Getting back to another set of Kierkegaard’s discourses.
…For in eternity thou shalt not be asked how great are the possessions thou art leaving behind thee–this question is for those who survive thee to ask! – or how many battles thou hast won, how wise thou wast, how powerful thine influence–this will be thy fame in time to come! Nay, eternity shall not ask about what of the world remains behind thee in the world. But it shall ask what treasure thou hast stored up in heaven; how often thou hast overcome thine own soul, what self-mastery thou hast achieved, or whether thou hast been in bondage; how often thou hast in self-denial been thine own master, or if thou hast never been so; how often thou hast in self-denial been willing to make an offering to a good cause, or if thou hast never been so willing; how often thou hast in self-denial forgiven thine enemy, whether seven times or seventy times seven; how often thou hast in self-denial borne patiently humiliations; and what thou hast suffered, not for thine own sake, not for the sake of thy selfish purposes, but what thou hast in self-denial suffered for the sake of God.
[bolding mine]
from: Kierkegaard, Søren. The Gospel of Our Sufferings" Christian Discourses being the third part of “Edifying Discourses in a Different Vein”, published in 1847 at Copenhagen. Translated by Aldsworth and Ferrie, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 1964, pp. 19-20.
As we continue to watch the Culture Wars continue to ramp up (at least in the U.S. and particularly as the next big election looms, etc, etc -- as if it were even possible) this bit seems particularly apropos. So-called “Christian” nationalism runs rampant. Self-assertion is regularly, consistently confused with self-denial.
Getting back to another set of Kierkegaard’s discourses.
…For in eternity thou shalt not be asked how great are the possessions thou art leaving behind thee–this question is for those who survive thee to ask! – or how many battles thou hast won, how wise thou wast, how powerful thine influence–this will be thy fame in time to come! Nay, eternity shall not ask about what of the world remains behind thee in the world. But it shall ask what treasure thou hast stored up in heaven; how often thou hast overcome thine own soul, what self-mastery thou hast achieved, or whether thou hast been in bondage; how often thou hast in self-denial been thine own master, or if thou hast never been so; how often thou hast in self-denial been willing to make an offering to a good cause, or if thou hast never been so willing; how often thou hast in self-denial forgiven thine enemy, whether seven times or seventy times seven; how often thou hast in self-denial borne patiently humiliations; and what thou hast suffered, not for thine own sake, not for the sake of thy selfish purposes, but what thou hast in self-denial suffered for the sake of God.
[bolding mine]
from: Kierkegaard, Søren. The Gospel of Our Sufferings" Christian Discourses being the third part of “Edifying Discourses in a Different Vein”, published in 1847 at Copenhagen. Translated by Aldsworth and Ferrie, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 1964, pp. 19-20.
As we continue to watch the Culture Wars continue to ramp up (at least in the U.S. and particularly as the next big election looms, etc, etc -- as if it were even possible) this bit seems particularly apropos. So-called “Christian” nationalism runs rampant. Self-assertion is regularly, consistently confused with self-denial.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
I'd leave infinity out of it, infinitarian that I am. If the transcendent is real, it won't matter a rat's what we did. It matters now. Only now. Not that we suffer. But that we lift the burden of suffering. Including on ourselves. Last and first.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
To be clear, there are as many sides as individuals' interests. However, "Christian" Nationalism asserts itself for itself. Self-denial is not part of the plan, but a continuous grasping for greater power and therefore the ability to maintain it.
Many Christians who deny their own interests for the sake of others, sometimes even in the interest of broadening access to power, become labeled as "progressive" for having done so.
I'd leave infinity out of it, infinitarian that I am. If the transcendent is real, it won't matter a rat's what we did. It matters now. Only now. Not that we suffer. But that we lift the burden of suffering. Including on ourselves. Last and first.
I'm happy to work with an Infinitarian, who sees no need to consider the transcendent, but sees the value of self-denial for the benefit of others right now; right here. Unlike Kierkegaard, I think my responsibilities matter positively and negatively as well as now and later.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
The corporeal works of mercy, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, giving the homeless shelter, and so on, aren't storing up treasure in the world. At least some of the progressive impulse is the desire that the the hungry be fed and the homeless sheltered.
(When I give the poor food they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist - Archbishop Helder Camara.)
I can't speak for what motivates Christian nationalists but it doesn't often appear like a desire to feed the hungry and give the homeless shelter.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
To be clear, there are as many sides as individuals' interests. However, "Christian" Nationalism asserts itself for itself. Self-denial is not part of the plan, but a continuous grasping for greater power and therefore the ability to maintain it.
Many Christians who deny their own interests for the sake of others, sometimes even in the interest of broadening access to power, become labeled as "progressive" for having done so.
I'd leave infinity out of it, infinitarian that I am. If the transcendent is real, it won't matter a rat's what we did. It matters now. Only now. Not that we suffer. But that we lift the burden of suffering. Including on ourselves. Last and first.
