Oh, how fortunate I am that I am not a philosopher! Oh, how I must wish that there existed no worldly sadness other than what could be mastered in the course of a semester, in profundity, indeed, but only one semester long!
This is one of Kierkegaard’s phrases that has embedded itself in my mind, and I recall it from time to time. He wrote it in his work titled “Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments.” It’s considered one of the foundations of his existential discourse. This statement is part of his criticism against Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, the German idealist philosopher, especially against Hegelianism’s systematic approach to philosophy and its claim to have a comprehensive grasp of the entirety of existence. Kierkegaard felt that such a system reduced unique individual experiences to mere moments in the grand dialectical process.
Indeed, a number of philosophers have tried, and continue to try, to understand the so-called mechanism of the universe and life itself. In the 19th century, one of the most popular approaches was dialectics. In the conflict between thesis and antithesis, the productive, evolutionary outcome should be synthesis. Hegel’s effort was to apply this mechanism to everything in life and the universe, envisioning the ultimate final state of this dialectic as the absolute “Geist.” This German word can be roughly translated as mind, soul, or spirit. In this regard, his view of dialectic evolution is not free from the Abrahamic worldview.
From another perspective, Marx and Engels also criticized the Hegelian view. In their opinion, the dialectic process should be turned upside down. The underlying motive in this process is materialism. Thus, it should be called dialectical materialism. We are not supposed to evolve into the God-like, speculative stage of absolute “Geist,” but towards the end of all material conflicts, termed utopian communism. This theory attracted numerous people and nation-states. Indeed, without the influence of these grand theories, we would never have seen the rise of socialist and communist countries.
Kierkegaard’s criticism originated more from an individual, or later called, existential perspective. In this light, his objection should be more critical against dialectical materialism, where each individual was not more than a “cell” of the body. For the sake of dialectical evolution and revolution, the life of each individual was as fleeting as washing away old cells in a shower. Millions of these “old cells” were killed for this purpose, as modern history has shown us. Throughout human history, a series of communist revolutions resulted in the most deaths of innocent people. The worst cruelty occurred just a few decades ago in the killing fields.
Thus, the effort to understand the mechanism of life and the world inherently has its downsides. When we try to see the forest, we often overlook the indispensability of each tree. Each tree is also a microcosm in fractal relationships. The whole consists of parts, and each part is also a whole containing numerous other parts. Dialectics was supposed to capture this fractal nature by definition, but it appears that this perspective was largely overlooked in modern human history. Countless precious, irreplaceable, and indispensable individuals were abused, exploited, and executed for the sake of so-called bigger purposes based on a series of grand theories.
In the midst of such dehumanized exploitation, modern civilization, at least, was able to achieve a consensus on human rights. This seems almost miraculous, given the brutality our modern civilization has committed. While the 20th century was the era in which most people were killed due to modern technology, such as chemical and atomic weapons, it was also the time when, for the first time in history, we achieved an agreement on human rights. Humans are not mere cells of ideologies and grand theories. Each of us is a microcosm, precious, irreplaceable, and indispensable.
Centuries ago, Kierkegaard sarcastically commented on the Hegelian approach: “Oh, how I must wish that there existed no worldly sadness other than what could be mastered in the course of a semester, in profundity, indeed, but only one semester long!”
Our sadness cannot be understood through lectures and books within semesters. We can only grasp it through our own experiences. Water is H2O, but this knowledge doesn’t give us the feeling of water we experience with our hands and bodies. Even in understanding God, we must experience Him. That is the central message in Kierkegaard’s works: Truth is subjectivity.
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