Category: kierkegaard

The self as choice . . . the choice to impregnate yourself that is

This weekend I finished Kierkegaard’s Either / Or. A major theme in the ethical ‘Or’ of Either / Or is the role of choice.

But what is it I choose?  Is it this thing or that?  No, for I choose absolutely, and the absoluteness of my choice is expressed precisely by the fact that I have not chosen to choose this or that.  I choose the absolute.  And what is the absolute?  It is I myself in my eternal validity.  Anything else but myself I never can choose as the absolute, for if I choose something else, I choose it as a finite thing and so do not choose it absolutely.  Even the Jew who chose God did not choose it absolutely, for he chose, indeed, the absolute, but did not choose it absolutely, and thereby it ceased to be the absolute and became a finite thing.

. . .

This self which he then chooses is infinitely concrete, for it is in fact himself, and yet it is absolutely distinct form his former self, for he has chosen it absolutely.  This self did not exist previously, for it came into existence by means of the choice, and yet it did exist, for it was in fact ‘himself.’

In this case choice performs at one and the same time the two dialectical movements: that which is chosen does not exist and comes into existence with the choice; that which is chosen exists , otherwise there would not be a choice.

This strikes me as a tremendously pivotal move in Kierkegaard’s work.  The notion of ‘self’ will be picked up again with greater rigour in The Sickness Unto Death but here we must also remember that Kierkegaard is still trying to awaken, to disturb, to move.  These are not his ‘direct’ religious writings.  It is easy to see that as Kierkegaard’s work was slowly translated into German and English that these sort of passages were developed into the type of ‘individualism’ that existentialism became known for.  However, even in this section Kierkegaard has no interest in the unique individual instead Kierkegaard demands the dialectic of the individual which is both absolutely singular and universal.  In following page he writes,

Therefore it requires courage for a man to choose himself; for at the very time when it seems that isolates himself most thoroughly he is most thoroughly absorbed in the root by which he is connected with the whole.

This then culminates not in the maxim of ‘knowing yourself’ but in the admonishment to ‘choose yourself’.  Though he admits if he wanted to be clever he would say that we must ‘know’ ourselves as Adam knew Eve.

By the individual’s intercourse with himself he impregnates himself and brings himself to birth.

I’ll let my distinguished readers unpack that one.

Danger afoot

What with life and all I am starting to fall just a little behind in my Kierkegaard reading schedule.  I was hoping to keep the pace around two volumes a month.  While I am almost finished volume two of Either / Or I am not excited about pushing myself further behind the eight ball.  The second volume is picking up.  Part of the interest is the way my mind continues to move about with regards to Kierkegaard’s own authorship.  What does Kierkegaard himself mean by what he has Judge William say?  A terrible question I know but what is wonderful is that despite all the layers that have been revealed with respect to Kierkegaard’s intention and life (including his own reflections) there a remains a movement, a dialectic, inherent within his authorship that continues to aid his project.  I can only imagine the way these pseudonyms aided in his own process of understanding and development.  I am glad we are give access to the process.

About half way through this volume there is a great section on choice which in many ways frames the whole notion of ‘either/or’.  The aesthetic mode is about immediacy (no choice) or multiplicity (also no choice) but ethics becomes the beginning, the first choice; not the choice between ethics and aesthetics but the choice that there is a choice.  In any event here are a few excerpts I enjoyed.

Think of the captain on his ship at the instant when it has to come about.  He will perhaps be able to say, ‘I can either do this or that’; but in case he is not a pretty poor navigator, he will be aware at the same time that the ship is all the while making its usual headway, and that therefore it is only an instant when it is indifferent whether he does this or that.  So it is with a man.  If he forgets to take account of the headway, there comes at last an instant when there no longer is any question of an either/or, not because he has chosen but because he has neglected to choose, which is equivalent to saying, because others have chosen for him, [that] he has lost his self.

. . .

For me the instant of choice is very serious, not so much on account of the rigorous cogitation involved in weighing the alternatives, not on account of the multiplicity of thoughts which attach themselves to every link in the chain, but rather because there is danger afoot, danger that the next instant it may not be equally in my power to choose.

On being seduced

I am almost finished the first volume of Either / Or and as I have mentioned earlier it has been a more rewarding experience than the first go round in which I did not finish.  The book seems to read with two clear book-ends.  The first is Mozart’s Don Juan. Don Juan represents pure and immediate sensuality.  The highest form of this is music.  As soon as the focus shifts to lyrics then an element of reflection is immediately introduced.  The closing book-end is the Diary of a Seducer which is collection of reflections and letters in which a man seduces a young woman to engage him.  This still represents an aesthetic mode like Don Juan but is clearly now also a reflective mode.  What I find interesting about the Diary is the way in which it begins themes which will later be taken up by Kierkegaard.

