I still love Kierkegaard
aeon.co
I still love Kierkegaard
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Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#2Reading Kierkegaard was one of the low points of my philosophy studies. K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. Every few hundred pages there might be a small gem, but for me it was not anywhere near worth digging through all the refuse for.
As far as proto-existentialists go, give me Leopardi over Kierkegaard any day.
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#3Reading Kierkegaard was one of the low points of my philosophy studies. K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. Every few hundred pages there might be a small gem, but for me it was not anywhere near worth digging through all the refuse for. As far as proto-existentialists go, give me Leopardi over Kierkegaard any day.
> K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way.
When he chose to, it was on purpose. He was wholly capable of writing clearly. Nesting levels of meta-text, intentionally adopting a different authorial voice as a metatextual gambit, etc. were all pretty new things when he was alive.
They're trite or annoying now, but it's still important to know that he wasn't just being a whiny prat. They're signs that maybe you should or should not take this or that particular penname totally seriously. ('johannes silentio' was super prolix, etc. )
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#4> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all morality and reason. No reasonable man would have done what Abraham did. (...) So when Abraham took his leap of faith, he took leave of reason and morality.
I don't know if Kierkegaard actually said any of this, but it's wrong. Child sacrifice is as old as time. Many myths or actual rituals involved killing one's own children. It's found in most ancient cultures from the Middle East to the Americas.
It was therefore not "irrational" to do so, but, rather, quite reasonable and normal (if horrible), esp. in dire times.
The innovation found in some books of the Bible was just the opposite: to declare that child sacrifice is in fact bad and should be avoided.
And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again).
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#5> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all moral…
Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#6> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all moral…
Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.
and meanwhile, anything related to Moloch, It-Who-Feeds-On-Children, is 10000% bad and should be destroyed on sight.
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#7"Don't be a little Soren"
-- Old professor of mine.
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#8Whenever I see Kierkegaard referenced, I can't help but think of Michael Swaine's comments (1998) on how it influenced Stroustrup as he developed C++:
> Is modesty a virtue in a programming language? Stroustrup thinks so. Invisibility, even. "If you know what language you are using," he says, "there is something wrong. You shouldn't be able to tell." The "you" in this case is the user, I guess. Even Bjarne isn't modest enough to suggest that the programmer shouldn't be able to tell the difference between C++ and Java. But he may be mystical enough. Red Herring notes that Stroustrup's thinking was heavily influenced by the Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard. Gosling, as we know, was influenced by an oak tree growing outside his window.
http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/biblio/ddj/Web...
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#9> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all moral…
> And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again).
The twist is more complex than that: it is God sacrificing his own Son, which is also Him, in place of all sacrifices. God becomes the scapegoat.
Rene Girard talks about this idea in this interview:
Re: I still love Kierkegaard
#10Fear and Trembling reads like the fan of an aging rock band trying to convince a bored listener that the comeback album really is as good as the old material if they just listen to it enough times.
I cannot imagine being impressed by the contorted peregrinations of its attempt at gaslighting.