I'm happy to work with an Infinitarian, who sees no need to consider the transcendent, but sees the value of self-denial for the benefit of others right now; right here. Unlike Kierkegaard, I think my responsibilities matter positively and negatively as well as now and later.
If there's transcendence, they can't matter at all. They only can in this life. I don't see being generous, in every way, to those I love as self denial. Whatever I want, I must give. And no I'm not going to impoverish myself for the un-helpable poor. What's the point? I've had a drunk ask me for my wedding ring. He didn't get it. Tho' they do have a way of drawing you in... The helpable poor are far rarer. Or far more difficult to know. I don't understand self-denial? How it applies? To me. You. It's like when I pick up litter to and from work and people thank me and say aren't I good, toot their horns, a young Muslim lad shook me by the hand. I do it because I like to be on a clean street.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
To be clear, there are as many sides as individuals' interests. However, "Christian" Nationalism asserts itself for itself. Self-denial is not part of the plan, but a continuous grasping for greater power and therefore the ability to maintain it.
Many Christians who deny their own interests for the sake of others, sometimes even in the interest of broadening access to power, become labeled as "progressive" for having done so.
I'd leave infinity out of it, infinitarian that I am. If the transcendent is real, it won't matter a rat's what we did. It matters now. Only now. Not that we suffer. But that we lift the burden of suffering. Including on ourselves. Last and first.
I'm happy to work with an Infinitarian, who sees no need to consider the transcendent, but sees the value of self-denial for the benefit of others right now; right here. Unlike Kierkegaard, I think my responsibilities matter positively and negatively as well as now and later.
If there's transcendence, they can't matter at all. They only can in this life. I don't see being generous, in every way, to those I love as self denial. Whatever I want, I must give. And no I'm not going to impoverish myself for the un-helpable poor. What's the point? I've had a drunk ask me for my wedding ring. He didn't get it. Tho' they do have a way of drawing you in... The helpable poor are far rarer. Or far more difficult to know. I don't understand self-denial? How it applies? To me. You. It's like when I pick up litter to and from work and people thank me and say aren't I good, toot their horns, a young Muslim lad shook me by the hand. I do it because I like to be on a clean street.
1) Are our varying concepts of transcendence relevant in our version of this discussion, whatever Kierkegaard thought?
2) Is there a rule that says we cannot benefit from the outcome of self-denial? For example, is the "moral goodness" (use whatever term you prefer) cancelled out, if parents save the money they might have spent on culturally cultish extras or comforts in order to send their young people to additional schooling, and are subsequently assisted financially or situationally by their young people who now have stable work and life-styles?
3) Is giving my time and money and skills for the sake of something I value, such as a better education or free access to information or justice or social justice or a fairer chance in life not self-denial, even though I want those things, too? There are a great many more enjoyable ways I could spend my time, money and skills.
4) Does self-denial only count when it's aimed at a lost cause?
5) I don't know the Muslim lad. Maybe he has a lot of responsibilities. Maybe his parents work very hard and are tired. They, too, want to live on a clean street but don't have the time or energy to do this. Maybe they are simply grateful for your willingness to give your time and energy in ways they can't but that benefit them as well. Good for all of you. (He might also see you as a good neighbor, whom he likes and respects.)
I don't understand self-denial? How it applies? To me. You.
I can read these questions a few different ways. They have quite different tones and meanings.
Are you saying that you don't understand self-denial and how it applies to us?
Or you indicating I am attacking you saying that you don't understand self denial or how it applies?
If you seek Kierkegaard's definition, closest thing you will find in this discourse to is in typical Kierkegaardian fashion: "self-denial is nothing else but the dep inward spirit of denying oneself" (p. 18).
Finally (for now), Kierkegaard's discourse that I quoted is about following Christ and discusses self-denial in that context. It was something Christ did, so if we wish to follow him, we must as well. And some of the things that one denies oneself are things that would distract one from following or loving Christ. If Kierkegaard's concern about following Christ is irrelevant, there are still good reasons people practice various forms of self-denial anyway. As you have indicated.
Sorry @Kendel. I don't feel attacked by you in the slightest. Apart from course correction back to Kierkegaard. And you're more than welcome to Purgatorially.
All self-denial is enlightened self-interest as far as I'm concerned. Doing the right thing instead of partying, or bird spotting, is its own reward. Kierkegaard was a whack job.
Sorry @Kendel. I don't feel attacked by you in the slightest. Apart from course correction back to Kierkegaard. And you're more than welcome to Purgatorially.
All self-denial is enlightened self-interest as far as I'm concerned. Doing the right thing instead of partying, or bird spotting, is its own reward. Kierkegaard was a whack job.
No need for sorrow, @Martin54 . The course through Kierkegaard had not changed for me, and there is still a long way to go on it. Following this course, though, is no attack on anyone, nor is the way I go about it. Doing my own thing has always had purgatorial aspects to it, publicly, privately, personally.
