The image of the sick lion is a perfect metaphor for Weber, who has been suffering from mental illness since he became an adult, with a burly figure and a messy beard. For those who try to understand him, Weber is as dangerous as a lion and as deep as a dark cave.
I can only know him through his articles, letters, biographies and other people's comments. For such a well-written scholar, this means a huge amount of reading. Wolfgang Rucht, a professor of sociology at the University of Heidelberg, later told me that the publication and arrangement of the Complete Works of Weber, edited by him, has now reached the 43rd volume and has not been completed. Only Weber's correspondence with others has 10 volumes-each book is at least one inch thick. As for how high Weber's biographies are piled up, the most classic ones are Marianne's Biography of Weber, Weber's widow, and the memories and biographies written by Jaspers, Radkau, Bendiks and Mitzman. There are already 34,000 pages, not to mention thousands of related papers. Those staggered dates, places, people, figures, events and opinions, like a cobweb maze, have exhausted the life energy of many scholars who are far more knowledgeable and have plenty of time than me. If I had known from the beginning that this was such a difficult and rugged road, would I have taken that first step happily?
But I don't want to and I can't turn back. Holderlin said: "A certain yearning for a better life also has a strong influence on our inner happiness." Although Weber told us that this is a disenchanted world, in my eyes, his life and spiritual world are still like scenes illuminated by high lights on the stage, with some solemn beauty of classical ceremonies. I want to let myself walk into this life, connect the monotonous facts that have been dried by time with my steps, and combine my memories with those handed down by others.
So, I came to this elegant and romantic university town where he once lived and was not destroyed by the war. It is said that everything remains the way it was 100 years ago. I think I can only, in my story, complete my understanding of him bit by bit.
Graveyard on the Peak: The Legend of Heidelberg
The silence between mountains has existed since ancient times, the bright sunshine falls, and the soft swaying shadows shake on the tombstone that has been eroded by years but is clean without a trace of dust. This is Berg Friedhoff in the southern suburbs of Heidelberg. The bottom of the city traffic map is so small that it is almost invisible. Even some people who have lived in Heidelberg for decades have never been here before. Max Weber and his wife Marianne Weber are buried here.
There are 17 cemeteries in Heidelberg, among which the hilltop cemetery built in September 1844 is the largest and the first cemetery managed by Heidelberg municipal authorities. "If you want to know the cultural, political and economic background of Heidelberg from the end of 19 to the beginning of the 20th century, the cemetery at the top of the mountain is an excellent starting point." Professor Schlushi later told me, "At that time, there were a group of the most famous people in Heidelberg, including industrialists, politicians and artists, but most of them were scholars who were inextricably linked with Heidelberg University."
The manager of the cemetery was very careful and provided a map at the entrance, which listed the tombs of historical celebrities who were buried here and four recommended search routes. Everyone's name is followed by a brief introduction, such as "friedrich ebert, German President", "Robert William Benson, Chemist, Honorary Citizen of Heidelberg" and "karl Bosch, Chemist, Nobel Prize Winner" ... Only when Weber arrived here, the introduction became "Max Weber, national economist, all-knowing generalist" and "Universalgelehrter".
Weber's cemetery is halfway up the mountain, and the road is tortuous, so it is quite difficult to walk. However, the thought that he has made far more efforts here than I have, and then he is relieved.
Paul Honegger called Max Weber "the legend of Heidelberg" for the first time in On Max Weber. This German scholar, 1938, fled Nazi Germany and went to teach at Michigan State University in the United States. Before his death, 19 10 years ago, he wrote down his close contacts with Weber during his doctoral studies at Heidelberg University and his understanding of Weber's academic thoughts. Memoirs were published only after the death of Honegger Schheim, with only 150 pages, which is incomparable with Weber's other great biographies. However, his status as a sociologist and historian who is extremely rigorous in his studies and the fact that he is close to Weber in the "Weber Circle" and keeps a certain neutral observation distance make this book play an extremely important and irreplaceable role in helping to understand Weber's demeanor as a scholar.
Max Weber's Tomb in Heidelberg Peak Cemetery
At the beginning of this book, Honegger Schheim wrote: "Anyone who wants to paint Max Weber, whether as a scholar or as a person, must take Heidelberg in his time as the background."
Indeed, this is the most powerful era of the German Empire. /kloc-In the second half of the 9th century, the unified German economy, science and technology, and culture developed at an unprecedented speed, with a brilliant metallic texture like Wagner's opera. At that time, the University of Heidelberg, with many masters in the fields of natural science and medicine, made this small town look like the science center of Europe. Relying on the university's scientific research achievements, a number of enterprises have been established around Heidelberg, which have had a great influence on the industrial and commercial pattern in Germany, enveloping the city in a rich and rich atmosphere. At the same time, the relaxed political environment made it almost the freest and most international city in Germany at that time. It is not only the academic center that German intellectuals yearn for, but also the cultural elites from Austria, Hungary, Russia and other Balkan countries flock to it. For Heidelberg at that time, alfred weber, the younger brother of Max Weber, later described it brilliantly and aptly: "This small town has no petty citizen, narrow or complacent atmosphere, but completely absorbed and infiltrated the new things that Germany began to develop in a strange way after the turn of the century. The city is full of wisdom, exciting and completely open. "
Besides, for the Weber brothers, the city has another more personal symbolic meaning.
