The Reception of My Work and Schopenhauer's

[RonPrice]

Perhaps my experience with my memoirs may be somewhat like the experience of Authur Schopenhauer with his famous work, The World as Will and Representation. Alfred Estermann's study Schopenhauers Kampf um sein Werk examines the relationship between Arthur Schopenhauer and his publishers, focussing in particular on the three editions of Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung (The World as Will and Representation), published by Brockhaus in 1818/9, 1844, and 1859. Shopenhauer had grand expectations for his book but the reality of the book’s reception, at least for the first 40 years, was far apart from these expectations.

Acceptance and recognition of this now-classic work came slowly. Like many authors, Schopenhauer was certain of the brilliance and significance of his work when he first offered it to his publisher. I’m not sure I would characterize my book as either brilliant or significant, although I would certainly like to. I enjoyed writing it but I’m not as confident about its reception in either the short or the long term. I leave the assessment of this work to others and to those mysterious dispensations of a watchful Providence, dispensations that I have often refered to in these pages.-Ron Price

[RonPrice]

It has been more than 18 months since I posted this item and I would now like to add some additional comments.-Ron Price, Australia
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THE LOUDEST PLACE

The nineteenth century philosopher Arthur Shopenhauer thought that the experience of the sublime could be obtained only at times of contemplation when the will was made to stand still and be quiet. Since so many millions are not capable of achieving the sublime in this way and need some kind of "stimulation" or "activity," civilization results, one coule argue, in a type of heightened-sensory barbarism.

Some thinkers argued that this tendency to barbarism and its violence could be countered by heightened sympathy and love. Perhaps this dichotomy is part of the basis for what the Baha'i writer Shoghi Effendi calls the integrating and disintegrating forces of our age. I'm not sure. Certainly the question of social control or social order is the primary problem presented to the social sciences by society for solution. The 'answer' to this issue, for Shopenhauer among others, can be found in their total vision of the human being and in the sociological and psychological, the distinctive and compelling, landscapes they create. -Ron Price with thanks to Stjepan G. Mestrovic, The Barbarian Temperament: Toward a Postmodern Critical Theory, Routledge, London, 1993.

This poetry creates a landscape
viewed at distance or close hand.
I wonder if my soul is here amidst
these words like sand they stand.

Belief creates a river and a mountain range,
viewed at distance their size is small, but close
they're rich, mysteriously deep and wondrously all.
The days of life add up to make a painting or a book
and their loudest place I fill in the cellars of my soul
where they still take their toll, though long licensed....to be still.

Ron Price