I understand your view of self-denial. Sometimes doing the right thing, though, is horribly costly to an individual, who could have remained comfortable and silent. She may suffer with a clear conscience, but will also be plagued with doubt an constantly with fear. The reward can very easily be overshadowed by the suffering.
Sorry @Kendel. I don't feel attacked by you in the slightest. Apart from course correction back to Kierkegaard. And you're more than welcome to Purgatorially.
All self-denial is enlightened self-interest as far as I'm concerned. Doing the right thing instead of partying, or bird spotting, is its own reward. Kierkegaard was a whack job.
No need for sorrow, @Martin54 . The course through Kierkegaard had not changed for me, and there is still a long way to go on it. Following this course, though, is no attack on anyone, nor is the way I go about it. Doing my own thing has always had purgatorial aspects to it, publicly, privately, personally.
I understand your view of self-denial. Sometimes doing the right thing, though, is horribly costly to an individual, who could have remained comfortable and silent. She may suffer with a clear conscience, but will also be plagued with doubt an constantly with fear. The reward can very easily be overshadowed by the suffering.
Why do you say that Kierkegaard was a whack job?
The cost of a repressed conscience can even higher. But admittedly we're very good at grooming ourselves. And yes, no truly good deed will go unpunished.
WhacK: "self-denial is nothing else but the deep inward spirit of denying oneself". I've no idea what that looks like. I've never seen it. How would he know? Elevating his self-isolation, alienation from others, his being right at the cost of happiness?
The cost of a repressed conscience can even higher. But admittedly we're very good at grooming ourselves. And yes, no truly good deed will go unpunished.
WhacK: "self-denial is nothing else but the deep inward spirit of denying oneself". I've no idea what that looks like. I've never seen it. How would he know? Elevating his self-isolation, alienation from others, his being right at the cost of happiness?
I don't know enough about him to evaluate whether he repressed his conscience. I'm not interested in charicatures or stereotypes; we know less for them. I think SK was doing what most of us do - the best he could with what he had to work with. Whether he was right or wrong, he followed his conscience with a passion that would shame most of us.
SK grooming himself? How? For/to what?
...self-denial is nothing else but a deep inward spirit of denying oneself.
Of course it's open-ended; the application is subjective. He is describing an attitude of self-denial that one must evaluate for oneself, not a legalistic prescription for behavior. Nor is he setting himself up as a model. The entire discourse focuses on following Christ, and he provides a number of specific ways in which Christ practiced and therefore demostrated self-denial.
I ran across this quote elsewhere. It's from SK's Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses.
As he wrote it to be read on New Year's Day, I share it here and now.
THE EXPECTANCY OF FAITH NEW YEAR’S DAY
PRAYER
Once again a year has passed, heavenly Father! We thank you that it was added to the time of grace and that we are not terrified by its also being added to the time of accounting, because we trust in your mercy. The new year faces us with its requirements, and even though we enter it downcast and troubled because we cannot and do not wish to hide from ourselves the thought of the lust of the eye that infatuated, the sweetness of revenge that seduced, the anger that made us unrelenting, the cold heart that fled far from you, we nevertheless do not go into the new year entirely empty-handed, since we shall indeed also take along with us recollections of the fearful doubts that were set at rest, of the lurking concerns that were soothed, of the downcast disposition that was raised up, of the cheerful hope that was not humiliated. Yes, when in mournful moments we want to strengthen and encourage our minds by contemplating those great men, your chosen instruments, who in severe spiritual trials and anxieties of heart kept their minds free, their courage uncrushed, and heaven open, we, too, wish to add our witness to theirs in the assurance that even if our courage compared with theirs is only discouragement, our power powerlessness, you, however, are still the same, the same mighty God who tests spirits in conflict, the same Father without whose will not one sparrow falls to the ground.
Yes, a very interesting prayer, @Kendel. Do you know what year he wrote it? I would like to see what was happening around that time that he might be referring to.
Yes, a very interesting prayer, @Kendel. Do you know what year he wrote it? I would like to see what was happening around that time that he might be referring to.
If you're interested you might be able to view this copy that's in Internet Archive. The Hongs' editions always have good prefaces that might answer your questions.
I've actually enjoyed reading some of his discourses (sermons, really). In his "upbuilding" or "edifying" pieces, his demeanor toward his reader exceptionally personable. In his pseudonymous pieces like Fear and Trembling, his character as narrator can be downright wacky.
Which is always a method for getting his point across.
Resonating with your last sentence, I can tell you what my answer would be!
; ) I might just be able to guess.
But don't hold back. Really.
