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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title The death of civilization : ethics and politics in the work of Hermann Broch, 1886-1951 Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4mn9c5wn Author Wallace, Donald L. Publication Date 2006 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO The Death of Civilization: Ethics and Politics in the Work of Hermann Broch, 1886- 1951. A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor Philosophy in History by Donald L. Wallace Committee in charge: Professor David Luft, Chair Professor Todd Kontje Professor John Marino Professor Alden Mosshammer Professor Cynthia Walk 2006 Copyright Donald L. Wallace, 2006 All rights reserved. The dissertation of Donald L. Wallace is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm: Chair University of California, San Diego 2006 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ............................................................................... iii Table of Contents .............................................................................. iv Acknowledgments ............................................................................ v Vita .................................................................................................... vii Abstract .............................................................................................. xii Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 Chapter One Broch as Subject: .............................................................................. 39 The Central Issues of Broch as Modern Thinker Chapter Two Total Democracy: .............................................................................. 69 Broch’s Critique of Democracy in the United States, 1939-1951 Chapter Three Humane Politics: ................................................................................ 112 Broch’s Theory on Human Rights and International Education, 1937-1949 Chapter Four Metropolis of Kitsch: ........................................................................ 152 Assimilation, Empire, and World War: Historical Context of Vienna, 1886-1919 Chapter Five From Business Man to Intellectual: ……………………….............. 201 Broch’s Dual Life in Vienna, 1908-1925 Chapter Six Ethical Neurosis: ................................................................................ 253 Cultural Criticism in Vienna and Broch’s Sexual Neurosis, 1908-1925 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 301 Bibliography ...................................................................................... 320 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the contribution of all the people who aided me in my research and writing over the four years of this process. The generous funding of the following organizations and institutes is greatly appreciated: The Fulbright Commission; the University of California, San Diego, History Department; the Phi Beta Kappa Association of San Diego; UC Berkeley Center for Eastern European Studies; the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD); and the UC Center for the Humanities. I would also like to thank the staff at the Beinecke Library, Yale Univeristy, especially Christa Sammons, the curator of the German Literature Collection, whose help made my research both pleasureable and fruitful. This dissertation is the result of an engagement with many other minds. I would like to thank the following people for their willingness to share their time and their ideas with me: John Marino, Alden Mosshammer, Todd Kontje, Cynthia Walk, David Quinn, John Jacobs, Barnett Hartston, Clinton Young, Adam Warren, Sigrid Smeltzer, Elena Songster, Cecily Hesisser, and Matt Ohara. In particular, I would like to thank Joe Busby, a fantastic editor and a great mind. I would like to thank those people who have serviced as both an intellectual and emotional support. John and Kelline Lee were a constant source for social capital. I would especially like to thank Hamilton Stapell and Ana Fuentes for their friendship and intellectual fellowship—you are consistent reminder of what humans can and should be. The completion of this dissertation is more than the end of an academic process, it is the end of a journey from v complency to action. It is a journey that I undertook with four others and with whom I share its success: Jim, Sean, Amy, and Luke. I also share this accomplishmen with the person responsible for all aspects of my life that are happy, successful, and worthwhiled—Sarah. I dedicate this work to my family: Will, Terri, my mother—the only true intellectual I know, my father—my model of integrity and the reason I teach, and Luke—the best listener I have every known. vi VITA 1990 Bachelor of Arts in Classics Randolph-Macon Ashland, VA College 1992 Master’s of Arts in University of Maryland College Park, Classical Philology MD 1997 Master’s of Arts in George Mason Fairfax, VA European History University 2000 UC Berkeley, Center for Vienna Austria Eastern European Studies, Research Fellowship 2000 UC San Diego, Center of University of California, La Jolla, CA Humanities, Research San Diego Fellowship 2001-2002 Fulbright Scholar Vienna, Austria 2006 NEH Seminar “Trajan’s American Academy Rome, Italy Column” 2006 Ph.D. in European History University of California, La Jolla, CA San Diego Major field: Modern Europe (Intellectual) Minor fields: Early Modern Europe, Ancient vii ABSTRACT OF DISSERTATION Death of Civilization: Ethics and Politics in the Work of Hermann Broch, 1886-1951. by Donald L. Wallace Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, San Diego, 2006 Professor David Luft, Chair My dissertation examines Hermann Broch and his political theory on democracy. Hermann Broch (1886-1951) was one of the three or four greatest modernist writers of the first half of the twentieth century. His polyhistorical novel, The Sleepwalkers (1931-33) and his stream of conscious, prose-poetry novel, The Death of Virgil (1945) broke new ground in terms of narrative structure, playing with the relativity of time, and exploring the unconscious through words. His contributions to democratic theory is less well known but from a historical point of view equally as viii valuable for understanding the possibilities for intellectual engagement with the modern world. In the dissertation I explain how Broch’s lifelong concern for ethics and value construction transformed into a political theory of human rights and Total Democracy. Broch’s theory centered on the individual as the source for political stability; for the individual’s cognitive automony allowed for an antidote to the modern tendency for outbreaks of irrational, mass hysteria. It is a theory I describe as “critical humanism.” My dissertation further examines how Broch’s critical humanism reveals a sustained commitment to the Enlightenment Project—how that commitment developed and was challenged in the context of Vienna 1900 and in exile in the United States, how that commitment shaped Broch’s theory of social value construction, and finally how it impacted his conception of United States democracy. The ultimate source of Broch’s critical humanism was his experience of dislocation in the modernist world of Vienna 1900 (assimilation, anti-Semitism, and identity crisis). The relativism he experienced in his youth developed into a theory of value relativity. In his exile he connected his ideas on ethical relativism to the struggle of democracy and fascism. Broch left behind 1000s of pages of material on his impressions of democracy and freedom in the United States. Broch’s European view, which was pro-American and pro-democratic, allows for an interpretative approach to liberal democracy that is devoid of nationalism and free from the debates over positive and negative rights. ix Introduction Great is the anguish of the man who becomes aware of his isolation and seeks to escape from his own memory; he is obsessed and outcast … there awakens with him a doubly strong yearning for a Leader to take him tenderly and lightly by the hand, to set things in order and show him the way. …Yet even if the Leader were to come the hoped-for miracle would not happen … it is the breath of the Absolute that sweeps across the world, and from our dim inklings and gropings for truth there will spring up the high-day and holiday assurance with which we shall know that every man has the divine spark in his soul and that our oneness cannot be forfeited; unforfeitable the brotherhood of humble human creatures. … “Do thyself no harm! For we are all here!”1 Hermann Broch (1932) The following study explores the intellectual basis of modernity and the position of a leading modernist thinker, Hermann Broch. I examine Broch’s intellectual commitment to the Enlightenment Project—how that commitment developed and was challenged in the context of Vienna 1900 and in exile in the United States, how that commitment shaped Broch’s theory of social value construction, and 1 Hermann Broch, The Sleepwalkers, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 647-8. 1 2 finally how it impacted his conception of United States democracy. The Enlightenment Project was an intellectual worldview characterized by its belief in progress, rationality, secularism, and individual automony. The Enlightenment
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