Misc. Degeneration

[Mark Kohut]

So, I'm reading in "The Modern Mind", by Peter Watson, subtitled "an intellectual history
of the 20th Century", knowing I'll learn stuff I didn't supposedly know from Moses and

I read of Max Nordau. (1849-1923).born in Budapest (!) whose best-known work was
called "Degeneration", a two-volume bestseller in Europe, and maybe especially in 
Vienna, cultural capital of Europe, where Cyprian just was.

Described: "Everywhere he [Nordau] looked, there was decline", ye old Henry Adams-like
entropy concept, so dear to OBA.......but THEN:

"Nordau believed that degeneracy was caused by industrialized society---literally the wear and tear [my italics]
exerted on leaders by railways, steamships, telephones and factories".

do you think?  or just bi-location via some common disgusts and themes?

MK


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