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Schopenhauer Shopping
By Thomas David Lisk
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The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer appeared in
a Wisconsin supermarket recently, where he was seen by at least one local woman.
"The bald spot in front, the whiskers, the funny clothes, the blue eyes,
everything," Nettie Jetzer, 42, said. Jetzer, of Prussian Lake, is employed
as a cashier at Jenseits' Tru-Value Hardware and was picking up a few things on
her way home from work. "Rex, my husband, likes those chicken livers in
pineapple sauce you can get in microwavable containers," she said, "so
I stopped at the Pig"(Piggly Wiggly, a local supermarket).
Schopenhauer died in 1860, but he remains fresh in the minds of some of his
admirers. For decades entrepreneurs have cashed in on the fans' lust for
Schopenhauer "collectibles," including everything from china plates
etched with Schopenhauer's face tipping the world a knowing wink, to full-color
paintings of the impish visage on black velvet, for sale (along with
Schopenhauer bean bag chairs, and giant underpants) in supermarket parking lots
and abandoned gas stations all over the Americas.
And while many Americans are saying, "Who cares?" the presses roll out
an endless flow of books by and about the philosopher.
Schopenhauer's memory is especially green in parts of the upper midwest, where
German was spoken right through the two World Wars.
The Prussian Lake (Wisconsin) Public Library even boasts a small collection of
Schopenhaueriana, including the actual calculations made by a physicist at the
University of Wisconsin to determine Schopenhauer's weight on Venus, the belt
Schopenhauer is believed to have worn at his last public lecture, and two or
three ideas picked up by admirers after he outgrew them.
"Are you sure it wasn't the late president Martin Van Buren?" Jetzer
was asked by a reporter from upstate New York. [Insert photos of Schopenhauer
and Van Buren here.]
"It was him, the philosopher, will and idea, you know," Jetzer said.
"You think I wouldn't recognize him? You think I don't read German?"
Skeptics have speculated that Jetzer may actually have seen a philosophy student
wearing a T-shirt with Schopenhauer's face emblazoned across the front. Jetzer
demurs. "He was much taller than that. At least five eight. His head was, I
mean. If his head was a face on someone's chest it would have had to have been a
very tall person, very tall. I just don't see it," Jetzer says.
"Besides, he wasn't wearing a T-shirt."
Dr. Einar Fiskar, professor of Psychology at the University of the
Minnesota/Wisconsin Border, says Jetzer's vision was not a hallucination.
"I'm sure she saw something," Fiskar says.
"People need heroes," according to Fiskar. "This is why someone
is always coming on Elvis Presley resurrected and buying a new refrigerator at
Sears. Or in this case, seeing a philosopher in the produce section. It's a very
human need."
Schopenhauer was choosing between frozen perch and a plastic bag of smelt (100
count) when Jetzer saw him, she said. "I was just too timid to go up and
ask for his autograph. I couldn't believe my eyes. Also, I wanted to tell him
not to buy the frozen, once." Jetzer says Schopenhauer went for the smelt
anyway.
In spite of Jetzer's confidence that she saw the great German thinker, other
experts are skeptical.
"I can assure you, Schopenhauer is quite dead," said Ruben Hoffbrau,
who has recently completed a biography of the philosopher. "I interviewed
hundreds of people for the book, including the Schopenhauer family physician's
grandson and many many close personal friends, and they all agree, the man in
the coffin on that day in 1860 was Schopenhauer," Hoffbrau said.
Dozens of books are published every year on Schopenhauer and his ilk, many by
scholarly presses. Why this fascination with dead philosophers?
"Well," Fiskar says, "whether you know it or not, Schopenhauer
has touched all our lives in some way. Even those who barely
recognize his name use words he made famous, words like 'world,' 'will,' and
'idea.' Nietzsche, who was influenced by Schopenhauer, said God is dead, but
people go on believing in God. Is this really any different?"
Schopenhauer first published The World as Will and Idea (German title: Die Welt
als Wille und Vorstellung) in 1818.
"That book is as impenetrable to me today as it was a hundred years
ago," Jetzer says, "though not to me then."
"My book is the only one with new information," Hoffbrau says.
"Again and again they rehash the same old ideas. Mine is the first book in
thirty years with a new perspective on Schopenhauer's life. Let me
say this: Schopenhauer believed time had a completely uniform
consistency, like a good Wisconsin cheese. You eat it and it's gone. So. You
shake what's left and nothing happens. But if time has a consistency
more like this jar of mixed pickled vegetables, and you eat a piece of
cauliflower, there may still be another piece in the jar. And every
time you shake it, something different rises to the top. Well, not
every time. So, if time were a cheese, it would be highly surprising
if Schopenhauer showed up in this supermarket, but if time were a jar of mixed
pickled vegetables, he might pop up at any time."
The philosopher's works are considered by many to be classics in their genre.
"When I was growing up," Hoffbrau says, "we were all nuts for
philosophy--typical of our generation. And everyone took sides, Schopenhauer or
[Immanuel] Kant, Schopenhauer or [Friedrich] Nietzsche, Schopenhauer or [Baruch]
Spinoza, that kind of thing. Someone saying Bishop [George] Berkeley influenced
philosophy even more than Schopenhauer, something off the wall like that."
"People say philosophy is just for kids," Hoffbrau adds, "but
look at the influence Schopenhauer has had. It's not just the philosophy they
read in books, but the tremendous impact Schopenhauer has had on them
personally. That's why people keep seeing him as alive. In a very real sense, he
is alive."
As proof of Schopenhauer's greatness, Hoffbrau notes that "no one has seen
Kant at Pic-n-Pay lately." Pic-n-Pay is another local market.
The question remains, why did no one else see Schopenhauer that day? According
to Hoffbrau, "It may not be a question of why no one else saw Schopenhauer,
but of why no one else said anything. Furthermore, he may have been seen but not
recognized. It's a matter of perception. To paraphrase Schopenhauer
himself, the world you live in depends on your own ideas."
Whoever or whatever she saw, Jetzer is convinced it was the German philosopher.
"I know he's supposed to be dead, but I know what I saw. I told you that
was no T-shirt. Who else would be wearing a frock coat in Wisconsin in this day
and age?"
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About the author: Thomas David Lisk is 125
years old. He has been writing since he graduated belatedly from Oak Park
(Illinois) High School with Ernest Hemingway in 1916 or 17, or maybe it was
1921. Ironically, he had been a special student earlier at Harvard
(Massachusetts), where he once saw (he thinks) Robert Frost but (he recalls) did
not speak to him, but it may have been Wallace Stevens. The rest of his life,
apart from experiences in four wars, three marriages, two dentists' offices and
over sixty jobs, has been uneventful. He is now completely senile. "Schopenhauer
Shopping" is his first published work of non-fiction.
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