Max Nordau - Degeneration

Pessimism and the decline of modern man At the time, there were warnings about the effects that pessimism could have on society. If non-life is now considered preferable to life, then it is that the will to strive for the good of society will be negatively affected. This is not least where attempts to pathologise pessimism become important. In the 1870s, several works appeared in which practicing physicians diagnosed leading pessimists based on their work. These diagnoses not infrequently placed the pessimists within the large and diffuse problem that was perceived to threaten European civilisation at its worst: degeneration.

Through life in the big cities, for example, argued the physician, author
and later Zionist Max Nordau in his unprecedentedly successful book Entartung (1892–93), the vitality of mankind is increasingly depleted. Sedentary lifestyles, poor food, rampant drug use, combined with overcrowding and poor housing, are causing people to lose intellectual, moral and physical capacity. And not least, the pace of modern society has been pushed to a level for which humans are not adapted. He is increasingly exposed to cultural diseases such as hysteria and neurasthenia. Unfortunately, these reduced abilities also seem to be inherited. In the long run, the entire West is threatened.

Although Entartung was published almost a decade after Berta Funcke, it encapsulates a range of ideas that are highly relevant to understanding Kleve’s novel. Entartung is in fact a highly eclectic work, summarising Nordau’s own cultural-critical writing and weaving it together with the findings of contemporary scientific authorities. Of particular interest are the detailed descriptions of the symptoms of degeneration that the book offers. One of the symptoms, according to Nordau, is the attraction to simple effects: in fashion, music and interior design, as well as in literature and philosophy, efforts are made to attract attention and create powerful effects. This is at the expense of authenticity and balance.

Although max nordau in his work criticizes pessimism, it is worth mentioning his criticism of a society that is becoming increasingly complex and chaotic, to which the human brain cannot become accustomed due to the constant bombardment of information and the constant emergence of new theories and inventions that generate chaos in the human mind.