Because we care too very much about the sex lives of dead people like Ludwig Wittgenstein.
(That’s not sarcasm and you know it lol.)
Introduction
I have been, since about the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, thinking about the idea of “parasocial” relationships. In isolation, many countries (western countries in particular, I think) tilted into a heavily online culture, with social media becoming the main mode of communication and, eventually, a battleground for ideological warfare. Sometimes sportsmanship is optional. Cognitive dissonance being what it is, it’s easier to think “sportsmanship” can’t exist when all the marks of human presence—a face, a voice, the physical being—are missing.
Maybe it’s all just a choose-your-own Goosebumps novel in 0s and 1s. Literature, of course, is never read the same way between two people. Not really. It’s both an oversimplification of how our brains operate and something purposefully opaque. Interpretation, like translation, is not linear. It is nuanced, requiring knowledge of the original author’s tone and style but also an interpretation of intention.
Around the start of the global shutdown, I began my trek into becoming “that A24 girl” and I took an interest in Ti West’s Maxine trilogy. Long story short, the third movie, MaXXXine, had some controversy surrounding its release—civil litigation about the atmosphere and safety on set. An extra claimed Mia Goth berated and verbally attacked him after allegedly kicking him during a scene. Yes, the extra was a man. This is only interesting because it highlights the roles we expect people to occupy. Reddit, of course, had opinions. Some nasty comments targeted her marriage to Shia LaBeouf. Others besmirched both parties. Many people made their opinions known.
No one cites anything, of course. (I know, I’m not using footnotes here either, but this is more an abstract than a formal paper.)
No one follows up, either.
This is the crux of the parasocial relationship. In a simplified way, it’s projection onto public figures we think of often, for better or worse. We impose our own views of their personhood based on what is publicly known about them. The paparazzi’s continued relevance despite their often antagonistic treatment of their subjects is testament to that. Everyone has biases, but the parasocial figure makes this bias almost voyeuristic, possibly mythical. I think of Korean pop idols and the alarming suicide rate among these young artists. For example, fans of BTS’s Jungkook once threatened a female friend of his because he hugged her. They weren’t even alone in the photo. It may sound extreme, but it is real.
We create narratives around people we wish to hold in a certain way. Albert Camus famously noted that we lie to ourselves about the people we love. (Paraphrased:) First to ourselves, then to them. The parasocial figure is not so much a human being as a symbol of personal gravitas. That symbolism can cause intense friction when reality doesn’t match our ideals.
Another example: the fallout of The Last of Us Part II. The outrage over a certain plot point—which, in context, is quite important and beautiful—led angry fans to send death threats to Laura Bailey, the voice actress for the character involved. For something that happened in a video game narrative. The vitriol was so intense that the developers had to make public statements defending both their choices and Bailey herself.
This kind of projection happens every day. Increasingly, it becomes almost religious, particularly the less you know about the person you admire.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Let’s look at another example—and the person I’m really here to talk about: Ludwig Wittgenstein.
I’d forgive most people outside of academia or philosophy (and even some within it) who haven’t heard this complicated man’s name. He has been called one of the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Yet he’s notoriously difficult to understand. Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (as it was titled in English) is a long-form essay that isn’t really an essay. It’s seven propositions, numbered 1 through 7, with sublevels meant to support or argue the points of the proposition it falls under. Most people leave Wittgenstein at least somewhat mystified, which is particularly true of his later work, published posthumously under the guidance of his literary executors: G.E.M. (Elizabeth) Anscombe, D.H. von Wright, and Rush Rhees. All three were students of Wittgenstein.
Speaking of students, Wittgenstein’s affairs tend to sound almost romantic or at least tragic, yet both of his “major” biographies seem to gloss over certain aspects of his life that would be concerning by today’s standards. He preferred a certain type of “disciple”: someone childlike, innocent, always deferential to his way of thinking. Many of his closest relationships were with much younger people, aside from his first noted beloved/infatuation: David Hume Pinsent. Pinsent’s journals suggest a certain tension, noting Wittgenstein’s complete lack of interest in Pinsent’s work. Pinsent seems to have left it behind entirely while working with (for?) Wittgenstein.
