The Sentinel (late) Morning Post: Kierkegaard on the Messy Reality of Being Human

Søren Kierkegaard

When we keep talking in terms of power dynamics, social forces, and systems, we lose sight of what it means to be an individual. When we talk in philosophical abstraction, we lose sight of the pain, the love, and the needs that make up a human life. Because humans do not love, they love somebody. They do not suffer, they suffer from something.

And according to Søren Kierkegaard, if we see humans as just a drop in a vast ocean, we lose what it actually means to be a human. In his work Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard takes on Hegel, who views humans in terms of the universal (or what he calls the world spirit). But Kierkegaard argues that this is not what it means to be a human at all.

This is how he put it: 'No generation has learned from another how to love. No generation begins at any other point than at the beginning.'

You cannot inherit a broken heart. You cannot be taught grief. Everybody has to work out on their own the hard and messy reality of how to actually live a life. Yes, we have teachers. We have parents, we have sages. And as a species (or a culture), we can accumulate knowledge. But passions will always and only start in an individual's heart and soul.

And this is why Kierkegaard argues that an individual is more than any systems analysis. So the next time somebody tries to explain who you are in terms of a universal spirit (or a force), remember that you are not a force. A force does not feel anything, but you do. In the history of all humanity, nobody has ever suffered the way that you have. Nobody loves the way that you do, and nobody lives the way that you do.