Present Age

he's so right

In this review I would like to consider the second essay collected in this edition -'On the Difference between the Genius and the Apostle'- which is too often overlooked by readers. Kierkegaard begins this meditation by denouncing the tendency of nineteenth century Christians to assume (even hope that) the Apostles were 'geniuses'. But according to Kierkegaard "St. Paul cannot be compared with either Plato or Shakespeare, as a coiner of beautiful similes he comes pretty low down on the scale, as a stylist his name is quite obscure..." So, why read the Apostle Paul? "Genius is what it is of itself, i.e. through that which it is in itself; an Apostle is what he is by his divine authority..." The Apostle represents an Eternal Paradox, the Word made flesh, while the genius may initially be paradoxical "but ultimately the race will assimilate what was once a paradox in such a way that it is no longer paradoxical." Thus the mere 'genius' St. Paul becomes, like the 'mere' genius of Plato, another name one surveys in a 'History of Western Thought' college course. But an "Apostle is not born; an Apostle is a man called and appointed by God, receiving a mission from him." And what of the Apostle's message? "The new which he may have to bring forth is the essential paradox. However long it may be proclaimed in the world it remains essentially and equally new, equally paradoxical, and no immanence can assimilate it." Kierkegaard is here maintaining that while the Hegelian dialectic may assimilate every other; it cannot assimilate the Eternal Other of God's Word - "for the essential paradox is the protest against immanence." And genius, or so Kierkegaard maintains, is merely the finest flower of imminence. "Divine authority is, qualitatively, the decisive factor." Thus ultimately the Apostle appeals to Authority while the genius can only has resort to his all-to-human reason and rhetoric. Kierkegaard rightly sees this attempt to assimilate the category 'genius' to the category 'Apostle' as a consequence of modern skepticism about God and authority. But as a consequence of this assimilation the Apostle is "an examinee who appears on the market with a new teaching." And once this teaching is assimilated "there would cease to be any difference between the teacher and the learner." Of course, this is the ideal of Enlightenment; knowledge spread through the world equalizes everyone. To these "impertinent people who will not obey, but want to reason" Kierkegaard says that, "Authority is, on the contrary, something which remains unchanged, which one cannot acquire even by understanding the doctrine perfectly." Divine Authority can never be subsumed in any dialectic because "if authority is not 'the other', if it is in any sense merely a higher potency within the identity, then there is no such thing as authority." In fact, "between man and man qua man, then, no established or continuous authority was conceivable..." Kierkegaard is indicating that either we submit

.Soren Kierkegaard was a contemporary and unique thinker. In "The Present Age" one finds many thoughts that are both subsequently echoed in parallel thoughts and/or have directly influenced other great thinkers. For instance Kierkegaard speaks of the danger of loosing individuality to the abstract form of public opinion. Many of his thoughts can be found in later writings of Alex de Tocqueville, Nietzsche and Heidegger. In Kierkegaard's case, true individualism is based on the Christian religion (apart from Christendom). Written over almost two hundred years ago and yet so contemporary are Kierkegaard's words to our present age of nihilism and rule of public opinion.On Nihilism and relativism, Kierkegaard writes:"A passionate tumultuous age will overthrow everything, pull everything down; but a revolutionary age, that is at the same time reflective and passionless, transforms that expression of strength into a feat of dialectics; it leaves everything standing but cunningly empties it of significance. Instead of culminating in a rebellion it reduces the inward reality of all relationships to a reflective tension which leaves everything standing but makes the whole of life ambiguous; so that everything continues to exist factually whilst by a dialectical deceit, privatissime, it supplies a secret interpretation - that it does not exist: p. 42On individualism and public opinion, Kierkegaard writes:"The abstract principle of leveling . . has no personal relation to any individual but has only an abstract relationship which is the same for every one. There, no hero suffers for others, or helps them; the taskmaster of all alike is the leveling and himself becomes greatest does not become an outstanding man or a hero - that would only impede the leveling process, which is rigidly consistent to the end - he himself prevents that from happening because he has understood the meaning of leveling; he becomes a man and nothing else, in the complete equalitarian sense. That is the idea of religion. But, under those conditions, the equalitarian order is sever and the profit is seemingly very small; seemingly, for unless the individual learns in the reality of religion and before God to be content with himself, and learns, instead of dominating others, to dominate himself, content as priest to be his own audience, and as author his own reader, if he will not learn to be satisfied with that as the highest, because it is the expression of the equality of all men before God and of our likeness to others, then he will not escape from reflection. " p.57"The public is a concept which could not have occurred in antiquity because the people en masse, in corpore, took part in any situation which arose, and were responsible for the actions of the individual, and, moreover, the individual was personally present and had to submit at once to applause or disapproval for his decision. Only when the sense of association in society is no longer strong enough to give life to con

Written over 150 years ago, it remarkably seems to describe our age, for example "A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere". And those in government may appreciate "In the end a whole age becomes a committee". Perhaps the Internet is both a great leveler that Kierkegaard warned of, but also a perpetrator of the anonymous. I think Kierkegaard might laugh at some of the pseudonyms floating around the net, far less creative than his many including Johannes Climacus. Perhaps this anonymous net means no risk, but we need to "Come on, leap cheerfully, even if it means a light-hearted leap, so long as it is decisive". This book provides a good, short intro to Kierkegaard, and the humor keeps this moving without masking the personal challenges.

This version of "The Present Age" also includes "On the Difference Between a Genius and an Apostle." These two treatises are two of the most intelligible and actually enjoyable of Kierkegaard's works. "The Present Age" is remarkable because, although it was written in the Nineteenth Century, it has a great deal to say about modern society. Kierkegaard's central thesis is that the modern age (that is It is important to understand, however, that K. does not mean passion as defined by the mob mentality, hate or lust. This is what Marcel, a later Existentialist, meant by "passion." Rather, he is refering to a powerful sense of inward spirituality.Kierkegaard was a Christian (despite what philosophy professors might tell you) and the second essay in this volume is, essentially, a theological treatise on apostolic and divine authority. K. argues that Christianity is at its core an authoritatian religion. Authoritarian, that is, in the sense that the word and teachings of God have ultimate authority over man and human institutions.This book isn't a bad place to start if one wants to read a bit of Kierkegaard. The two essays are really pretty easy to read and will surprise you with how appropriate they are to the modern and even post-modern era.