Among the poems about Heidelberg, Holderlin's Heidelberg is the most famous one. The poem wrote:
"I love you for a long time, for my own happiness.
I want to call you my mother and present a simple poem.
You, in the city of the motherland.
The most beautiful one I have ever seen. "
(selected from Yang's translation)
In fact, this is indeed Max Weber's Mother City. Located in neckar, the mansion now called "Weber House" was originally owned by his grandfather Georg Farenstein. /kloc-After moving from Berlin to Heidelberg in 0/847, Farenstein personally designed and built this mansion with rockeries, gardens and fountains. His youngest daughter, Helene, born in 1844, the mother of Max Weber, spent her childhood and girlhood here. After marrying Max Weber Sr, she lived in Erfort with her husband and later moved to Charlottenburg near Berlin, but she still often took her children back to her parents' home in Heidelberg for holidays. Until April of 19 10, after Adolf Hausrath died, Max Weber, the heir of the mansion and Helene's brother-in-law, and his friend Ernst Troeltsch of the same age lived here as tenants.
However, looking back on Max Weber's 56-year life, his relationship with Heidelberg and Heidelberg University is full of complicated tension, which is far less simple than that of his younger brother alfred weber. Alfred, four years younger than Weber, chose Berlin University after graduating from high school, and then got a teaching post at Prague University. However, Max Weber was introduced when he accepted the chair of Heidelberg University in 1908. He died in 1958 at the age of 90. Alfred never left Heidelberg and worked diligently for Heidelberg University for half a century. Today's School of Economics of Heidelberg University is named after him.
Max Weber's former residence is located on the Neckar River. Now this is the place where Heidelberg University trains German for international students.
Max Weber's situation is completely different. From 1882, the first long-term close contact with Heidelberg, to 1920, when he died in Munich, Weber and Heidelberg were on and off several times in 38 years. According to the length of his stay, he left Heidelberg much longer than he stayed here. He likes the vivid introduction of Max Weber in Berlin as the political center stage, the warm and bright sunshine in Rome, the quietness of lakes in Switzerland and Austria, and the vitality of the New World in the United States. He left again and again, thinking about starting again in another place more than once. Only in September of 19 19, that is, six months before Max Weber's death, at the farewell reception held for him by his old friends in Heidelberg, he expressed his deep sadness and attachment to Heidelberg in one sentence. He said that Heidelberg's gentleness and kindness helped him wake up slowly from the darkness when he was suffering from illness, so that he could start a new life. Now, he feels as if he is saying goodbye to his hometown and going to a strange place. Although it is beautiful, it is as cold as ice.
This is reminiscent of a letter that Weber wrote to his mother. 19 10 years, shortly after the Weber couple moved into Weber's house, Helene was surprised to find that as a new tenant, Weber was even more attached to this house full of her childhood memories than herself. Weber replied: "for me, it is more loyalty than being strongly infected by that vivid beauty." I gave this beauty to life, and it permeated its sweetness into my blood. Compared with you, I'm just caught by the world to a greater extent. You treat all phenomena equally, but I love them and need them, and you can avoid their temptation. "
Max Weber is one of the few philosophers willing to admit that he is easily tempted by the world. This gives him a living body temperature. Although, for different purposes, after his death, his widow Marianne and her follower Karyasbos tried to deify him into a saint-like genius, his letters and the narratives of his contemporaries restored the complex and plump Weber, who had human desires and preferences and regarded them as a natural part of his life journey. But because of this, this person who lived a century ago will have some connection with us today. When he tells the pain, it is a person's pain, and when he struggles between different choices, it is a person's confusion. The solemn spirit of Baoxiang can't help us. Weakness has its own strength.
In Rucht's view, Weber bid farewell to Heidelberg for complicated reasons. For example, during the last trip to Munich, the objective background was the sharp depreciation of the German mark in the late World War I. The Weber couple, who had lived a rich life by inheritance for more than ten years before, now need a new source of income, and the University of Munich just provided a professor position that Weber was interested in. Subjectively, there was also the factor of ElseJaffe, Weber's confidante who lived in the suburbs of Munich at that time-"This wonderful and familiar city called friends who lived nearby." In fact, when Weber died, besides his wife Marianne, there was another person, Else.
If Weber knew that this would be his last meeting with Heidelberg, would he still leave so decisively? No one can give an answer. As he said, the so-called history is the process that people create a history that they don't know. People infer the causal relationship of the previous events according to the later development, which is a subjective explanation. If you look at it from another angle and come back after leaving again and again, will it prove that there is an inseparable cause?
After a long journey, I finally stood in front of Weber's grave. 192 1 year, Arnold Richter, son of Weber's old friend Heinrich Richter in Heidelberg, designed the Greek pillar tombstone in front of him at the request of Marianne. What is buried in the cemetery is Weber's ashes. 1920, cremation was very rare in Germany, and less than 1% people chose this way-but it was the best way to get him back to old Heidelberg and his familiar circle of friends. His wife Marianne lived in Heidelberg for 34 years after his death. She lived in an old house by the Neckar River, and regarded Max Weber's desk as her altar. Before Weber died, she spent the rest of her time sorting out and publishing his works, and continued to host the salon party of the former "Weber Circle". 1954, Marianne, like her husband, died in Else Jaffe's arms and was buried here with Weber.
