Culture as a Monastic Rule

Abstract: The German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk has taken a considerable interest in Wittgenstein’s concept of culture. The title of his book Du mußt dein Leben ändern, which is a quote from Rilke, also reflects one of Wittgenstein’s remarks, and Sloterdijk devotes a whole chapter to another quote, namely that “Culture is a monastic rule”, as Wittgenstein put it in 1948. Sloterdijk argues that Wittgenstein’s philosophy was, from the beginning, irreversibly formed by the secessionist movement in fin-de-siecle Vienna, and that he remained a cultural elitist at heart through his whole life. Thus Sloterdijk regards the concept of “language games” as ascetic instructions en miniature and reads Wittgenstein’s late philosophy as a veiled criticism of the so-called culture of his society, that is, “life forms” among ordinary language users who are blind to their own proclivities. I regard this interpretation as a gross misconception of Wittgenstein’s inclinations but also as a welcome opportunity to make some necessary distinctions between Wittgenstein’s views of culture in different phases of his philosophy.