Kierkegaard on Boredom

"Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings. Adam was bored because he was alone; therefore Eve was created. Since that moment, boredom entered the world and grew in quantity in exact proportion to the growth of population. Adam was bored alone; then Adam and Eve were bored en famille. After that, the population of the world increased and the nations were bored en masse. To amuse themselves, they hit upon the notion of building a tower so high that it would reach the sky. This notion is just as boring as the tower was high and is a terrible demonstration of how boredom had gained the upper hand. Then they were dispersed around the world, just as people now travel abroad, but they continued to be bored. And what consequences this boredom had: humankind stood tall and fell far, first through Eve, then from the Babylonian tower."

- Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part 1, Crop Rotation 

Through charming illustrations, the existential philosopher and Danish gadfly Soren Kierkegaard shows us the problem of boredom. Thoughts?

Quote of the Week - Kierkegaard on Love

Is it an excellence in your love that it can love only the extraordinary, the rare? If it were love’s merit to love the extraordinary, then God would be — if I dare say so — perplexed, for to Him the extraordinary does not exist at all. The merit of being able to love only the extraordinary is therefore more like an accusation, not against the extraordinary nor against love, but against the love which can love only the extraordinary. Perfection in the object is not perfection in the love. Erotic love is determined by the object; friendship is determined by the object; only love of one’s neighbor is determined by love. Therefore genuine love is recognizable by this, that its object is without any of the more definite qualifications of difference, which means that this love is recognizable only by love. 

- Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, 1847

Quote of the Week - Kierkegaard on doubt and God

"The movement of doubt consisted precisely in this: that at one moment he was supposed to be in the right, the next moment in the wrong, to a degree in the right, to a degree in the wrong, and this was supposed to mark his relationship with God; but such a relationship with God is not relationship, and this was the sustenance of doubt. In his relationship with another person, it certainly was possible that he could be partly in the wrong, partly in the right, to a degree in the wrong, to a degree in the right, because he himself and every human being is finite, and their relationship is a finite relationship that consists in a more or less. Therefore as long as doubt would make the infinite relationship finite, and as long as wisdom would full up the infinite relationship with the finite-just so long he would remain in doubt. Thus every time doubt wants to trouble him about the particular, tell him that he is suffering too much or is being tested beyond his powers, he forget the finite in the infinite, that he is always in the wrong. Every time the cares of doubt want to make him sad, he lifts himself above the finite into the infinite, because this thought, that he is always in the wrong, is the wings upon which he soars over the finite. This is the longing with which he seeks God; this is the love which he finds God."

- Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part II p. 352-353

Philosophy Quote of the week

I'm starting a quote of the week. The quote of the week will be posted on Mondays. Each quote will be from an important philosopher. I will start things off with a quote from Soren Kierkegaard.

“When the world commences its drastic ordeal, when the storms of life crush youth’s exuberant expectancy, when existence, which seemed so affectionate and gentle, changes into a pitiless proprietor who demands everything back, everything that it gave in such a way that it can take it back-then the believer most likely looks at himself and his life with sadness and pain, but he still says, “There is an expectancy that the whole world cannot take from me; it is the expectancy of faith, and this is victory. I am not deceived, since I did not believe that the world would keep the promise it seemed to be making to me, my expectancy was not in the world but in God.”

- Two Upbuilding Discourses (16 May 1843) in The Expectancy of Faith From Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. p. 23-24

Is woman the dream of man?

*This post goes along with the post Are men used by women for children?

To contrast with yesterday's post, I looked up another view on woman and the view comes from the 19th century existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. Two quotes I want to share with you.

"The man who feels no impulse toward the study of women may, as far as I am concerned, be what he will; one thing he certainly is not, he is no aesthetician." 

"When God created Eve, He let a deep sleep fall over Adam; for woman is the dream of man." 

Both quotes come from his work, Either/Or.

You can see Kierkegaard's view of woman does indeed contrast sharply with that of Nietzsche who said, "Ah, women. They make the highs higher and the lows more frequent," and "Woman's love involves injustice and blindness against everything that she does not love... Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best cows..." 1. However, I still agree with what I wrote I yesterday on how some women to use men as a means for a child. Some women are like that, but just because some women are like that doesn't mean *all* women are only interested in having  a child. There are women who want a long, loving, lasting relationship with a man. Kierkegaard did not condemn all women like Nietzsche apparently did (I haven't read all of Nietzsche's works), rather he held women in a higher regard. 

Consider the first quote how Kierkegaard basically said the man who doesn't study women obviously doesn't care for the beauty. What Kierkegaard is saying here is that woman is "the beautiful" and the man who doesn't seek the woman or appreciate the woman or even put the woman on a pedestal does not care for anything of beauty at all. Woman is the "dream of man," as Kierkegaard put it. 

Good women are worth dying for. I believe that. Good women are to be put on the highest pedestal and the husband should love her more than himself. I agree totally with Martin Luther that, "There is no more lovely, friendly and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage." Consider what C.S. Lewis wrote in The Four Loves, "Need-love says of a woman 'I cannot live without her'; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection — if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all." 

I have not lived long enough myself to give experiential advice on love, women, and man, however I do study and respect, those who are older than me and those who died long ago, their words and wisdom on such things. Pessimistic as he was, Nietzsche was correct in his view on bad women and such women should be avoided because they will only bring you pain (also for my female readers bad men will only bring you pain-it cuts both ways) but Kierkegaard is correct in that woman is the "dream of man," and such a woman should be pursued, studied, and loved sacrificially because she is beautiful and more than worth your time.

Sources

1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra - On the Friend