@Martin54, Kierkegaard, even at his most reassuring, reminds me of a friend, who I believe, lives his life with his eyes wide open, confronting every thought, no matter how disturbing. I think SK regularly had tea with his demons, one of which was despair:
The self he wills in despair to be is a self he is not (for to will to be the self he truly is, is of course precisely the opposite of despair); he in fact wants to wrest his self away from the power that established it. But despite all his despair, this is something he is unable to do; despite all despair’s efforts, that power is stronger, and it compels him to be the self he does not want to be. But, nonetheless, this is indeed how he wants to be rid of himself, rid of the self he is, in order to be the self he himself has come up with. To be a self in the way he wants (even though, in another sense, that would be just as despairing) would be his greatest delight, but to be compelled to be a self in a way he does not want to be, that is his agony: that he cannot be rid of himself.
Socrates proved the immortality of the soul from the fact that the sickness of the soul (sin) does not consume it as sickness of the body consumes the body. 8 In this way, one can also prove the presence of the eternal in a human being from the fact that despair cannot consume his self, that this is precisely what constitutes the agony of contradiction in despair. Were there nothing eternal in a human being, he would be absolutely unable to despair, but were despair capable of consuming his self, despair would not have been present in any case.
This, then, is what despair is: a sickness in the self, the sickness unto death. The despairing person is mortally ill. In an entirely different sense than with any sickness, the sickness unto death has attacked the noblest parts, and yet he cannot die. Death is not the end of this sickness, but death is incessantly the end. It is impossible to be rescued from this sickness by death, for the sickness, and its agony—and the death—consist precisely in being unable to die.
This is the state of being in despair. However much it escapes the notice of the despairing person, however much the despairing person succeeds in having entirely lost his self (this must apply especially to the sort of despair that consists of ignorance of being in despair), and has lost it in such a manner that it is not noticed in the least way: eternity will nonetheless make it manifest that his condition was despair, and it will nail him fast to his self, so that the agony nonetheless continues to be that he cannot be rid of his self, #[137]# and it becomes manifest that he was deluded when he believed that he had succeeded in doing so. And eternity must do this, because to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest, the infinite, concession that has been granted a human being, but is also eternity’s requirement of him.
SK. Sickness Unto Death. Bruce Kirmmse, trans. p. 27.
Whether one frames it in Christian terms as SK does here, or not, he was taking on matters - matters he dealt with himself - that one just doesn't talk about. Particularly in a smallish town with a small readership, where everyone knew him personally! He wrote significant works on despair, dread, and anxiety. And, wait! There's more! (which I won't list here)
He's a character to say the least. I'm still trying to understand him a bit for my own purposes. Whatever I eventually get out of my study will be (already is) valuable to me, if for no other reason, than I actually read significant parts of his work, learned to understand it, learned to judge it for myself, did the background work to make the connections I need to understand better, am able to understand other people's claims about him and his work and evaluate those for myself as well.
Sometimes one just wants to know. And I do.
Have at 'im, though. He won't mind. I won't either.
'e were nowt special, apart from identifying existentialism without name. 'e were a naturally anxious (generalizedly fearful), despairing=hopeless person. I wonder what his sex life was like? And he futilely tried to transcend that with God to 'authentic' (future Jungian) individuation by 'faith' (to which, futurely, Sartre (and Frankl) says leap to faith in yourself). Angst arises (futurely) Freudianly from the conflict of desire and ethics, which it does until we realise, with the hormonal intensity and mental development of adolescence, that we're going to die, which blasts it out of orbit.
None of which addresses the prayer directly. Apart from its projection of Sartrean self definition.
He was squarely in his time. I don't know that he transcended it all. His work is soundly, Germanically Romantic. I think much of his life was as well.
He really wasn't poor, and I have no reason yet to believe that he was a bugger. I may learn more eventually. I have run across a rumor about him that he spent time with prostitutes, but anyone can say anything. I haven't had a chance to follow up on that to see if there's any substance to it.
You're right about his psychological baggage. His father was horribly, psychologically abusive. It left both brothers scarred, but especially Søren. And it shows. He lived at a time, though, where little useful was known about psychology. Alcohol and opiates were common choices of the self-medicating. And further abuse, particularly of women and children. Romantics also relied on suicide, almost as an art form.
SK relied on the God of his faith and philosophy. And working things out in writing, mostly all night.
He didn't have the foresight to have the hindsight available to us now.
@Kendel. Sorry, 'poor bugger' is a Briticism for pity. I feel sorry for him. But I recall that he died in relative poverty, even at 42?
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
@Kendel. Sorry, 'poor bugger' is a Briticism for pity. I feel sorry for him. But I recall that he died in relative poverty, even at 42?
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
As Michael Keaton said, "There's a double meaning in that." Considering the context, I took both.
SK was running out of money by his death, but he had lived independently and comfortably, although fairly modestly for one of his class. His father raised himself from the peasant class to a man of great enough wealth to leave Søren and his brother substantial legacies. SK's greatest non-essential costs were his secretary and the publication of his books.
His personal library, which was cataloged for auction at his death had to have cost a pretty penny as well. Over 2000 volumes at a time when books were very expensive.