On the tombstone, Marianne chose the inscription in Goethe's Faust for Weber:
We'll never see him again,
Everything on earth is like this.
(wirfindenminerseinesg-Chen Lei,
allesverganglicheistnureingleichnis。 )
At first glance, this is more like a warning to me trying to tell the story of Weber. Do I really have the ability to tell this story well? The more I know about him, the more deeply I realize the distance between us. I haven't even heard his voice or seen his smile-and in everyone's memory, he is such a person who loves to laugh. I need more feelings and feelings-the stone road he walked, the street view he saw, the books he read, the house he lived in, the food he ate ... The answer may be at the foot of the mountain or in the old town of Heidelberg. However, it is only possible.
A city that has been constantly poeticized and romanticized in history —— Panorama of Heidelberg Ancient City
When I turned down the hill, at a corner, Neckar and the old pink house by the river slowly passed in front of me, and I suddenly felt relieved. Because I know, no matter what, I didn't come for nothing. Only at this moment, from this perspective, standing here overlooking such a quiet and beautiful scenery, can we understand that Marianne chose this passage, which is another meaning that Weber's epitaph does not understand-it can never be read from words and paper. That was Faust's last call to the world at the end of his life-was it also Max Weber and Marianne's call to Heidelberg?
Stay, you are so beautiful!
University Square: Student Life
Looking up, a lion wearing a crown and holding a sword seems to be growling angrily, but there is a gentle sound of running water in his ear. This is the old town of Heidelberg, right in the middle of the famous Lion Spring University Square. Most sightseeing activities in the old city take this as the intersection, but in a longer period of time, it is the geographical center that students of Heidelberg University pass through every day.
Standing under the lion spring, I am reading a letter from Weber to his family in 1882:
The logic class at 7 am forced me to get up early in the morning. I run around the fencing hall for an hour every morning, and then I will stay sincerely until the class is over. 1 1: 30 go to the flower next door 1 mark for lunch, and sometimes drink 1/4 liters of wine or beer. Then I often go roller-skating with Otto and Mr. eckert, the owner of the small hotel, until 14, and then we go back to our respective residences. I review my class notes and read Strauss's old beliefs and new beliefs. We sometimes climb mountains in the afternoon. In the evening, we held another party in Iqalute's, spent 80 cents on a sumptuous dinner, and then read Lotzer's Human Society as usual. We had the most heated debate about it.
I looked around and tried to recall the scenery in the eyes of 18-year-old boy who had just passed Abitel to study law in Heidelberg 29 years ago.
Right in front of me is the baroque old university building, built at 1728. It is not only the president's office of Heidelberg University, but also the university museum. 1886, the 500th anniversary of Heidelberg University was celebrated, and the old auditorium in the building was renovated. After that, in case of celebrations and major ceremonies, they will be held in this magnificent hall, but at that time Weber had left Heidelberg and transferred to the University of G? ttingen for further study, which failed to catch up with this grand event.
On my right, it is the new university building built by jacob gould schurman, the American ambassador to Germany, in 1930, which raised 500,000 dollars. He is older than Max Weber 10 years old. Weber stayed in Heidelberg University for two years, then returned to the United States and served as the president of Cornell University for more than 20 years. In the meantime, referring to the German university system, he created a model of modern American state government funding research universities.
On the open space between the old university building and the new university building,1565438+On April 26th, 2008, Martin Luther gave a speech here to publicize his views on justice, original sin, free will and faith, and the German religious reform became more and more fierce. The concept of "Burroughs" discussed by Weber in Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism and many articles originated from Martin Luther, whose famous words were repeatedly quoted by Weber in his articles. It was also here that1May 7, 933, thousands of books with "non-German spirit" were set on fire by enthusiastic professors and students of Heidelberg University, and it was PaulJoseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister who graduated from Heidelberg University who led the book burning in Germany. It is said that Goebbels is an admirer of Weber and takes Weber's works with him everywhere.
Behind me is the square of Heidelberg University Library. Although the history of the library of Heidelberg University can be traced back to14th century, in fact, it was not until 1873 ~ 1902 that Karl Zangemest became the first full-time curator that it really became a modern library, with the collection rapidly increasing to more than 400,000 volumes and then to 65,438 volumes. Also under the auspices of Chester, in 190 1 year, Joseph Durm, the most famous architect of that era, built a magnificent Renaissance-style new library building with red sandstone of the same material as the hilltop castle, which was officially opened in 1905. In an interview with Ms. Rike Balzuweit, the executive director of the library, she told me that Max Weber was a frequent visitor here about 19 10 years ago. However, he is not a model reader worthy of emulation-he left his own comments in the margins of many books. (To be continued ... please see the next section)
Author Lu Rui
Source: Life Weekly No.38 20 1 1.
Editing, jogging
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