"[1]It is always wrong to explain the phenomena of a country simply by the character of its inhabitants.[2] For the inhabitant of a country has at least nine characters: a professional one, a national one, a civic one, a class one, a geographical one, a sex one, a consciousness, an unconsciousness and perhaps even too a private one; [3]he combines them all in himself, but they dissolve him, and he is really nothing but a little channel washed out by all these trickling streams, which flow into it and drain out of it again in order to join other little streams filling another channel. [4]Hence every dweller on earth also has a tenth character, which is nothing more or less than the passive illusion of spaces unfilled" (Robert Musil 34, The Man without Qualities).
The way I formally show this argument is 2 --- 3 --- 4 --- 1. 1 is the conclusion, 4 is the sub-conclusion from 2 and 3 used to get to 1. So: (2 +3) --- 4 --- 1 to make it simpler.
Past the metaphor, at its very bareness, I think this argument is well-formed and provides compelling evidence, even if it is all observed evidence, perhaps even based on coherence. As an ex-philosopher, Herr Musil isn't really clear about "the man flowing into the trickling streams" part and other parts may need further clarification but as a simple argument for not generalizing a whole nation by one characteristic, it's pretty decent. And later on Musil uses this argument to discuss patriotism.
A very interesting argument, but it appears to me (in my very possibly incorrect opinion) that Herr Musil actually uses statement 1 to aid in the conclusion of statement 4, if it is anything more than a literary device; it seems to me as more of an analogy.
ReplyDeleteI'm reading over what I wrote and have changed my mind. 4 is the conclusion, which should've been obvious with the conclusion indicator and that it has its basis from everything that follows before. Would you agree? It seems too easy for it to go 1-2-3-4. But it goes 1 -- (2 + 3) -- 4. Musil is very flowery though; the metaphors lend themselves to seeming illogical.
ReplyDeleteNice find. I think you were right the first time -- 4 is a sub-conclusion, and the principal premise in support of 1. Presumably we could construct it as a formally valid argument, though I wonder whether we're clear enough about the meaning of some of those terms (we might need some account of the separability of 'characters,' for example...) to determine the truth of the premises.
ReplyDeleteThen again, to read charitably we can invoke Aristotle's observation that it is a mistake to insist on greater exactness in an account than the subject warrants, and as you note it provides pretty compelling reasons not to judge a country by its national character(s).