Having done some earlier research on Kierkegaard’s influence on psychology and counselling much was made of his approach as ‘mid-wife’, that is, of clearing space for the individual to come to his or her own conclusions; to existentially engage the individual, to set them in motion (though without knowledge of this having been facilitated by someone).  Towards the end of his life Kierkegaard reflects on this practice as an author but already here in the Diary Kierkegaard uses similar language as a seducer.  Leading up to the proposal of engagement the seducer writes,

The whole episode must be kept as insignificant as possible, so that when she has accepted me, she will be able to throw the least light upon what may be concealed in this relationship.  The infinite possibility is precisely the interesting.  If she is able to predict anything, that I have failed badly, and the whole relationship loses its meaning.  That she might say yes because she loves me is inconceivable, for she does not love me at all.  The best thing is for me to transform the engagement from act to an event, from something she does to something that happens to her, concerning which she must say: “God only knows how it really happened.

Then later in the Diary are collections of short ‘notes’ that are to arouse the erotic (the immediate) in her.  These are notes of absolutes and totalities.

I am poor – you are my riches; dark – you are my light; I own nothing, want nothing.  And how can I own anything?  It is a contradiction to say that he can own something who does not own himself.  I am as happy as a child, who can and should own nothing.  I own nothing; for I belong only to you; I am not, I have ceased to be, in order to be yours.

It does not take much to see how these notes extend from the aesthetic to the religious.  But first it seems they must pass through the ethical.  And I am about to enter volume II.

Original boredom and solving our financial crisis

While I have not posted on Either / Or the experience of volume 1 for a second go round is better than I expected.  The problem is that it is a ‘popular’ work and so also a dated work.  Can you imagine reading Zizek’s works over 100 years from now trying to piece together the pop-culture illusions?  Either / Or is not that extreme though I am certainly feeling its distance.  One of the pieces is volume 1 begins with a reflection on boredom as the root of evil.  And because of this seeks to eliminate its evil presence.  He takes finance as an example.  Imagine trying to improve the economy by practicing economics!?  How utterly boring and therefore sinful.

The history of this [evil] can be traced from the very beginning of the world.  The gods were bored, and so they created man.  Adam was bored because he was alone, and so Eve was created.  Thus boredom entered the world, and increased in proportion to the increase of population.  Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored togethre; then Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel were bored en famille; then the population of the world increased, and the peoples were bored en masse.  To divert themselves they conceived the idea of constructing a tower high enough to reach the heavens.  This idea is itself as boring as the tower was high, and constitutes a terrible proof of how boredom gained the upper hand.  The nations were scattered over the earth, just as people now travel abroad, but they continued to be bored.  Consider the consequences of this boredom.  Humanity fell from its lofty height, first because of Eve, and then from the Tower of Babel.  What was it, on the other hand, that delayed the fall of Rome, was it not bread and circuses?  And is anything to be done now?  Is anyone concerned about planning some means of diversion?  Quite the contrary, the impending ruin is being accelerated.  It is proposed to improve the financial condition of the state by practicing economy.  What could be more tiresome?  Instead of increasing the national debt, it is proposed to pay it off.  As I understand the political situation, it would be an easy matter for Denmark to negotiate a loan of fifteen million dollars.  Why not consider this plan?  Every once in a while we hear of a man who is a genius, and therefore neglects to pay his debts – why should not a nation do the same, if we were all agreed?  Let us then borrow fifteen millions, and let us the proceeds, not to pay debts, but for public entertainment.  Let us celebrate the millennium in a riot of merriment.  Let us place boxes everywhere, not, as at present, for the deposit of money, but for the free distribution of money.  Everything would become gratis; theaters gratis, women of easy virtue gratis, one would drive to the park gratis, be buried gratis, one’s eulogy would be gratis; I say gratis, for when one always has money at hand, everything is in a certain sense free.  No one should be permitted to own any property.  Only in my own case would there be an exception.  I reserve to myself securities in the Bank of London to the value of one hundred dollars a day, partly because I cannot do with less, partly because the idea is mine, and finally because I may not be able to hit upon a new idea when the fifteen millions are gone.

