitive knowledge of God.

“You see,” Friedrich continued, “Spinoza’s religious feeling seems to be a state of awe that is experienced when one appreciates the grand scheme of the laws of Nature. Goethe fully embraces that idea.”

Friedrich glanced at his notes. “Here’s what you said you wanted: ‘peace of mind, balance, independence from influence of others, and a calm, disciplined way of thinking leading to clarity of vision of the world.’

reread Goethe’s comments about Spinoza in the autobiography, and you’ve cited him very accurately. Though he considers Spinoza as a noble, remarkable soul who lived an exemplary life, and credits Spinoza with altering his life, unfortunately, for our purposes he offers no specific details of the manner in which Spinoza helped him.”

“Here’s what I suggest. Let me offer some informed guesses about how Spinoza influenced him. First, keep in mind that Goethe had already formed certain Spinoza-like ideas before he encountered Spinoza—the connectedness of everything in Nature, the idea that Nature is self-regulatory, with nothing beyond or above it. Thus Goethe felt much affirmation when reading Spinoza. Both men were brought to a state of extreme joy by grasping the connectedness of everything in Nature. And remember that, for Spinoza, God was equivalent to Nature. He does not refer to the Christian or Jewish God, but a universal religion of reason in which there would no longer be any Christian, Jew, Muslim, or Hindu.”

“He was a universalist. He expected conventional religions to fade away as greater and greater numbers of men devoted themselves to seeking the fullest understanding of the cosmos. We talked about some of this years ago. Spinoza was the supreme rationalist. He saw an endless stream of causality

in the world. For him there is no such entity as will or will power. Nothing happens capriciously. Everything is caused by something prior, and the more we devote ourselves to the understanding of this causative network, the more free we become. It was this view of an orderly universe with predictable, mathematically derived laws, a world with an infinite explanatory power, that offered Goethe a sense of calmness.”

“I’m merely following your inquiry about how Goethe got help from Spinoza and your desire to reap those same benefits. There is no single technique in Spinoza’s work. He doesn’t offer a single exercise like confession or catharsis or psychoanalysis. One has to follow him step by step to arrive at his all-encompassing view of the world, behavior, and morality.”

“Spinoza took the position that we can overcome torment and all human passions by arriving at the

understanding of the world as woven out of logic. His belief in this is so strong that he says”—Friedrich flipped through the pages—“‘I shall consider human actions and feelings just as if it were a question of lines, planes, and bodies.’”

“He states explicitly that a passion ceases to be a passion as soon as we form a more clear and distinct idea of it—that is, the causative nexus underlying the passion.”

“There is something disturbing about this. Highly disturbing. I think I’m beginning to see the Jew in Spinoza—something flaccid, pale, weak, and anti-German. He denies the will and labels passions as inferior, whereas we modern Germans take the opposite viewpoint. Passion and will are not

things to be eliminated. Passion is the heart and soul of the Volk, whose trinity is bravery, loyalty, and physical force. Yes, there is no doubt: there is something anti-German about Spinoza.”

My goal is not to change Judaism. My goal of radical universalism would eradicate all religions and institute a universal religion in which all men seek to attain blessedness through the full understanding of Nature. But let’s return to this later.

We must keep religion and politics separate.”

“You mean that men are like beasts in continual heat and are driven from their rational minds by the mere presence of a woman—the very woman they sleep with side by side each night. And the mere sight of our faces will dispel their love of God. Can you imagine how that feels to us?”

“So because men are weak and cannot stay focused, it is the woman’s fault, not theirs? My husband tells me you have said that nothing is good or bad but it is the mind that makes it so. Not right?”

“So perhaps it is the mind of the man that needs to be edified. Perhaps men should wear mule-blinders instead of demanding that women wear veils! Do I make my point, or shall I continue?”

In 1940 Hitler formally notified the entire Nazi Party of the formation of the ERR—Einsatzstab (task force) of Reichsleiter Rosenberg—whose mission was to confiscate all Jewish-owned European art and books for use by the Reich. Rosenberg found himself at the head of an enormous organization that moved together with the military into occupied territory to safeguard and remove “ownerless” Jewish property deemed valuable to Germany.

he mused: Power! Finally, power! To have life-and-death decisions over the Jewish libraries and galleries of Europe.

