Wittgenstein and Freud

How should we make sense of our relationships with people? How can we find a position that does justice to our perspective, but also to theirs? In some mythical bygone time, things were easier. There were clear expectations and well-established standards of right and wrong. Now it seems it is everyone for themselves. The easiest solution is to assert your own perspective and, when things go wrong, denounce the world as Kafkaesque. But this is a childish reaction, and, as I argue in my e-book, Why Kafka is not Kafkaesque, it is not one endorsed by Kafka. Instead, he spent his life struggling to find a way of balancing all the perspectives in the hope that this infinite journey might, if not get to the truth, at least point in its direction. 

In the following short story (if one can call it that), Kafka, an unhappy son, explores eleven possible father-son relationships from the perspective of the father. But none of them works either for the father or for the son. It is true that the father seems wildly over-critical, but his meticulous descriptions (and his concerns) testify to his love for his children. Some of his criticisms reflect his overneedy love, others the pain of disappointment. So, who should we sympathise with most? And what about the mess of relationships revealed by the father’s account – can we even imagine it being sorted out? Unlike Jacob, the father has eleven sons. If he had had twelve, would the missing son have been the Messiah, or would he too have been flawed? But in a world with no Messiah, how can any judgment have a secure basis?

Eleven Sons 

I have eleven sons.

The first is outwardly unattractive, but he is serious and intelligent. Despite this, and, although I love him as I do all my sons, I do not rate him especially highly. His thinking is simplistic. He looks neither to the left nor the right nor into the distance. He runs round and round within the small circle of his thoughts, or rather, he spins on his own axis.

The second son is handsome, slim, and well-proportioned. It is a delight to see him stand in a fencer’s stance. He, too, is clever, but in addition, he has experience of the world. He has seen much, and even his native environment seems to speak to him more intimately than to those who stayed at home. However, this advantage is definitely not only – or even essentially – due to his travel. Rather, it reflects something unique about him – a uniqueness recognised, for example, by anyone who tries to imitate his multi-somersaulting dive with its wild but controlled character. Courage and envy are enough to get the imitator to the end of the diving board, but at that point, he suddenly sits down and, instead of jumping, raises his arms in a gesture of apology. Despite all this (and such a son should in truth make me happy), my relationship with him is not untroubled. His left eye is slightly smaller than his right and often twitches – a small blemish to be sure, and one which simply serves to make his face even more forceful than it would otherwise have been. Against the background of the peerless self-sufficiency of his being, no one would fault a slightly small, twitching eye. But I, his father, do. Naturally, it’s not the minor physical blemish that disturbs me. What worries me is the irregularity in his spirit that corresponds to it, some poison at loose in his blood, the inability (which I alone perceive) to round out what life has given him into a satisfying whole. On the other hand, however, it is precisely this blemish that makes him a true son of mine. This failing of his is the failing of our whole family – only in him, it is too apparent.

The third son is also handsome, but his beauty is not of the kind that pleases me. It is the beauty of a singer; the rounded mouth, the dreamy eye, the head that needs a backdrop to be effective, the exaggeratedly swelling chest, the hands that rise and all too easily sink, and the legs that look graceful but only because they have no strength. The tone of his voice also lacks strength. For a moment, it catches the connoisseur’s attention only to end soon after in empty breadth. Although everything speaks in favour of putting him on a show, I keep him hidden. He, too, does not push himself forward. Not because he recognises his faults, but out of innocence. Also, he feels out of place in our age. It is as if he did indeed belong to my family, but also to another, forever lost to him. He is often depressed, and nothing can raise his spirits.

My fourth son is probably the most sociable of all of them. A child of his times, he gets on with everyone and, since he stands secure on the ground that is common to all, everyone gives him the nod. Perhaps it is this general approbation that gives his way of being a certain lightness, his movements a freedom and his judgments a carefreeness. His remarks often seem worth repeating, but only a certain number of them. Taken as a whole, they offend due to excessive lightness. He is like someone who jumps up marvellously, cuts the air like a swallow, then ends dismally in the empty dust, a nothing. Such thoughts make the sight of him repugnant to me.

The fifth son is kind and good. He promises much less than he gives. He used to be so unassuming that one literally felt alone in his company. Nonetheless, he has made a path for himself. Were someone to ask me how he achieved this, I would not know how to answer. Perhaps, innocence is indeed the best way of pushing one’s way through the battling elements of this world, and innocent he is. Perhaps too innocent. I confess I feel uncomfortable when people praise him in my presence. Surely it is making praise too easy an exercise when one praises someone so obviously deserving of it as my son?

