Settembrini the Bourgeois (MM11) (2024) Peinture par Noël Van Hoof

Thomas Mann – The Magic Mountain – Part 11

How charming – Herr Settembrini was back to calling himself an individualist. To be that, however, one needed to know the difference between morality and blessedness, which the gentleman, as a good illuminatus and monist, most certainly did not. Wherever life was stupidly regarded as an end in itself, with no questions asked about a meaning or purpose beyond it, what one found were social ethics, vertebrate ethics, but not individualism – that resided solely in the realm of the religious and mystical, in that so-called chaotic void. Just what was Herr Settembrini's morality, what was its point? It was bound to life, and so merely utilitarian – unheroic, miserably so. Its sole objective was for a person to grow old, rich, happy, and healthy – period; he considered a philistine gospel of reason and work to be ethics. But as far as he, Naphta, was concerned, he once again took the liberty of calling that a shabby bourgeoisiosity of life.

­(English translation by John E. Woods)

Thèmes connexes

Thomas MannThe Magic MountainDer ZauberbergNaphtaSettembrini