KIERKEGAARD DEFENSE OF THE COMMON MAN -- NINE

 KIERKEGAARD DEFENSE OF THE COMMON MAN – NINE

James R. Fisher, Jr., Ph.D.

© June 13, 2012

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This concludes this nine-part series on Kierkegaard’s defense of the common man.  It came about by rereading my unpublished novel (A GREEN ISLAND IN A BLACK SEA).  It had been several years since I pulled one of his volumes down from my library shelf. 

Once I did, and started reading, I discovered how much the internal dialogue of my novel matched Kierkegaard’s existentialism.  The Danish philosopher argued moral and scientific thinking together were not enough to get to the core of human existence  

He saw the Establishment retreating from the individual and leaving in his wake synthetic constructs that he argued were a curse to the authentic individual, to the content, spirit and character of his personality.  He opposed the coterie of the cultivated (aristocracy) and the state church (Danish Protestantism) as being the main barriers to the rise of the common man.

For him, the times were seen in style and content too abstract and remote to the concrete experience and requirements of everyday man.  He lived for an idea; that by expending his consciousness, at whatever cost, he could bring himself closer to relating himself to the ideal.  For this stand, he was rebuked and humiliated by his own class as well as by the common man, being seen as eccentric, a clown, and a malcontent, when he was, in fact, introducing his contemporaries to the modern world.  . 

Devlin in the novel is Kierkegaard’s common man, an individual who has had a meteoric career from modest circumstances as student, athlete, chemist, chemical engineer, salesman, manager, and corporate executive only to run into his conscience in South Africa in 1968.  Unprepared for the concrete world he has entered, he is owned by the abstract world that he has left, something Kierkegaard wrote so eloquently about more than a hundred years before.

It is a mystery how influences work.  You read an author, highlight and make notes on the margins of the pages, then allow the information to retreat into the shadow of your mind, only to discover it is on your fingertips.  .

Kierkegaard is evident on the fingertips of Nietzsche, Camus, Sartre and Heidegger, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov.  His ideas are apparent in the American Declaration of Independence and the “liberty, equality, fraternity” of the French Revolution.  His starting point of philosophical thinking can be seen in theology, drama, art, literature and psychology.  As my writing is based on my actual experience, or reaction to my cognitive biases, it is my invitation to introduce the reader to himself.

KIERKEGAARD LEGACY OF A MAVERICK

On these pages, I have attempted to capture the essence of a man who touched the spirit of his time and my life.  He gave voice and meaning to my anger and angst.  He did it with his essays on the common man.

Cultural barriers caused him to erupt in print to bring attention to the follies of his time but they were often seen as rants and even slanderous.  . 

And so it was and will be as long as thinking, wondering man challenges the artificial systems designed to stimulate rote response, barriers to discourage self-understanding and self-regard or the possibility of attaining higher consciousness. 

Changing times require fluidity; recognition of self-ignorance and how rigidity blocks attempts to deal effectively with problems.  The status quo is protected no matter how intrusive or insidious.  Those in charge conduct business as usual with infallible authority no matter how monstrous the failures.  Idealists and new ideas are vilified.  The times are never kind to the authentic individual. 

Kiekegaard took on the coterie of the cultivated, the clergy and the state church.  He challenged the rising status of science and scholarship, as if to know deemed people superior to those that didn’t.  Christianity had retreated to pomp and circumstance, to the deification of the clergy resplendent in the robes and station of royalty, pontificating infallible doctrines and dogma, rites and rituals, teaching the common man the way to become subjective, to become a subject. 

Science learns through observation, on being objective. The scientist wants visible evidence; the church wants subjective loyalty, while neither gives attention to the inner world that dominates the common man. 

Much of Kierkegaard’s work deals with individualism giving priority to concrete reality over abstract thinking and artificial constructs (e.g., rules and regulations).  Upward mobility or class warfare were not germane to his thinking, but individual responsibility to make choices and be committed to acts that enhanced inner peace and involve personal experience, that is to say, the individual is in charge of his life. 

