Article Summary - PHPC 110 – Existentialism/Phenomenology/Hermeneutics
FROM THE PRESENT AGE
Soren Kierkegaard points out that the present age is fundamentally a reflective and passionless age where sudden bursts of enthusiasm that quickly relapses into repose may be experienced. The present age is characterized by tremendous care and deliberation but with lack of action. He gives us an example where the thought of taking one’s own life and not the act itself is what takes one’s life. People are stuck with the attempt to reach a judgment and therefore, no action is done. He goes on to make an analogy of the present generation is just like one who has only fallen asleep towards morning: dreams come first, then one feels lazy; and ultimately finds an excuse to stay in bed. Additionally, he also describes the present age as the age of advertisement and publicity; it is not a revolutionary age for it is not an age of action. The only thing that happens is publicity.
The reflective tension of this age eventually becomes a principle and envy is what unifies it. Selfishness is inculcated in the individual, and this results to selfishness of the society. Ultimately, this principle becomes a moral ressentiment if it is not aired into action. As ressentiment establishes itself, it becomes the process of leveling – a quiet, mathematical, and abstract occupation that suppresses all action. In this process, we find a phantom or an all-embracing principle which is actually just nothing; this is the public. The public is the most dangerous of all powers – one could address it which is believed to be everyone, but honestly it is less than a single person. It is just a gruesome abstraction that fools people and transforms them into something “greater than a king above his people”.
FROM THE JOURNALS
Kierkegaard points out the we waste the freedom we have like our freedom of thought where instead we demand for freedom of speech. He reminds us about two propositions about life: that it must both be understood backwards and loved forwards. Considering the two, we realize that life can never truly be understood in time. There is no definite moment where one can find the necessary resting place from which to understand it.
He also argues that system-builders build enormous systems but they do not live in their own creation: “Spiritually thinking one’s thoughts must be the building in which one lives – otherwise everything is upside down.” Kierkegaard also confesses that he lacks clarity on what he is to do and not on what he is to know. He searches for the truth/the idea that he can live and die for. He asks about what goodness would doing something with no deeper significance for him brings. He simply says that understanding must be applied or put into action in one’s life.