Revolutionary Love: Kierkegaard’s Gift Economy as a Religious Corrective to the Leveling of the Public Sphere (original) (raw)
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Volume 14: Kierkegaard's Influence on Social-Political Thought
2016
While scholars have long recognized Kierkegaard's important contributions to fields such as ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, philosophical psychology, and hermeneutics, it was usually thought that he had nothing meaningful to say about society or politics. Kierkegaard has been traditionally characterized as a Christian writer who placed supreme importance on the inward religious life of each individual believer. His radical view seemed to many to undermine any meaningful conception of the community, society or the state. In recent years, however, scholars have begun to correct this image of Kierkegaard as an apolitical thinker. The present volume attempts to document the use of Kierkegaard by later thinkers in the context of social-political thought. It shows how his ideas have been employed by very different kinds of writers and activists with very different political goals and agendas. Many of the articles show that, although Kierkegaard has been criticized for his reactionary views on some social and political questions, he has been appropriated as a source of insight and inspiration by a number of later thinkers with very progressive, indeed, visionary political views.
2020
Amongst the most serious objections to Kierkegaard's ethics in Works of Love (1847) is that it does not seek to change temporal socioeconomic or political conditions; on these matters, it is alleged, Kierkegaard's thought is apathetic. After first discussing Jamie Ferreira's widely accepted answer to this charge, this article further problematises the issue. Rather than downplaying the implications of Kierkegaard's claims, in what follows I set the vision of Works of Love's ethics against the intertextual backdrop of Kierkegaard's thought on the individual's relatedness to God, and the nature of the love which God mandates towards others. The linchpin of both these strands of thought is the figure of Jesus Christ: the selfrevelation of God and "the prototype" for humanity. The result of this, I argue, is to heighten the potentially objectionable nature of Kierkegaard's remarks. The Accusation of Otherworldliness in Works of Love The charge of otherworldliness against Kierkegaard's 1847 Works of Love (WOL) commonly centres upon a much-discussed passage at the beginning of WOL's discourse "IIIB: Love is a Matter of Conscience." In this passage, Kierkegaard points towards the economically disadvantaged within society, epitomized by his figure of a "poor, wretched charwoman," and argues that what Christianity advises is for every person (including the charwoman) not to "worry" or busy themselves [travlt] 102 MARCAR, TEMPORAL GOODS, DIVINE LOVE AND THE POVERTY OF CHRIST about changing their socioeconomic conditions so as to achieve a higher social status. The change in referent which occurs within Christianity from the temporal 1 to one's relationship to the eternal/God means that "in inwardness everything is changed," while externally all remains the same. Indeed, Kierkegaard comments 2 that although people have "foolishly busied [travlt] themselves in the name of Christianity" to show that men and women should be socially and economically equal, Christianity has never even "desired" such equality. It is on the basis of 3 these provocative comments that Kierkegaard has been read as an apathetic thinker, economically naïve at best, and a "disingenuous advocate" for the bourgeois class of his time at worst. 4 Ferreira's Defence of Kierkegaard Among the most persuasive attempts to rescue Kierkegaard from these readings is that of Jamie Ferreira. In her commentary on WOL, Ferreira argues that Kierkegaard's apparent dismissal of socioeconomic conditions is not intended to promote an attitude of apathy, but to ensure that there can be no grounds for excluding anyone from the commandment to love your neighbor. In support of this, 5
Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political
The first section of this paper argues that we can find in Kierkegaard an idea of equality, epitomized in the notion of "the neighbor" presented in Works of Love, which is highly relevant for, among other things, a critical engagement with today's "identity politics." The second section argues that Kierkegaard's idea of equality is a religious-existential task, but also a task concerning our relationship with other human beings. The third section demonstrates how this idea of equality is evinced in the notion of "the neighbor." The last section offers some reflections on how we might begin to rethink the political based on this idea of equality.