On Wickedness and Wit; Beginning Either/Or

I ventured into Either/Or tonight.  Despite its sensational history I was not particularly looking forward to it.  I read the first volume a few years back and don’t have fond memories of it.  I forgot, however, the aphorisms that begin the first volume which is attributed to A (who writes in an aesthetic mode) as opposed to B who writes in a ethical mode in the second volume.  Here are two quotes,

Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion.  Men’s thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers.  The thoughts of their hearts are to paltry to sinful.  For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbour such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God.  Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy. . . . This is the reason my soul always turns back to the Old Testament and to Shakespeare.  I feel that those who speak there are at least human beings: they hate, they love, they murder their enemies, and curse their descendants throughout all generations, they sin.

And later,

It happened that a fire broke out backstage in a theater.  The clown came out to inform the public.  They thought it was a jest and applauded.  He repeated his warning, they shouted even louder.  So I think the world will come to an end amid general applause from all the wits, who believe that it is a joke.

Controlled Irony

I finished Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony yesterday.  While the majority of the text worked through Socrates thoroughgoing negativity the final section looked at “Irony After Fichte.”  This was essentially a commentary on Romanticism.  I think I missed something in this section.  While Kierkegaard was not entirely critical of this expression he also did not view this movement as either reflecting or going beyond Socrates.  In browsing over what I underlined I saw what might be a paradigmatic statement at the start of the section;

It was in Kant, to call to mind only what is generally known, that modern speculative thought, feeling itself mature and come of age, became tired of the guardianship in which it had lived hitherto under dogmatism and, like the prodigal son, went to its father and demanded that he divide and share the inheritance with it.  The outcome of this division of the inheritance is well known, and also that speculation did not have to go abroad in order to squander its resources, because there was no wealth to be found.  The more the I in criticism became absorbed in contemplation of the I, the leaner and leaner the I became, until it ended with becoming a ghost. (272)

Turning then to Fichte he talks about how he “infinitized the I in I-I. . . . But this infinity of thought in Fichte is, like all Fichte’s infinity, negative infinity, an infinity in there is no finitude, an infinity without any content” (273).  I don’t entirely understand why K. becomes more critical of this ongoing need of irony to ‘free itself’ (he was hardly critical of Socrates in this regard).  The criticism comes, it seems, on the shift towards making everything myth as a disingenuous mode of irony (contra Socrates); a sort of unfair play by irony to keep its thinking free.  This [Romantic] ironist ‘poetically composes’ but is not ‘poetically composed’.  This would require a limiting within actuality.  There is no content for the Romantic and transitions are nothing.  “At times he is a god, at times a grain of sand” (284).  So while Romanticism offered a cool breeze its tragedy is that “what it seizes upon is not actuality” (304).

So at the end of his 35o page dissertation he offers a brief 5 page conclusion, “Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth of Irony.”  Here he treads carefully along the contentious line relating the life of the poet to the poetic work.  K. agrees that the poet’s life is no concern of ours.  “But in the present undertaking it should not be out of place to point out the misrelation that can often exist in this respect” (325).  I am still not quite sure what that sentence means.  As an example he points to Goethe.  “The reason Goethe’s poet-existence was so great was that he was able to make his poet-life congruous with actuality.  But that in turn takes irony, but, please note, controlled irony” (325).  K. accuses the Romantic of being incongruous with his work.  The point here seems to be that poetry is nothing if it does affect lives . . . and should it not affect the poet above all!  K. continues making the intriguing statement “what doubt is to science, irony is to personal life” (326).

As I am re-reading this short conclusion I am realizing that it is much more suggestive than I first realized.  I think I will end it here for now and spend a little more time working directly through his conclusion.

I am also almost finished the 100 pages of notes Kierkegaard took on the lecture series he attended by Schelling.  It is a supplement added to the Princeton series . . . I kinda of wish it wasn’t.  I doubt I will post anything on it.

Irony and Change; Or, Why Porn is F**king Boring (Or is that Other Way Around?)

Kierkegaard begins the second part of The Concept of Irony exploring the place of irony in shifting or changing of historical eras.

Catholicism was the given actuality for the generation living at the time of the Reformation, and yet it was also the actuality that no longer had validity as such.  Consequently, one actuality collides here with another actuality. (260)

Kierkegaard goes on to explore the difference between the ironist on one hand and the prophet and hero on the other.  The prophet articulates presentiments and the hero battles for the new over the old but the ironist perceives the old “in all its imperfection” (261).