Goethe really formed a bridge between Classicism and Romanticism. This is also clear in his personal scientific explorations.
German Romanticism bloomed later, started with English Romanticism and cubed it at least. Those who came later It is nearly bombastic in comparison. Wagner certainly was. The Germanic brand is all over Kierkegaard's work that I have read.
And yet it is very different. His aims seem different from the Romantics I've read, although none of them, as far as I remember, were working with theology, philosophy and ethics. There may have been plenty, but they weren't part of my lit or (secular) culture studies.
Not sure Nietzsche relied on SK for anything. Or needed to.
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
This gave me a laugh. "Chatterton comes first to mind"? Really? Why? Have you read a lot of Chatterton?
Shelley is counter-Enlightenment? Really?
Goethe really formed a bridge between Classicism and Romanticism. This is also clear in his personal scientific explorations.
Goethe started out as a proto-Romantic, went through a phase in which he tried to become more classical, and ended up as what I suppose we'd have to call Romantic for want of a better term. He himself I believe disavowed the term Romanticism - I believe he saw it as stemming from a phase he'd grown out of.
German Romanticism bloomed later, started with English Romanticism and cubed it at least. Those who came later It is nearly bombastic in comparison. Wagner certainly was. The Germanic brand is all over Kierkegaard's work that I have read.
I'd have said German Romanticism was at least as early as English Romanticism. It depends on how you classify various proto-Romantic authors in each country, but to me early Goethe looks more like Romanticism proper than Sterne or Burns (though he's Scottish) or the various middling English poets like Cowper. Coleridge and Wordsworth are about contemporary with Holderlin.
Blake is a bit earlier than Wordsworth or Coleridge, and uncategorisable.
And yet it is very different. His aims seem different from the Romantics I've read, although none of them, as far as I remember, were working with theology, philosophy and ethics. There may have been plenty, but they weren't part of my lit or (secular) culture studies.
I believe Schleiermacher is usually cited as the exemplar of Romantic theology.
German Romanticism really exists in a complicated relationship to Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Kant and Hegel at least are on the surface rationalistic and unromantic. (Fichte I haven't read at all. Not that I've read a lot of Hegel.) And yet most of the leading figures of German Romanticism were I gather friends with Hegel.
Not sure Nietzsche relied on SK for anything. Or needed to.
I don't know that Nietzsche ever read Kierkegaard. I think he'd have had a love/hate relationship if he had.
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
This gave me a laugh. "Chatterton comes first to mind"? Really? Why? Have you read a lot of Chatterton?
Shelley is counter-Enlightenment? Really?
Didn't Chatterton's style influence the English Romantics? And one can be a Romantic poet and not Counter-Enlightenment certainly, the all was... superficial.
@Kendel. Sorry, 'poor bugger' is a Briticism for pity. I feel sorry for him. But I recall that he died in relative poverty, even at 42?
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
As Michael Keaton said, "There's a double meaning in that." Considering the context, I took both.
SK was running out of money by his death, but he had lived independently and comfortably, although fairly modestly for one of his class. His father raised himself from the peasant class to a man of great enough wealth to leave Søren and his brother substantial legacies. SK's greatest non-essential costs were his secretary and the publication of his books.
His personal library, which was cataloged for auction at his death had to have cost a pretty penny as well. Over 2000 volumes at a time when books were very expensive.
Goethe really formed a bridge between Classicism and Romanticism. This is also clear in his personal scientific explorations.
German Romanticism bloomed later, started with English Romanticism and cubed it at least. Those who came later It is nearly bombastic in comparison. Wagner certainly was. The Germanic brand is all over Kierkegaard's work that I have read.
And yet it is very different. His aims seem different from the Romantics I've read, although none of them, as far as I remember, were working with theology, philosophy and ethics. There may have been plenty, but they weren't part of my lit or (secular) culture studies.
Not sure Nietzsche relied on SK for anything. Or needed to.
Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect.
What would have made his epitomization of German Romanticism of greater effect, do you think?
He'd have had to back up from the cul-de-sac of faith for a start. But he'd have had nowhere to go. Just stick with the Left/Young Hegelians. And move to England.
"Chatterton comes first to mind"? Really? Why? Have you read a lot of Chatterton?
Didn't Chatterton's style influence the English Romantics?
I haven't read Chatterton, other than to skim a couple of poems I found on the web. With that in mind: Chatterton was an imitator of Spenser, writing in what he thought was medieval English; his most famous poems are fakes he attributed to "Thomas Rowley". He's better known for having killed himself when he was nineteen.
Most of the major English Romantics name checked Chatterton in their poems but I think he was more important to them because he committed suicide while young than because they admired his poetry as such. None of them wrote in mock medieval English.
"Chatterton comes first to mind"? Really? Why? Have you read a lot of Chatterton?
Didn't Chatterton's style influence the English Romantics?