My sixth son seems, at least at first glance, to be the most profound. He is someone who knows how to keep his own company, but at the same time, has a ready tongue. That makes it hard to get the better of him. If he is beginning to lose, he falls into impenetrable melancholy. If he is ahead, he preserves his advantage through talk. Nonetheless, I cannot deny him a feverishness that he himself is unaware of. In the bright of day, he often fights his way through a chain of thoughts as if in a dream. Without being ill – on the contrary, his health is excellent – he stumbles particularly at dusk. But he steadies himself without help, and he does not fall. Perhaps his physical development is responsible for this phenomenon, for he is too large for his age. This makes his overall appearance unattractive, despite the striking beauty of his parts, for example, his hands and feet. His forehead, too, is ugly with both the skin and the bone structure somehow crumpled up.

The seventh son is perhaps closer to me than all the others. The world doesn’t know how to respect his worth. His particular brand of humour means nothing to it. Not that I overestimate him. I know he is not that significant. If the world had no other fault other than not knowing how to value him, it would still be far from perfect. But within the family circle, I would not be without him. In the face of tradition, he is both questioning and respectful, and he welds the two into a whole which, at least in my eyes, is beyond criticism. Admittedly, he has no idea what to do with this whole. He won’t be someone to get the future rolling, but the balance of his character is so encouraging, so full of hope. I wish he had children and his children, children. Unfortunately, reality does not seem to favour this wish. In a self-satisfaction as understandable to me as it is unwelcome, and which certainly stands in stark contrast to the opinion of his peers, my son leads a solitary life. He takes no interest in women and, nonetheless, will never lose his good spirits.

My eighth son is my problem child. I do not know why this is so. He treats me as a stranger, and yet I feel strongly tied to him as a father. Time has helped a lot. Before, I would sometimes shudder when I only so much as thought of him. He goes his own way. He has broken all ties with me and will certainly get whatever he wants with his strong skull and his small, athletic body. His only defect is a slight weakness in the right leg, but with time that may well have sorted itself out. I often used to feel like calling him back to ask him how things stood with him, why he shut himself off so much from his father and what he meant by it. But he’s too far away now, and so much time has passed that I let things stand. I hear that he alone among my sons wears a beard – naturally, a beard cannot be attractive on such a small man.

My ninth son is very elegant and has the kind of looks that please the ladies. Indeed, his looks are so sweet that on occasion, he seduces even me, who knows full well that a damp sponge is enough by itself to wipe away his otherworldly shine. But the curious thing is that the boy makes no effort to be seductive. For him, it would be enough to spend his whole life lying on a couch with his eyes fixed on the ceiling or, more willingly still, resting under closed eyelids. Once in this, his favourite position, he will readily discourse and with reasonable effectiveness. His speech is forceful and elegant, but only within limits. If he goes beyond these, and with such limits it is impossible not to do so, his speech becomes quite empty. One would signal to him to stop if there was any hope his sleep-filled gaze might be capable of noticing.

My tenth son is seen as a sham. I don’t want to dismiss this claim entirely or to give it absolute confirmation. What is certain is that whoever sees him out in public dressed in a splendour out of all keeping with his age, in a waistcoat ever-more tightly buttoned up, in an old but over-carefully cleaned black hat with an unmoving face, a chin that juts forward slightly, heavily drooping eyelids, two fingers raised to his mouth from time to time – whoever sees him thus thinks: here comes a conman that’s for sure. But what an effect when he speaks. Reasonable, weighty, concise, cutting through questions with a wicked liveliness, at one with the world in an amazing, natural and joyful accord that straightens the neck and makes the head rise. His words have won over many people who think they are exceptionally clever and, for that reason, believe themselves repelled by his appearance. There are others who are indifferent to his appearance but find his words deceiving. I, his father, do not want to decide this issue, but I must confess that I find the latter assessment more worthy of consideration than the former.

My eleventh son is delicate, by far the weakest of my sons. But his weakness is deceptive. That is to say, he can at times be strong and resolute, though of course even then weakness somehow lies at the bottom of it. However, his weakness is not of the shameful kind; rather, it is something which only appears as weakness on our earth. Is not readiness for flight a sign of weakness since it consists of an unsteadiness, an inability to settle and feverish activity?  I see something of this in my son. Such characteristics do not, of course, please a father. Their tendencies are towards the destruction of the family. Sometimes my son looks at me as if he wanted to say: “Father, I will take you with me”. Then I think: “You would be the last to whom I would trust myself”. And his glance seems to answer: “Then may I at least be the last”. 

These are my eleven sons.