If I were to say, “I took that crucial step [breaking his engagement to Regine Olsen] because I felt bound, because I had to have my freedom, inasmuch as the lustfulness of my desire embraces a world and cannot be satisfied with one girl,” then the chorus would reply, “That makes sense! Good luck, you enlightened man!” But if I were to say, “She was the only one I have loved; if I had not been sure of that when I left her, I would never have dared to leave her,” then the answer would be, “Away to the loony bin with him!” If I were to say, “I was tired of her,” then the chorus would answer, “Now you’re talking! That is understandable!” But if I were to say, “Then I cannot understand it, for one certainly does not dare to break a relationship of duty because one is tired of it,” then they would say, “He is crazy.” If I were to say (in the words of my most recent interpretation), “I repent of it, I would like to undo it, but I cannot do it-no, I cannot do it, my pride does not permit it-no, I cannot do it”-then the verdict would be, “He is just like everyone else and like the heroes in French poetry.” But were I to declare that nothing, nothing would so satisfy my pride as to dare to undo it, that nothing, nothing would so allay the cold fire of revenge that demands amends, then the response would be: “He is delirious, do not listen to him; away to the loony bin with him.” Mundus vult decipi [The world wants to be deceived]; my relationship to the environment that I must call my world can hardly be more definitely expressed. In fact, I believe that in a wider sense it is the best that can be said about the world. Thus speculators should not cudgel their brains trying to fathom what the times demand, for it has been essentially that same since time immemorial: to be tricked and bamboozled. If one just says something silly and drinks dus with humanity en masse, then one comes to be, like Per Degn, loved and esteemed by the whole congregation. It is not any different now, and anyone who with visible signs of deep concern strikes an attitude of brooding in public over how to find out what it is the times demand has already, when all is said and done, discovered it. In this respect, anyone can serve the age, whether it is to be understood as a whole nation, the human race as a whole, all the future generations, or a little circle of contemporaries. I serve the participants by being a scoundrel. There is no doubt that I satisfy their demand. In fact, I myself also benefit from it and in a certain sense find this outside appraisal really desirable. To be a model of virtue, a bright normative human being, is, for one thing, very embarrassing-and also very dubious. But, on the other hand, I am not being persecuted, either. This, too, is desirable, lest I should draw wrong conclusions and think well of myself because I am persecuted in the world. With regard to people, I have never hesitated to follow my guardian spirit in yielding to a certain elemental modesty about the good and a somewhat gloomy distrust of myself-in other words, to deceive in such a way that I perhaps am always a little better than I seem. I have never been able to understand it in any other way than that every human being is essentially assigned himself and that outside of this either there is an authorization such as an apostle’s, the dialectical nature of which I cannot grasp, although out of respect for what is handed down to me as sacred I refrain from drawing any conclusions from my nonunderstanding-or there is maundering. It is quite true that a person who cannot shave himself can set up shop as a barber and serve others according to their needs, but in the world of the spirit this is meaningless.
--
Stages on Life's Way, Hong p. 339-341Soren Aabye Kierkegaard
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Kierkegaard, Soren Aabye
Kiernan, Caitlin R.
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