Kierkegaard from the point of view of the political
History of European ideas, 2005
This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building on previous scholarship exploring the social dimensions of Kierkegaard's thought, I argue that for Kierkegaard the modern understanding and practice of politics should be understood as 'despair'. Thus, whilst Kierkegaard's criticisms of politics might have been produced in an ad hoc fashion, this article argues that there is an underlying principle which guides these criticisms: that politics is subordinate to, and must be grounded in, spiritual or religious selfhood. In this way the modern phenomena of democracy, liberalism, the press, and the crowd can all be seen as representative of a form of community which falls far short of the potential that human beings can and should achieve. Such a community would see individuals recognising themselves and each other as spiritual beings, and taking responsibility for themselves and others. That modern politics fails to understand the human being as an essentially spiritual entity related to others through God can only lead us to conclude that, from Kierkegaard's point of view, modern politics suffers from the sickness of despair. Whilst Kierkegaard might be criticised for failing to provide us with a more detailed picture of a polity shaped by the religious contours he promotes, he clearly offers an intriguing and suggestive contribution to our understanding not only of the limitations of politics, but also the relationship between a normative human and political ontology, with the former providing the basis for the latter.
Kierkegaard and Marx: Concurrences for a More Harmonious Life
2020
These are dark days in Europe, in both developed and developing countries in the Western world. Our human condition and our survival as a species are endangered, under attack from multiples fronts (economic, political, social, moral, among others). The neo-liberalism and free trade of the last 40 years have proven to be less than effective in achieving the type of development that brings benefits, equity and sustainability to the populations that live in the region. Far from it, this development model has fostered social injustice, an unprecedented polarization of processes, growing concentrations of wealth, political and financial power in the hands of the very few, and above all, a monopolistic power wielded by a tiny elite over a wide range of activities that affect the fate of millions of human beings. We believe that a review of the ideas and the cross pollination that connects the thinkers that have inspired this year’s conference-- Soren Kierkegaard and Karl Marx—can serve to...
2015
Most people in the present are convinced that liberal capitalist democracy embodies the best socio-economic system and human political governance available. While this may be the case, for this socio-political system to function well there needs to exist a robust culture where certain values and normative concepts originate and are sustained. S. Kierkegaard helps us understand that human person‘s dignity is inalienable and indisputable, for in their necessary albeit often unrecognized relatedness to God, human selves have a transcendent source and eternal destiny. This article explores Kierkegaard‘s later work The Sickness unto Death (1849), arguing that his relational understanding of a human (authentic) self can serve as an antidote to the malign processes that threaten current liberal democracies. Kierkegaard‘s authentic individual, actualizing his potential in an intentional participation in voluntary associations, can help cultivate the kind of normative culture needed to susta...
This paper explores Kierkegaard as a theorist of revolution. Two Ages (1846) ends with a manifesto for 'unrecognizable revolutionaries' to subvert the media public. Kierkegaard attacks an essential characteristic of the media public, leveling, which represents a distraction from passionate ethical subjectivity and a sedative for revolutionary political action. Social revolution, however, remains an eschatological hope. Nonetheless, Kierkegaard provides a critical theory to defend the individual subject from the modern age's hyperextension of rationalism. In many ways, Kierkegaard anticipates the pessimistic Frankfurt School critical theorists who, a century later, criticized the total reach of instrumental reason through the public sphere. Does this permit us to reread the outwardly conservative Dane in the tradition of critical theory? In what sense is revolution desirable for Kierkegaard? This essay explores what it means for Kierkegaard to call for a revolutionary response to the world in the mass media age.
Rethinking the Role of Kierkegaard's 'Authentic Individual' in Liberal Captialist Democracies Today
Most people in the present are convinced that liberal capitalist democracy embodies the best socio-economic system and human political governance available. While this may be the case, for this socio-political system to function well there needs to exist a robust culture where certain values and normative concepts originate and are sustained. S. Kierkegaard helps us understand that human person‘s dignity is inalienable and indisputable, for in their necessary albeit often unrecognized relatedness to God, human selves have a transcendent source and eternal destiny. This article explores Kierkegaard‘s later work The Sickness unto Death (1849), arguing that his relational understanding of a human (authentic) self can serve as an antidote to the malign processes that threaten current liberal democracies. Kierkegaard‘s authentic individual, actualizing his potential in an intentional participation in voluntary associations, can help cultivate the kind of normative culture needed to sustain a liberal capitalist democracy on its course between fascism and communism.