Søren Kierkegaard

Seven score and a dozen years ago today, Søren Kierkegaard passed on.

There are certainly aspects of Kierkegaard's philosophy that we could use today.

Joachim Garff, Bruce H. Kirmmse, and Tom Carter note:

Politically, Kierkegaard, was an extraordinarily conservative defender of the aristocracy. A close political ally and acquaintance of the king of Denmark, Kierkegaard expressed a mixture of fear and disdain toward the emerging socialist and democratic movements in Europe.

Further:

By and large, Kierkegaard, a misogynist himself, regarded the masses, or he called them pejoratively, “the multitude,” as the inferior “woman” in the struggle between the classes (p. 483). With equal measures of arrogance and fearfulness, Kierkegaard regarded the broad majority of ordinary people as “the most dangerous of all powers and the most insignificant”

Moreover:

Kierkegaard argued that democracy, not monarchy, is “the most tyrannical form of government,” and that of all forms of government, the government by a single individual is best: “Is it tyranny when one person wants to rule leaving the rest of us others out? No, but it is tyranny when all want to rule”

To add:

“A people’s government,” wrote Kierkegaard, “is the true image of Hell” (p. 487). Kierkegaard was unabashedly an apologist and supporter of the monarch, and when democratic revolution swept the country in 1849, Kierkegaard hid in his apartment and hoped it would all blow over.

We could certainly use some of Kierkegaard today. Indeed we need more such philosophers alive and ticking!

Update: discussion on this post here