I haven't read Chatterton, other than to skim a couple of poems I found on the web. With that in mind: Chatterton was an imitator of Spenser, writing in what he thought was medieval English; his most famous poems are fakes he attributed to "Thomas Rowley". He's better known for having killed himself when he was nineteen.
Most of the major English Romantics name checked Chatterton in their poems but I think he was more important to them because he committed suicide while young than because they admired his poetry as such. None of them wrote in mock medieval English.
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here.
I learned of Chatterton today. Poor kid.
Do you mention him noting a particular association with or similarity to Kierkegaard, or for some othe reason?
I wouldn't say "Counter-Enlightenment. Maybe "without reference to Enlightenment." But I think I understand why you do.
He'd have had to back up from the cul-de-sac of faith for a start. But he'd have had nowhere to go. Just stick with the Left/Young Hegelians. And move to England.
Faith wasn't such for him, however. I guess it depends on one's goals, priorities, inclinations, disposition.
@Kendel. Chatterton came to mind as an isolated proto-Romantic prodigy, a forerunner of K.
And Romanticism is a broad church of Counter-/Enlightenment. We're 'all' Romantics here after all.
Faith was no dead end for him I realise, as it isn't for nearly all here, and bravo! I share the same search for meaning.
The Young=Left Hegelians were radical, as was Chatterton I believe. Free thinking.
England will have anyone, we assimilated Marx after all. Would it have helped? We could have offered him Mill, Carlyle, Dickens, Tennyson, Coleridge, the Brownings, Arnold, Hopkins, Thackeray, Eliot and the Brontës. And the works of Shelley, Keats, Byron. And you had Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe. As for la belle France: Hugo, Balzac, de Tocqueville, Flaubert, Baudelaire. And Russians! Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Lermontov.
I can' t help thinking he needed to get out more. Like Michael Jackson and Elvis, he needed iron to sharpen his.
For many of us, faith preceded awareness of meaning or questions related to it.
If such questions are eventually allowed to surface, the connections are of course fairly obvious. But the if/the statements and our approach to them will likely be different.
Kierkegaard was probably hyperfocused on what was important to him, and probably did need to get out more. But he wasn't cloistered from ideas, either. Nor from free thinking, which to some degree he respected.
He needed peers, friends. Love. But, like Chatterton, he probably c/w/ouldn't be reached. God knows what his maternal attachment lacked. And his father wouldn't have secured it.
Comments
[bolding mine]
from: Kierkegaard, Søren. The Gospel of Our Sufferings" Christian Discourses being the third part of “Edifying Discourses in a Different Vein”, published in 1847 at Copenhagen. Translated by Aldsworth and Ferrie, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1955, 1964, pp. 19-20.
As we continue to watch the Culture Wars continue to ramp up (at least in the U.S. and particularly as the next big election looms, etc, etc -- as if it were even possible) this bit seems particularly apropos. So-called “Christian” nationalism runs rampant. Self-assertion is regularly, consistently confused with self-denial.
But a Christian who fights on the progressive side of the culture wars is storing up treasure in the world, no less so than the Christian Nationalist is.
Many Christians who deny their own interests for the sake of others, sometimes even in the interest of broadening access to power, become labeled as "progressive" for having done so.
I'm happy to work with an Infinitarian, who sees no need to consider the transcendent, but sees the value of self-denial for the benefit of others right now; right here. Unlike Kierkegaard, I think my responsibilities matter positively and negatively as well as now and later.
(When I give the poor food they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor have no food they call me a communist - Archbishop Helder Camara.)
I can't speak for what motivates Christian nationalists but it doesn't often appear like a desire to feed the hungry and give the homeless shelter.
If there's transcendence, they can't matter at all. They only can in this life. I don't see being generous, in every way, to those I love as self denial. Whatever I want, I must give. And no I'm not going to impoverish myself for the un-helpable poor. What's the point? I've had a drunk ask me for my wedding ring. He didn't get it. Tho' they do have a way of drawing you in... The helpable poor are far rarer. Or far more difficult to know. I don't understand self-denial? How it applies? To me. You. It's like when I pick up litter to and from work and people thank me and say aren't I good, toot their horns, a young Muslim lad shook me by the hand. I do it because I like to be on a clean street.
1) Are our varying concepts of transcendence relevant in our version of this discussion, whatever Kierkegaard thought?
2) Is there a rule that says we cannot benefit from the outcome of self-denial? For example, is the "moral goodness" (use whatever term you prefer) cancelled out, if parents save the money they might have spent on culturally cultish extras or comforts in order to send their young people to additional schooling, and are subsequently assisted financially or situationally by their young people who now have stable work and life-styles?
3) Is giving my time and money and skills for the sake of something I value, such as a better education or free access to information or justice or social justice or a fairer chance in life not self-denial, even though I want those things, too? There are a great many more enjoyable ways I could spend my time, money and skills.
4) Does self-denial only count when it's aimed at a lost cause?