He saw Christianity not Christian, its clergy not honest, and the Establishment acting in opposition to the interest of the common man.  His model for Christian conduct was the “Imitation of Christ” (ca 1418) by Thomas Kempis, which was bereft of ostentation or self-aggrandizement.      

He got inside ideas in an attempt to gain self-understanding.  For example, Christianity was existential to him, that is, he identified with the consciousness of the faith that is so evident in the devotions of Thomas a’ Kempis.  Once Christianity became all about power and influence, it became an illusion for him, and diametrically opposed to what he found as its essence. 

Although Marx came after him, he would have had little trouble with the communist thinker’s declaration that religion is the opiate of the people, as it has been evolved as eye candy for the soul.  He would have opposed, however, Marx’s crowd psychology and the unfreedom of Hegel’s anthropology. 

He actually had much in common with Eastern philosophers and metaphysicians in the shared interest in awakening and enlightening man to heightened awareness.  People did not want to hear, and if they heard, did not want to do the hard work to self-discovery.  The climate and culture that the clergy promoted spiritually and academia and the commercial world advanced secularly were a hindrance to this effort. 

The complacency of the multitude astonished him.  He blamed it on these sources.  The common man was unaware that his freedom was undermined and that truth had little relevance to his actual life.  And so he ranted against the ineffective clergy and corrupt aristocracy. 

“Holy people are characterized by unfreedom and lack of inwardness.  They think by ranking as holy people they rank higher than others.”

 Pastors and officials of the state church, he declared, had nothing to do with the religious life of the common man, except as a hindrance.  It was a monstrous illusion to him.  “I am not a Christian, but I know what Christianity is.”  He expressed similar sentiments with regard to academia and those who considered themselves knowledgeable.  “I am an ignorant man,” he declares, demonstrating the influence of Socrates, another outsider, maverick and constant pain to the mainstream. 

SOCRATIC CONNECTION

Kierkegaard’s psychological approach explored the emotions and feelings of the individual when faced with life choices.  Socrates and the Socratic method influenced his thinking and approach.  Like Socrates, he repeatedly emphasized that he was without authority or special knowledge.  He was content to present the ideal and allow the individual to make free choices. 

As Plato shows in his writings, the web of reflections that went into the Socratic dialogues were in reality an attack on the status quo and the passivity of Greek citizens. 

Likewise, Kierkegaard’s actions, while indirect in form, were an attack on the power of the clergy and the authority of the Establishment that prevented higher consciousness in reaching the common man.  He sums up this sentiment, “I am neither leniency nor strictness.  I am human honesty.” 

“Socrates and the Common Man” was written as a reflection of that influence.  It started with his dissertation on Socrates for his doctorate and then continued through his short life.  He was a street person mingling with common citizens, as Socrates was wont to do.  Often he collapsed in the street from exhaustion.  One day he fell unconscious, and knew death was near.  Two months before he died (September 1, 1855), he writes:

“You (Socrates), noble, simple man of antiquity: you are the only human being I acknowledge with admiration as a thinker.  Very little has been preserved about you, who of all human beings are the only true martyr to intellect, equally great as a person of character and as a thinker.”

Socrates battled against the sophists as he did against the pastors and politicians.  Socrates challenged the thinking of his time, but did not claim that he was knowledgeable.  On the contrary, he insisted he was ignorant. 

Kierkegaard claimed a similar ignorance, and could not in good conscience call himself a Christian. 

People couldn’t dismiss Socrates or Kierkegaard because “If these men are ignorant, what are we?”  Everyone knew in their hearts they were just as ignorant as Socrates; and everyone knew in their hearts they were as little Christian as Kierkegaard.

That said citizens of Athens wanted to ignore Socrates, and go on as they were.  People of Denmark wanted to ignore Kierkegaard and busy themselves with their preferred nonsense.   Of course, it never works.  It is why such men surface periodically.

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