Degeneration (Nordau)

Two volume book by Max Nordau

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Degeneration

Author| Max Nordau
Original title| Entartung
Language| German
Genre| Social criticism

Publication date

| 1892
Publication place| Hungary
Text| Degeneration at Internet Archive
Fin de siècle

Themes

* Aestheticism
* Antipositivism
* Art Nouveau
* Atheism
* Avant-garde
* Bohemianism
* Crowd psychology
* Decadence
* Dreyfus affair
* Dysgenics
* Degeneration theory
* Eugenics
* Existentialism
* Expressionism
* Geopolitics
* Gothic fiction
* Great man theory
* Historical recurrence
* Irrationalism
* Lebensreform
* Nacktkultur
* Völkisch movement
* Medievalism
* New Imperialism
* Orientalism
* Psychoanalysis
* "Race suicide"
* Racialism
* Scientific romanticism
* Second Industrial Revolution
* Social cycle theory
* Social Darwinism
* Spiritualism
* Symbolism
* Übermensch
* Western Esotericism
* Golden Dawn
* Theosophy
* Vitalism
* Will to power
* Yellow Peril

Works

* The Antichrist
* À rebours
* The Brothers Karamazov
* The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
* Degeneration
* Dracula
* Isis Unveiled
* The Flowers of Evil
* The Gay Science
* The Great God Pan
* Inquiries into Human Faculty
and Its Development
* The King in Yellow
* Le Morte d'Arthur
* Might Is Right
* Poems and Ballads
* The Picture of Dorian Gray
* Reflections on Violence
* Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
* Salomé
* The Scream
* She: A History of Adventure
* Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
* Studies on Hysteria
* The Cult of the Self
* Thus Spoke Zarathustra
* Sex and Character

People

* Gabriele D'Annunzio
* Maurice Barrès
* Aubrey Beardsley
* Henri Bergson
* Helena Blavatsky
* Gustave Le Bon
* Mateiu Caragiale
* Arthur Desmond
* Fyodor Dostoevsky
* Sigmund Freud
* Francis Galton
* Arthur de Gobineau
* Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
* Bénédict Morel
* Edvard Munch
* Friedrich Nietzsche
* Max Nordau
* Georges Sorel
* Rudolf Steiner
* Franz von Stuck
* Oscar Wilde
* Otto Weininger

Lasting influence

* Anthroposophy
* Camile Paglia
* Cosmic horror
* H. P. Lovecraft
* Counterculture
* Dada
* Egoism
* Expressionism
* Degeneration theory
* Fantasy
* Fascism (Ecofascism)
* Futurism
* H.G. Wells
* Jack London
* Yukio Mishima
* Lothrop Stoddard
* Literary modernism
* poetry
* Nazism
* New Age
* Pulp magazines
* Punk
* Neoism
* Conservative Revolution
* Oswald Spengler
* Ezra Pound
* Surrealism
* Situationism
* Syndicalism
* Thelema
* Vorticism
* The Marching Morons (1951)
* W. B. Yeats
* Weimar Republic

* History portal
* Philosophy portal
* Politics portal

* v
* t
* e

This article is part of a series on

Eugenics

Historical trajectory

* Ancient
* Jus trium liberorum
* Lex Papia Poppaea
* Jewish views on incest
* Incest in the Bible
* British eugenics
* Malthusian League
* Eugenic feminism
* Nazi eugenics
* "Racial hygiene"
* Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring
* Hereditary Health Court
* Lebensborn
* Romani Holocaust
* Aktion T4
* Doctors' Trial
* US eugenics
* Slave breeding in the US
* Eugenics Survey of Vermont
* Oneida stirpiculture
* Immigration Act of 1924
* US birth control movement
* Sterilization law in the United States
* Buck v. Bell
* Doe ex. rel. Tarlow v. District of Columbia
* Madrigal v. Quilligan
* Poe v. Lynchburg Training School & Hospital
* Skinner v. Oklahoma
* Stump v. Sparkman
* Virginia Sterilization Act of 1924
* Canadian eugenics
* The Famous Five
* Sexual Sterilization Act
* French Eugenics
* Japanese eugenics
* Hispanic eugenics
* Mexican eugenics
* Swedish sterilization program (1906–1975)
* Peruvian sterilization program (1990–2000)
* Population planning in Singapore
* Neo-eugenics
* He Jiankui genome editing incident
* Human genetic enhancement
* Religious response to assisted
reproductive technology

