Wittgenstein Page #4

I'm terribly sorry.

You have a worthless teacher today.

I...

I'm all cleaned out.

Please forgive me.

That was quite masterly.

- It was frightful.

- I don't know.

Made me feel like a vegetable.

How could it possibly?

It doesn't feel like anything to be a vegetable.

STUDENT:
I just can't see it, Professor.

It somehow just seems natural to me to say,

"I know I'm in pain."

Oh... natural.

Tell me,

why does it seem more natural

for people to believe that the sun goes round

the earth, rather than the other way round?

Well, obviously, because it looks that way.

I see.

Then how would it look

if the earth went round the sun?

Erm...

well, I suppose...

Yes, I see what you mean.

LUDWIG AS A BOY:
Seminar, flick.

(Gunfire and Native Americans whooping)

Seminar.

(Cavalry trumpet)

Seminar.

Flick.

Seminar.

Flick.

LUDWIG AS AN ADULT: On and on it went.

Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridge.

No wonder everyone dreamed of Moscow.

Keynes and Russell had both been there.

Bertie, always the opportunist,

wrote a shilling shocker called

The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism.

He condemned it out of hand.

But, as everyone knows,

the best of the Cambridge lot became spies.

My dream was to go to the Soviet Union

and work as a manual labourer.

I've fixed you up a job

with a local engineering firm.

Why?

I thought you'd be pleased.

You'd be working with your hands.

You should do something useful.

But Ludwig,

my training's academic.

That's the challenge.

I'm going to Russia.

I shall try to find us both manual jobs there.

Why do you want to go to Russia?

Oh, by the way, you'll have to lend me a tie.

Professor Wittgenstein, on behalf of the Institute

for Foreign Relations, I can offer you two things.

The chair in philosophy at Kazan University

or a teaching post in philosophy

at Moscow University.

Er, comrade, please.

I don't want to teach.

I want to work as a manual labourer,

either in a factory or on a collective farm.

But, Professor, eto nyevozmozhno.

O chem vy govoritye?

Nyeuzheli vy nye ponimayetye?

Nu, kakoy iz vas kolkhoznik? Eto absurd.

Chto?

I'm terribly sorry, Professor Wittgenstein,

but this is absolutely out of the question.

The one thing that is not in short supply

in the Soviet Union is unskilled labour.

Da.

Da, da, Professor.

We must teach the frozen circumstances

to sing by playing them their own melody.

Professor Wittgenstein,

I do recommend you to read more Hegel.

Eto shutka.

I couldn't possibly read Hegel.

I'd go stark raving mad.

Tell me, have you read Trotsky on art?

That's much more interesting.

Nyet, Professor, ya nye chitala Trotskogo.

Trotskiy - eto opasno.

Professor, ya nye ponimayu vas.

Vy priyezhayetye v Moskvu, vy khotitye rabotat'

v kolkhozye, vy khotitye, chtoby ya chitala

Trotskogo. No Trotskiy - eto opasno.

Trotsky - eto Sibir'.

Vy ponimayetye? Trotsky - eto Sibir'.

(Bell)

- Sleduyushchiy.

Next one.

How was Russia?

Well, at least Lenin's state

has ensured that there's no unemployment.

It is an ordered society.

Are you enjoying yourself?

Yes, I am.

You were right.

- Did you find yourself a job in Russia?

- Sadly, no.

It looks like I'm stuck with Cambridge

and philosophy.

Ludwig, give it up.

What the hell are you playing at, Ludwig?

I've just been talking to Johnny.

What do you mean?

I mean all this poppycock

about engineering and him getting a job.

What do you think his parents will think?

I haven't the foggiest.

Johnny's parents are working people.

His father's a miner.

They sacrificed everything they have

to get him to Cambridge.

What's Johnny's parents got to do with it?

Listen, Wittgenstein,

Johnny's parents are workers.

That's what you admire,

when it's confined to the pages of Tolstoy.

I've never met Johnny's parents.

I strongly advise you not to.

You're foisting your own self-hatred

onto their son.

You've been reading Sigmund Freud.

What of it?

It's dangerous stuff!

Believe me!

It takes one Viennese to know another.

Freud's nothing to do with Johnny

sweating it out in some god-awful factory.

You can't do this, Wittgenstein.

You can't use Johnny

as fodder for your own fantasies.

What I do is none of your business.

It's my business to stop you from...

oh, what's your word,

"infecting" too many young men.

You have a terrible power over them,

can't you see that?

Half of Cambridge goes around

imitating your mannerisms.

You know I've never encouraged disciples.

I'm talking about you, not your ideas.

You lord it over others

and you don't even know it.

All aristocrats idealise the common folk,

as long as they keep stoking the boilers.

I should know, I was brought up like that, too.

If you're talking about my upbringing,

that was a long time ago!

In another country!

How can I possibly speak to a man

who believes I corrupt others?

I'm simply quoting your own words.

Russell,

I would like you to know

that our friendship is now over.

I had a fearful row with Russell yesterday.

He said I was an evil influence.

What is worrying you, Ludwig?

Is it your logic or your sins?

Both.

My sins mostly.

Sins, sinners, sinning.

What nonsense you do talk.

Well, you mustn't expect

any sympathy from me. I'm not a virtuous man.

I never imagined you were.

Do you know, Maynard, every hour, every day,

I keep my feet with the greatest difficulty,

and the slightest gust of dishonesty

would be enough to bowl me over forever.

That's why people think I'm so strange.

I don't know what to say to you.

You're suffering from

a terminal case of moral integrity.

If you'd just allow yourself to be a little

more sinful, you'd stand a chance of salvation.

Salvation is the only thing that concerns me.

And I know we're not here to have a good time.

Spoken like a true Protestant.

Ludwig, my dear, there's nothing in the world

like the warmth of a sated body.

For me, it's as if I'm being burnt

by a freezing wind.

Pull yourself together.

Philosophy is a sickness of the mind.

I mustn't infect too many young men.

How unique and irreplaceable Johnny is.

And yet, how little I realise this

when I am with him.

That's always been a problem.

But living in a world where such a love is illegal,

and trying to live open and honest

is a complete contradiction.

I have...known...Johnny three times.

And each time I began with feeling

that there was nothing wrong.

But after,

I felt shamed.

JOHNNY:
What are you thinking?

Oh, just some...

...idea.

What idea?

Well, for many years at the centre of philosophy

was a picture of the lonely human soul

brooding over its private experiences.

Yeah, everyone knows that.

This soul is a prisoner of his own body,

and he's locked out from contact with others

by the walls of their bodies.

I wanted to get rid of this picture.

There is no private meaning.

We are what we are... only because...

...we share a common language

and common forms of life.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

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