An Argument Against “Moral Character” by Travis B. #1

Here's the first installment of exerpts from a manuscript-in-progress by Travis B. Copyright 2006 by the author.

An Argument Against “Moral Character”

Letter to Professor Caesar Lombroso
p.V Degenerates are not always criminals, prostitutes, anarchists, and pronounced lunatics; they are often authors and artists. These, however, manifest the same mental characteristics, and for the most part the same somatic features, as the members of the above-mentioned anthropoligical family, who satisfy their unhealthy impulses with the knife of the assassin or the bomb of the dynamitter, instead of with pen and pencil.*
from Nordau, Max Degeneration, (1968) University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. Introduction by George L. Mosse


Max Nordau fittingly states that decadence in action is not just ascribable to the time in which the action is taken but is ascribable to the institution from where it is born. The action, as an antecedent to prosperity or decay, thus becomes a medium through which the individual communicates their albeit unintended wisdom. This wisdom, whether functional or completely useless, encapsulates and thus describes that individual’s character, whether or not intended.