Pre-war academic proponents

* Bell
* Brigham
* Burbank
* Carrell
* Davenport
* Darwin (Charles)
* Darwin (Leonhard)
* DeCourcy Ward
* von Ehrenfels
* Elderton
* Evang
* Fisher
* Galton
* Gates
* Goldscheid
* Grant
* Gruber
* Günther
* Guyer
* Haldane
* Herseni
* Holmes
* Hrdlička
* Jennings
* Jordan
* Kang
* Key
* Kraepelin
* Lenz
* Lewis
* London
* Magnussen
* Manuilă
* Mittmann
* Moreira
* Munro
* Nordau
* Osborn
* Pan
* Pearson (Karl)
* Perkins
* Pérez
* Ploetz
* Quetelet
* Rainer
* Relgis
* Ross
* Schallmayer
* Scharffenberg
* Serebrovsky
* Sergi
* Slater
* Southard
* Stoddard
* Taussig
* Terman
* Tesla
* Thorndike
* Vacher de Lapouge
* Verschuer
* Yerkes

Post-war academic remnants

* Agar
* Bell (Julia)
* Blacker
* Carl
* Carter
* Cattell
* Coleman
* Darlington
* Fleischman
* Garrett
* Glad
* Hardin
* Haldane
* Hanania
* Herndon
* Huxley
* Ingle
* Itzkoff
* José Figueredo
* Kallmann
* Kirkconnell
* Koch
* Laski
* Lederberg
* Lorenz
* Ludovici
* Lundman
* Lynn
* MacEachran
* Magnussen
* Miller
* Muller
* Murray
* Nijenhuis
* Nyborg
* Osborn
* Pearson (Roger)
* Pendell
* Pitt-Rivers
* Popenoe
* Rostand
* Savulescu
* Shapiro
* Shockley
* Verschuer
* Vining Jr.
* Weiss

Pamphlets and manifestos

* Hereditary Genius (1869)
* Degeneration (1892–1893)
* Gallia (1895)
* "The Blood of the Nation" (1901/1910)
* Anticipations (1901)
* The Training of the Human Plant (1907)
* Essays in Eugenics (1909)
* Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911)
* Mankind at the Crossroads (1923)
* Daedalus (1924)
* La raza cósmica (1925)
* Marriage and Morals (1929)
* The Genetical Theory of Natural
Selection (1930)
* "Charter for Rationalists" (1932)
* Man, the Unknown (1935)
* After Us (1936)
* "Eugenics manifesto" (1939)
* New Bottles for New Wine (1950)
* The Marching Morons (1951)
* The Dance with the Devil (1958)
* Civilized Man's Eight Deadly Sins (1973)
* Beyondism (1987)
* Dysgenics (1996)
* Eugenics: A Reassessment (2001)
* Jewish Eugenics (2011)
* Selective Breeding and the Birth of
Philosophy (2023)

Organizations

Without significant post-war activity

* ABCL
* Alberta Eugenics Board
* AASPIM
* AES
* Carnegie Institution for Science
* Carrel Foundation
* CSHL
* Co-operative Women's Guild
* EBNC
* ERO
* Fabian Society
* Galton Laboratory
* German Society for Racial Hygiene
* Heredity Commission
* HBF
* Human Betterment League
* Immigration Restriction League
* INED
* IAAEE
* International Eugenics Conference
* IFEO
* Kaiser Wilhelm Institute
* Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry
* PAA
* Progressive League
* Race Betterment Foundation
* RHA
* Rockefeller Foundation
* State Institute for Racial Biology

With significant post-war activity

* Annals of Eugenics (1954)
* CIS
* The Eugenics Review (1968)
* FREED
* HDF
* J. Soc. Political Econ. Stud.
* LCI
* Mankind Quarterly
* OpenPsych
* Project Prevention
* Repository for Germinal Choice
* Ulster Institute for Social Research