Alfred had come across a quote by Albert Einstein: “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”

Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that Freemasonry had “succumbed” to the Jews and had been a major force in Germany’s loss of World War I. Present at the staff meeting were Schwier’s staff of a dozen “provincial liquidators,” each assigned to his own territory. Before the meeting Schwier had asked for Alfred’s approval of the instructions he planned to distribute to the liquidators. All goods with Masonic emblems were

(April 20, 1945) Rosenberg celebrated him on the occasion of his fifty-sixth birthday by hailing Adolf Hitler as the “Man of the Century.” Ten days later, as the approaching Russian army was only a few blocks away from Hitler’s underground bunker, the Führer married Eva Braun, distributed cyanide capsules to the wedding party, wrote his will, and shot himself after his wife swallowed cyanide. Twenty-four hours later, in the same bunker, Goebbels and his wife killed their six children with morphine and cyanide, and then he and his wife committed suicide together. Even so, the Völkischer Beobachter presses continued to roll until the German surrender on May 8, 1945. When its offices were overrun, the Russians found a couple of predated editions. The last undistributed issue, dated May 11, 1945, contained a survival guide entitled “Subsistence in German Fields and Forests.”

“Yes, I want to, but to start? I’ll begin with my own starting point—what am I? What is my core, my essence? What is it that makes me what I am? What is it that results in my being this person rather than any other? When I think of being, a fundamental truth seems self-evident: I, like every living thing, strive to persevere in my own being. I would say that this conatus , the desire to continue to flourish, powers all of a person’s endeavors.”

“But I don’t envision man as a creature of solitude. It’s just that I have a different perspective on the idea of connection. I seek the joyous experience that issues not so much from connection as from the loss of separateness.”

Franco shook his head in puzzlement. “Here you are just beginning, and I’m already confused. Aren’t connection and loss of separation the same?”

“There’s a subtle but crucial difference. Let me try to explain. As you know, at the very foundation of my thinking is the idea that through logic alone we can comprehend some of the essence of Nature or God. I say ‘some’ because the actual being of God is a mystery over and beyond thinking. God is infinite,...

“Therefore,” Bento continued, “to increase our understanding, we must try to view this world sub specie aeternitatis—from the aspect of eternity. In other words, we have to overcome the obstructions to our knowledge that result from our attachment to our own self.” Bento paused. “Franco, you have such a quizzical look.”

“I’m lost. You were going to explain your loss of separation. What happened to that?” “Patience, Franco. That comes next. First I’ve got to provide the background. As I was saying, to view the world sub species aeternitatis I must cast off my own identity—that is, my attachment to myself—and view everything from the absolute adequate and true perspective. When I can do that, I cease to experience boundaries between myself and others. Once this happens, a great calmness floods in, and no event concerning me, even my death, makes any difference. And when others achieve this perspective, we will befriend one another, want for others what we want for ourselves, and act with high-mindedness. This blessed and joyful experience is thus a consequence of a loss of separation rather than a connection. So you see there is a difference—the difference between men huddling together for warmth and safety versus men who together share an enlightened joyous view of Nature or God.”

Franco, still looking puzzled, said, “I’m trying to understand, but it’s not easy because I’ve never had that experience, Be...

that is hard to imagine. It gives me a headache to think of it. And it seems s...

“Solitary and yet, paradoxically, this idea can bind all men together—it is being simultaneously apart from and a part of. I don’t suggest or prefer solitude. In fact I have no doubt that if you and I could meet for daily discussions, our strivings for understanding would be greatly augmented. It seems paradoxical to say that men are most useful to one another when each pursues his own advantage. But when they are men of reason, it is so. Enlightened egoism leads to mutual utility. We all have in common our ability to reason, and a true earthly paradise will occur when our commitment to understanding Nature, or God, replaces all other affiliations, be they religious, cultural, or national.” “Bento, if I grasp your meaning, I fear this kind ...

I think the reason for superstition in all these cultures was that ancient man was terrified by the mysterious capriciousness of existence.

that might provide the one thing he needed most of all—explanations. And in those ancient days he grasped at the one available form of explanation—the supernatural—with prayer and sacrifice and kosher laws and—”