Oct 30 25
I have a friend who doesn’t do anything. He’s a former old coworker and talked consistently about how he is depressed and does little besides work, which he hates. I also hated that job, but have since quit- leaving him behind.
I’ve been choppered out of Da Nang but know my buddy is back in Indian country, Charlie’s circling in. AAnd what is this war for? It’s hard to feel legitimated given America’s current reputation worldwide.
I invited him to this talk at McNalley Jackson Seaport by Jeb Prushinka on the imminent Vienesse philosopher Gerhart Wittenberg. He said he wanted to go previously but someone at the job killed themselves so he’s had to pick up the slack.
Nonetheless, I decided to go after being rained on all day. I’m trying to fight through my latent depression by just doing whatever even if its miserable and pointless and so on.
While not prolific, Wittenberg’s two extant published works have proved explosive and continue to influence philosophical discourse today. The first- titled De Architectura Mentis et Somnii- changed the nature of investigations into the mind, and has been cited as an influence on William James. Wittenberg’s second, and final published work was titled On the Phenomenology of the Public Masturbator. What appeared to be a sociological rebuttal of Durkeim’s antinomial thesis has found more extensive purchase for its insights into the poetry of abjection, and the abjection of poetry.
The lecturer attempted to focus on the biographical details of Wittenburg, but the host interrupted him at every turn to ask why we should care. Wittenburg, while influential, has been thoroughly integrated into philisophical development- therefore, for what purpose was a biographical exposition of his life necessary. In fact, the host conjectured- Wittenberg would think the very project of investigation pointless. After all, was in not Wittenburg who said1,
The details of the personal lives of the so called ‘great men’ of history are essentially meaningless in comparison to the details of the personal lives of public masturbators, who, in their great refusal of the social contract, reveal to us the structures of sociality which lie nascent in the human being. From these, perhaps, we could hope to reach towards a sociality without conflict, but the great tragedy of history is that the public masturbator is cast aside rightly as a trivial deviant
Obviously this is written in the technical mode of analytic philosophy, so secondary sources are recommended to beginning readers for context.