5) I don't know the Muslim lad. Maybe he has a lot of responsibilities. Maybe his parents work very hard and are tired. They, too, want to live on a clean street but don't have the time or energy to do this. Maybe they are simply grateful for your willingness to give your time and energy in ways they can't but that benefit them as well. Good for all of you. (He might also see you as a good neighbor, whom he likes and respects.)
I can read these questions a few different ways. They have quite different tones and meanings.
Are you saying that you don't understand self-denial and how it applies to us?
Or you indicating I am attacking you saying that you don't understand self denial or how it applies?
If you seek Kierkegaard's definition, closest thing you will find in this discourse to is in typical Kierkegaardian fashion: "self-denial is nothing else but the dep inward spirit of denying oneself" (p. 18).
Finally (for now), Kierkegaard's discourse that I quoted is about following Christ and discusses self-denial in that context. It was something Christ did, so if we wish to follow him, we must as well. And some of the things that one denies oneself are things that would distract one from following or loving Christ. If Kierkegaard's concern about following Christ is irrelevant, there are still good reasons people practice various forms of self-denial anyway. As you have indicated.
All self-denial is enlightened self-interest as far as I'm concerned. Doing the right thing instead of partying, or bird spotting, is its own reward. Kierkegaard was a whack job.
No need for sorrow, @Martin54 . The course through Kierkegaard had not changed for me, and there is still a long way to go on it. Following this course, though, is no attack on anyone, nor is the way I go about it. Doing my own thing has always had purgatorial aspects to it, publicly, privately, personally.
I understand your view of self-denial. Sometimes doing the right thing, though, is horribly costly to an individual, who could have remained comfortable and silent. She may suffer with a clear conscience, but will also be plagued with doubt an constantly with fear. The reward can very easily be overshadowed by the suffering.
Why do you say that Kierkegaard was a whack job?
The cost of a repressed conscience can even higher. But admittedly we're very good at grooming ourselves. And yes, no truly good deed will go unpunished.
WhacK: "self-denial is nothing else but the deep inward spirit of denying oneself". I've no idea what that looks like. I've never seen it. How would he know? Elevating his self-isolation, alienation from others, his being right at the cost of happiness?
I don't know enough about him to evaluate whether he repressed his conscience. I'm not interested in charicatures or stereotypes; we know less for them. I think SK was doing what most of us do - the best he could with what he had to work with. Whether he was right or wrong, he followed his conscience with a passion that would shame most of us.
SK grooming himself? How? For/to what?
Of course it's open-ended; the application is subjective. He is describing an attitude of self-denial that one must evaluate for oneself, not a legalistic prescription for behavior. Nor is he setting himself up as a model. The entire discourse focuses on following Christ, and he provides a number of specific ways in which Christ practiced and therefore demostrated self-denial.
As he wrote it to be read on New Year's Day, I share it here and now.
You're welcome, @North East Quine .
If you don't mind, what is your take on it?
I find fascinating his ability to speak comfort in ways that I find disturbing
Hi @Gramps49, the preface is dated May 5, 1843.
If you're interested you might be able to view this copy that's in Internet Archive. The Hongs' editions always have good prefaces that might answer your questions.
I've actually enjoyed reading some of his discourses (sermons, really). In his "upbuilding" or "edifying" pieces, his demeanor toward his reader exceptionally personable. In his pseudonymous pieces like Fear and Trembling, his character as narrator can be downright wacky.
Which is always a method for getting his point across.
; ) I might just be able to guess.
But don't hold back. Really.
@Martin54, Kierkegaard, even at his most reassuring, reminds me of a friend, who I believe, lives his life with his eyes wide open, confronting every thought, no matter how disturbing. I think SK regularly had tea with his demons, one of which was despair:
SK. Sickness Unto Death. Bruce Kirmmse, trans. p. 27.
Whether one frames it in Christian terms as SK does here, or not, he was taking on matters - matters he dealt with himself - that one just doesn't talk about. Particularly in a smallish town with a small readership, where everyone knew him personally! He wrote significant works on despair, dread, and anxiety. And, wait! There's more! (which I won't list here)
He's a character to say the least. I'm still trying to understand him a bit for my own purposes. Whatever I eventually get out of my study will be (already is) valuable to me, if for no other reason, than I actually read significant parts of his work, learned to understand it, learned to judge it for myself, did the background work to make the connections I need to understand better, am able to understand other people's claims about him and his work and evaluate those for myself as well.
Sometimes one just wants to know. And I do.
Have at 'im, though. He won't mind. I won't either.
None of which addresses the prayer directly. Apart from its projection of Sartrean self definition.
An' that.
The poor bugger could barely transcend his time.
He was squarely in his time. I don't know that he transcended it all. His work is soundly, Germanically Romantic. I think much of his life was as well.
He really wasn't poor, and I have no reason yet to believe that he was a bugger. I may learn more eventually. I have run across a rumor about him that he spent time with prostitutes, but anyone can say anything. I haven't had a chance to follow up on that to see if there's any substance to it.