The next major relationship is often listed with Francis Skinner. But this relationship was not the “second” significant one. That would belong to Marguerite Respinger—and it’s her relationship with Wittgenstein that is so often treated as an aberration. She is frequently described as the only known woman Wittgenstein loved, and therefore, her presence is framed as a curiosity. A blip.
But this framing is too clean. Too tidy. It feels, to me, like erasure—the kind bisexual people know intimately. Many bisexual friends (myself included at times) have experienced the invalidation that comes from having relationships with the opposite sex: suddenly we’re not “gay enough” or we’re fetishized as novelties, or worse, seen as traitors to queerness.
Now consider the actual evidence. In Wittgenstein’s journals from the 1930s, his entries about Marguerite are full of emotion. He writes of spending three hours kissing and holding her. Of receiving a birthday gift from her and wishing she’d sent a letter—and “a kiss much more.” This does not sound like performative heterosexuality.
“My brain is very irritable. Received handkerchiefs for my birthday from Marguerite today. They pleased me though any word would have pleased me more & a kiss much more.”
– Wittgenstein’s journals. April 26, 1930. (From “Movements of Thought”, see below.)
He also documents his jealousy, particularly over the man Marguerite would later marry. When she sent that man sweaters she’d knitted, Wittgenstein fell ill with envy. When they met again, she cried. He, famously stoic, held her.
And when she chose to marry Talla Sjogren? Wittgenstein showed up on her wedding day. An hour before the ceremony.
This was after he had met Francis Skinner.
Skinner’s letters from that period express longing. He writes to Wittgenstein in 1932 about how much he thinks of him. Monk notes that their romantic relationship solidified during Easter break of 1933. But on December 31 of that same year, Wittgenstein contacted Marguerite on her wedding day, and said this to her:
“You are taking a boat, the sea will be rough. Remain always attached to me and you will not drown.”
– Ludwig Wittgenstein to Marguerite Respinger, as noted by Ilse Somavilla. December 31, 1933.
He encouraged her to study nursing. He was invested in her success. He visited. He lingered. And while he likely didn’t save her letters—just as he didn’t save Skinner’s—he wrote of Marguerite often in his journals.
What we know of her thoughts comes mostly from correspondence with scholars like Ilse Somavilla. But perhaps the most telling detail is this: Marguerite kept his letters.
She never wrote a tell-all book. She didn’t capitalize on her association with him. Her private memoir was reserved for family. Her memories were hers to guard. They remained in contact for years—at least until 1948, three years before his death. And this, after a falling out in 1946, when Wittgenstein sent a letter implying that if she were not a “Lady,” he would be glad to help her find work. She was married at the time and offended. Yet even then, she responded later with a gift. And Wittgenstein, in 1948, wrote to thank her.
This does not sound like a trivial chapter in either of their lives. It sounds like something deeper, stranger, more enduring. And it was hers to reveal, or not.
Maybe Marguerite found all the scholarly speculation amusing. Maybe not. We don’t know. And that, too, is part of the story. She was not a symbol. She was a person. She showed only what she chose.
And that is okay. That is, in the end, human.
Wittgenstein was human. Complicated. Contradictory. Brilliant. Troubled. Deeply moral in ways that sometimes hurt the people around him. But real.
It is a misjudgment to dismiss Marguerite Respinger as an anomaly. To pretend that women had no lasting effect on Wittgenstein is not just false—it’s convenient. He wrote to his sisters with fondness. He had female friends like Lettice Ramsey. There was once a letter, now lost, to his sister Gretl describing the harrowing trip he and Marguerite took together.
Elizabeth Anscombe was not an honorary man. She was a philosopher. A devout Catholic. A mother. A peer. And central to how we read Wittgenstein today.
As always, this is interpretation. But that, too, is the work.
For further reading
I suggest (to begin with):
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Private Notebooks: 1914-1916. Ed., transl. Marjorie Perloff. Liveright Publishing Corp. 2022.
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Movements of Thought: Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Diary, 1930-1932 and 1936-1937. Ed. James C. Klagge, Alfred Nordmann. Transl. Alfred Nordmann. Rowman & Littlefield. 2023.
- McGuiness, Brian. Wittgenstein, a Life. Univ. of California Press, 1988.
- Monk, Ray. Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. Random House. 1990.
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