Related

* Demographic engineering
* Dysgenics
* Fujimorism
* Genetic discrimination
* History of eugenics
* Idiocracy
* Pedigree chart
* Political views of Bertrand Russell
* Political views of H. G. Wells
* Raymond Cattell bibliography
* Ronald Fisher bibliography
* Selective breeding

* History of Science portal

* v
* t
* e

Degeneration (German: Entartung, 1892–1893) is a two-volume work of social criticism by Max Nordau.[1][2][3]

Within this work he attacks what he believed to be degenerate art and comments on the effects of a range of social phenomena of the period, such as rapid urbanization and its perceived effects on the human body[clarification needed]. Nordau believed degeneration should be diagnosed as a mental illness because those who were deviant were sick and required therapy. He wrote, ‘The clearest notion we can form of degeneracy is to regard it as a morbid deviation from an original type. This deviation, even if, at the outset, it was ever so slight, contained transmissible elements of such a nature that anyone bearing in him the germs becomes more and more incapable of fulfilling his functions in the world; and mental progress, already checked in his own person, finds itself menaced also in his descendants.’[4].[3] These comments stemmed from his background as a trained physician, taught by the Parisian neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot.[3][peacock prose]

## Summary

[edit]

Nordau begins his work with a "medical" and social interpretation of what has created this degeneration in society. Nordau divides his study into five books. In the first book, Nordau identifies the phenomenon of fin de siècle in Europe. He sees this as first being recognised, though not originating, in France, describing this phenomenon as "a contempt for the traditional views of custom and morality." He sees it as a sort of decadence, a world-weariness, and the wilful rejection of the moral boundaries governing the world. He uses examples from French periodicals and books in French to show how it has affected all elements of society. Nordau also accuses society of becoming more and more inclined to imitate what they see in art.[5] He sees in the fashionable society of Paris and London that "[e]very single figure strives visibly by some singularity in outline, set, cut or colour, to startle attention violently, and imperiously to detain it. "Each one wishes to create a strong nervous excitement, no matter whether agreeably or disagreeably."[6]

Nordau establishes the cultural phenomenon of fin de siècle in the opening pages, but he quickly moves to the viewpoint of a physician and identifies what he sees as an illness[undue weight? - discuss]:

> The manifestations described in the preceding chapter must be patent enough to everyone, be he never so narrow a Philistine. The Philistine, however, regards them as a passing fashion and nothing more; for him the current terms, caprice, eccentricity, affectation of novelty, imitation, instinct, afford a sufficient explanation. The purely literary mind, whose merely æsthetic culture does not enable him to understand the connections of things, and to seize their real meaning, deceives himself and others as to his ignorance by means of sounding phrases, and loftily talks of a ‘restless quest of a new ideal by the modern spirit,’ ‘the richer vibrations of the refined nervous system of the present day,’ ‘the unknown sensations of an elect mind.’ But the physician, especially if he have devoted himself to the special study of nervous and mental maladies, recognises at a glance, in the fin-de-siècle disposition, in the tendencies of contemporary art and poetry, in the life and conduct of men who write mystic, symbolic and 'decadent' works and the attitude taken by their admirers in the tastes and aesthetic instincts of fashionable society, the confluence of two well-defined conditions of disease, with which he [the physician] is quite familiar, viz. degeneration and hysteria, of which the minor stages are designated as neurasthenia. These two conditions of the organism differ from each other, yet have many features in common, and frequently occur together; so that it is easier to observe them in their composite forms, than each in isolation.[7]

The book deals with numerous case studies of various artists, writers and thinkers (Oscar Wilde, Henrik Ibsen, Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to name a few), but its basic premise remains that society and human beings themselves are degenerating, and this degeneration is both reflected in and influenced by art, where "degenerate" artists produce "degenerate" art.