For the ironic subject, the given actuality has lost its validity entirely; it has become for him an imperfect form that is a hindrance everywhere.  But on the other hand, he does not possess the new. . . . He is the one who must pass judgment.  In one sense the ironist is certainly prophetic, because he is continually pointing to something impending, but what it is he does not know.  He is prophetic, but his position and situation are the reverse of the prophet’s. The prophet walks arm in arm with his age, and from this position he glimpses what is coming. . . . The ironist, however, has stepped out of line with his age, has turned around and faced it.  That which is hidden from him, lies behind his back, but the actuality he so antagonistically confronts is what he must destroy; upon this he focuses his burning gaze (261).

The negative work of irony here is not of particular phenomena but of the whole, infinite absolute negativity.  Here Kierkegaard begins to drawn heavily on Hegel noting that the ‘negative’ in Hegel’s system is ‘irony’ in actual history.  He then moves on to articulate a position that sounds very much like the Hegel/Kierkegaard synthesis that Zizek promotes.

[S]ince the ironist does not have the new in his power, we might ask how, then, does he destroy the old, and the answer to that must be: he destroys the given actuality by the given actuality itself; but it should be remembered nevertheless that the new principle is present within him [potentially], as possibility.  But by destroying actuality by means of actuality itself, he enlists in the service of world irony.  In his Geschichte der Philosophie, Hegel says: “All dialectic allows as valid that which is to be valid as if it were valid, allows inner destruction to develop in it – the universal irony of the world” (262). [emphasis mine]

The means of destruction are provided by what is to be destroyed.  Let me take an example that may be more or less controversial depending on my reader.  I grew up with pornography being a dark, shrouded and heinous sin.  In my evangelical youth I remember various works emerging to deal with this problem.  Pornography was treated like acid.  To even inadvertently cast a less-than-pure glance over a cheerleader as you (religiously) watched football was to risk being splashed with its scarring spew.  Eye poison.

Now I can appreciate the need to address pornography on a number of levels but I began to see this approach heaping supernatural power on nearly every form of possible sexual expression.  Now for any of you wander off the straight and narrow path of internet browsing (perhaps finding less-than-legal sites for sampling music or whatever) it does not take much to come across some pretty hardcore stuff.  First glances raise all that historical baggage but then I actually looked at what was being promoted.  How incredibly unattractive and downright boring this stuff is.  I can see why the industry has to be the fastest evolving in terms of technology and expression because it plays out so quickly.  In other words the seeds of its destruction are within.  I am not looking to downplay the reality of addictions.  I mean getting drunk becomes pretty boring as well.  The question may be to help people into a space where they can see clearly what is at play and name it for themselves as opposed to having someone else name it for them.  Or at least to understand where these names come from and who is invested in them.

Now perhaps we can move on to economics . . .

Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony – Mid-Point Reflections

I have to say that The Concept of Irony has been a pleasant surprise.  It has provided a sorely needed introduction to Socrates.  Kierkegaard’s continual engagement with Hegel has also been helpful.  Surprisingly this engagement is primarily positive.  Hegel is an authoritative source to which Kierkegaard consistently appeals.

The method of Socrates is a thorough-going negativity.  All is clearing away, nothing is planted or established.  Kierkegaard reflects on the role of Socrates’ daimon as enabling a shift away from both state and religious control.  The daimon is not to be equated with consciousness but is a sort of necessary shift for the possibility of individuality.  Instead of state law or religious oracle there is now an internal / external authority.

Instead of the oracle, Socrates now has his daimon.  The daimonian in this case now lies in the transition from the oracle’s external relation to the individual to the complete inwardness of freedom and, as still being in this transition, is a subject for representation.  [citing Hegel] . . . “The daimon is not Socrates himself, nor his opinion, nor his conviction, but it is something unconscious; Socrates is impelled.” (163-164)

What is important for Kierkegaard is that the daimon only warns.  It, again, offers no positive content.  It remains negative.  Socrates brings nothing but silence and space, the vanishing point.  This is irony.

[Socrates’] whole position, therefore, rounds itself off in the infinite negativity that turns out to be negative in relations to both a previous and a subsequent development, although in another sense it is positive in both relations – that is, infinitely ambiguous.  Against the established order of things, substantial life of the state, his whole life was a protest. (218)

With regard to morality the good then becomes the process of becoming and not arriving.

There are clear and strong seeds and outlines here of what Kierkegaard will take up in later writings.  What interests me will be how and if he explicitly addresses his move away from Hegel and beyond Socrates (in Christ).  He seems to maintain the role of negativity.  There is high view of clearing away and creating space and yet joined to that is the possibility of the ‘leap’ which seems to allow for positivity that is not trapped in a Platonic or Hegelian idealism.  This text is far more invigorating than I expected.

I have an unusually high amount of free time this weekend so hopefully I can finish off this volume shortly.