Man halte hier jeden Menschen für verrückt
Fabian“Man halte hier jeden Menschen für verrückt” is Jakob Fabian’s deliberately provisional rule for dealing with people: regard everyone except children and the very old as mad until the contrary is proved beyond doubt. The maxim turns his distrust of ordinary conduct into a practical hypothesis, but its final invitation to apply it to him makes suspicion a reciprocal test rather than a simple diagnosis.
The Rule and Its Setting
Fabian introduces the rule while discussing what he fears: stupidity. The young woman says that stupidity has already arrived in the city she comes from and asks what can be done. In answer, Fabian describes himself as a melancholic who is not much at risk of despair and says he does not tend toward suicide; he lacks the drive that makes others keep battering their heads against a wall. His alternative is to watch and wait.
That posture shapes the maxim. Fabian says he is waiting for decency to triumph, though he waits for it as an unbeliever waits for miracles. Rather than offer a confident moral program, he advises a defensive presumption: treat adults as mad unless evidence conclusively establishes otherwise. The exception for children and the very old sets the rule’s stated scope, while the demand for proof makes ordinary trust something that must be earned.
A Provisional Practical Hypothesis
Fabian does not present the maxim as a truth that must be correct. He calls it a working hypothesis for dealing with people and says that it has proved useful in practice; its value lies in the results it produces, not in a claim to universal correctness. The qualification keeps the aphorism from becoming a formal diagnosis. It is a tool for navigating conduct that Fabian regards as unreliable.
The wording also shifts responsibility onto the person who adopts it. The young woman is instructed to proceed on this assumption and to discover its usefulness for herself. The rule promises neither reform nor a cure for the stupidity she has identified; it offers a way to interpret other people while waiting for a world in which decency might prevail.
The Personal Test and the Maxim’s Irony
The young woman immediately asks whether she should begin with Fabian. He welcomes the proposal. This brief exchange prevents him from placing himself securely among the sane observers and the rest among the mad. If the hypothesis is to be useful, it must also be turned on its speaker; Fabian’s self-inclusion makes the advice more candid, but also exposes the uncertainty built into any judgment of sanity.
The maxim’s sharpness therefore rests on a tension between vigilance and self-implication. Fabian recommends suspicion because he sees little reason to trust people, yet he does not claim exemption from scrutiny. His method remains provisional and reciprocal: watch, wait, demand convincing evidence, and allow that the person making the judgment may be subject to it too.