You're right about his psychological baggage. His father was horribly, psychologically abusive. It left both brothers scarred, but especially Søren. And it shows. He lived at a time, though, where little useful was known about psychology. Alcohol and opiates were common choices of the self-medicating. And further abuse, particularly of women and children. Romantics also relied on suicide, almost as an art form.
SK relied on the God of his faith and philosophy. And working things out in writing, mostly all night.
He didn't have the foresight to have the hindsight available to us now.
Romanticism flowered in Britain in poetry, Chatterton comes first to mind (Keats, Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth; informing Tennyson), as it did in Germany with Goethe; all very Counter-Enlightenment, raging against the light. A reaction shared almost universally here. Kierkegaard epitomises prodigious German Romantic intellectuality to little effect. At least it gave us Nietzsche.
As Michael Keaton said, "There's a double meaning in that." Considering the context, I took both.
SK was running out of money by his death, but he had lived independently and comfortably, although fairly modestly for one of his class. His father raised himself from the peasant class to a man of great enough wealth to leave Søren and his brother substantial legacies. SK's greatest non-essential costs were his secretary and the publication of his books.
His personal library, which was cataloged for auction at his death had to have cost a pretty penny as well. Over 2000 volumes at a time when books were very expensive.
Goethe really formed a bridge between Classicism and Romanticism. This is also clear in his personal scientific explorations.
German Romanticism bloomed later, started with English Romanticism and cubed it at least. Those who came later It is nearly bombastic in comparison. Wagner certainly was. The Germanic brand is all over Kierkegaard's work that I have read.
And yet it is very different. His aims seem different from the Romantics I've read, although none of them, as far as I remember, were working with theology, philosophy and ethics. There may have been plenty, but they weren't part of my lit or (secular) culture studies.
Not sure Nietzsche relied on SK for anything. Or needed to.
@Martin54, you said:
What would have made his epitomization of German Romanticism of greater effect, do you think?
Shelley is counter-Enlightenment? Really?
I'd have said German Romanticism was at least as early as English Romanticism. It depends on how you classify various proto-Romantic authors in each country, but to me early Goethe looks more like Romanticism proper than Sterne or Burns (though he's Scottish) or the various middling English poets like Cowper. Coleridge and Wordsworth are about contemporary with Holderlin.
Blake is a bit earlier than Wordsworth or Coleridge, and uncategorisable.
I believe Schleiermacher is usually cited as the exemplar of Romantic theology.
German Romanticism really exists in a complicated relationship to Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Kant and Hegel at least are on the surface rationalistic and unromantic. (Fichte I haven't read at all. Not that I've read a lot of Hegel.) And yet most of the leading figures of German Romanticism were I gather friends with Hegel.
I don't know that Nietzsche ever read Kierkegaard. I think he'd have had a love/hate relationship if he had.
Didn't Chatterton's style influence the English Romantics? And one can be a Romantic poet and not Counter-Enlightenment certainly, the all was... superficial.
He'd have had to back up from the cul-de-sac of faith for a start. But he'd have had nowhere to go. Just stick with the Left/Young Hegelians. And move to England.
Most of the major English Romantics name checked Chatterton in their poems but I think he was more important to them because he committed suicide while young than because they admired his poetry as such. None of them wrote in mock medieval English.
Indeed. And 17 I think.
I learned of Chatterton today. Poor kid.
Do you mention him noting a particular association with or similarity to Kierkegaard, or for some othe reason?
I wouldn't say "Counter-Enlightenment. Maybe "without reference to Enlightenment." But I think I understand why you do.
Faith wasn't such for him, however. I guess it depends on one's goals, priorities, inclinations, disposition.
Why the Young Hegelians?
Would England have had him? Helped him?
And Romanticism is a broad church of Counter-/Enlightenment. We're 'all' Romantics here after all.
Faith was no dead end for him I realise, as it isn't for nearly all here, and bravo! I share the same search for meaning.
The Young=Left Hegelians were radical, as was Chatterton I believe. Free thinking.
England will have anyone, we assimilated Marx after all. Would it have helped? We could have offered him Mill, Carlyle, Dickens, Tennyson, Coleridge, the Brownings, Arnold, Hopkins, Thackeray, Eliot and the Brontës. And the works of Shelley, Keats, Byron. And you had Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Poe. As for la belle France: Hugo, Balzac, de Tocqueville, Flaubert, Baudelaire. And Russians! Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Lermontov.
I can' t help thinking he needed to get out more. Like Michael Jackson and Elvis, he needed iron to sharpen his.
For many of us, faith preceded awareness of meaning or questions related to it.
If such questions are eventually allowed to surface, the connections are of course fairly obvious. But the if/the statements and our approach to them will likely be different.
Kierkegaard was probably hyperfocused on what was important to him, and probably did need to get out more. But he wasn't cloistered from ideas, either. Nor from free thinking, which to some degree he respected.