Nordau identifies a degenerate component in the contemporary, widespread practice of spiritualism in France[vague]. He argues that [neutrality is disputed] excessive modernization leads to a return of the irrational, including renewed interest in magic[editorializing]. In this way, Nordau presents a reversal of the sociological theories of disenchantment and rationalization.[8][original research?] Among the systems Nordau criticizes as degenerate and spiritualistic is Jean-Martin Charcot's systematization of hypnosis, which was an important predecessor to Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis.[9][original research?]

## Politics

[edit]

Nordau did not invent the concept of "degeneracy", which had been used by "racialist" Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau in his essay on the Inequality of the Human Races; but did coin the concept of "Degenerate Art" as a form of social contagion that spread "immoral" or "degenerate" ideas, and as a symptom of this perceived "degeneracy"; a concept which would be eagerly seized by the Nazi Party in the Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich (1937), and be further developed into book burnings and the formation of the Reichskulturkammer to control and censor the discussion, creation, and dissemination of art under the guise of preventing "degeneracy."[10] By the early 20th century, the idea that society was degenerating and that this degeneration was influenced by art led to backlash, as evidenced by the conviction of Austrian artist Egon Schiele for "distributing pornography to minors".[11]

This phrase would find itself incorporated into psycho-physiognomy, a pseudoscientific belief that an individual's mental and "moral" health were determined by the shape or dimensions of their face; this would play a crucial role in developing concepts of scientific racism and eugenics.

Degeneration was accepted as a serious medical term (see Degeneracy (biology), which Nordau uniquely applied to psychology and art). Not until Sigmund Freud and the ushering in of a new age of psychoanalysis, was this idea seriously contested. Notable critics would include Sigmund Freud, who remarked in his 1905 work Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality that "It may well be asked whether an attribution of 'degeneracy' is of any value or adds anything to our knowledge."[full citation needed]

Christopher Hitchens critiqued Degeneration for including homophobic, misogynistic, racist, and phrenological ideas. According to the cultural critic Lee Siegel, Hitchens viewed Zionism as "the desiccated fruit of self-hatred, the mirror image of the Jew in anti-Semitic eyes."[12]

Writing for Jewish Currents, Eli Valley stated that Degeneration "was not quite as racially obsessed as Hitler's version" and in fact cites antisemitism as a form of degeneration, but that "the echoes of Nordau in Nazism are startling".[13]

## Editions and translations

[edit]

Degeneration has been translated into English by Howard Fertig, based on the second German edition of the text.[14] Fertig's translation has been digitized and reprinted several times.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (1896). Entartung. Wellcome Library. Berlin : C. Duncker.
2. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration.
3. ^ a b c Peters, Olaf (Spring 2016). "Fear and Propaganda: National Socialism and the concept of "Degenerate Art"". Social Research. 83 (1): 39–66\. doi:10.1353/sor.2016.0015.
4. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration. p. 16.
5. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration. p. 321.
6. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration. p. 10.
7. ^ Nordau, Max Simon (9 February 2016). Degeneration. p. 16.
8. ^ Josephson-Storm, Jason (2017). The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 182–5\. ISBN 978-0-226-40336-6.
9. ^ Josephson-Storm (2017), p. 184.
10. ^ Wampole, Christy. "The Idea of Cultural Degeneration has an Unsavoury Pedigree". Aeon. Retrieved 29 October 2024.
11. ^ Blackshaw, Gemma (2020). "Egon Schiele's Passion: Spirituality and Sexuality, 1912-15". In Natter, Tobias (ed.). Egon Schiele. The Complete Paintings 1909–1918. Köln: Taschen. p. 223\. ISBN 978-3-8365-8125-7.
12. ^ "Of Criminals, Degenerates, and Literary Offenders". Cabinet Magazine. Retrieved 24 July 2025.
13. ^ ""All He Draws Is Monsters!"". Jewish Currents. Retrieved 24 July 2025.
14. ^ Nordau, Max (1968). Degeneration. Translated by Fertig, Howard. H. Fertig. ISBN 0865274940.

## Sources

[edit]

* "Max Nordau and His 'Degeneration'", Introduction to Max Nordau, Degeneration, xi–xxxiv, New York: Howard Fertig, 1968.

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