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Kierkegaard from the point of view of the political

2004; Routledge; Volume: 31; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2004.08.002

1873-541X

Graham M. Smith,

Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence

Abstract This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building on previous scholarship exploring the social dimensions of Kierkegaard's thought, I argue that for Kierkegaard the modern understanding and practice of politics should be understood as 'despair'. Thus, whilst Kierkegaard's criticisms of politics might have been produced in an ad hoc fashion, this article argues that there is an underlying principle which guides these criticisms: that politics is subordinate to, and must be grounded in, spiritual or religious selfhood. In this way the modern phenomena of democracy, liberalism, the press, and the crowd can all be seen as representative of a form of community which falls far short of the potential that human beings can and should achieve. Such a community would see individuals recognising themselves and each other as spiritual beings, and taking responsibility for themselves and others. That modern politics fails to understand the human being as an essentially spiritual entity related to others through God can only lead us to conclude that, from Kierkegaard's point of view, modern politics suffers from the sickness of despair. Whilst Kierkegaard might be criticised for failing to provide us with a more detailed picture of a polity shaped by the religious contours he promotes, he clearly offers an intriguing and suggestive contribution to our understanding not only of the limitations of politics, but also the relationship between a normative human and political ontology, with the former providing the basis for the latter. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge my gratitude to an anonymous reviewer whose comments have helped me to develop the argument of this piece. Notes 1 Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980)33 (henceforth simply Sickness). 2 Kierkegaard. Two Ages. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 96, 33 (henceforth simply Two Ages); Kierkegaard. The Point of View. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998) 68–9, 121–33 (henceforth simply The Point of View); Kierkegaard, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 'Dedication'. 3 For examples of such scholars consult; H.R. Niebuhr Christ and Culture. (London: Faber and Faber, 1952); S.U. Zuidema. Kierkegaard. Philadelphia: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company; 1960), who writes that 'Kierkegaard is increasingly critical and sceptical of human fellowship and society. His attitude is that of rejection', p. 18; A. MacIntyre. A Short History of Ethics. (Great Britain: Macmillan, 1967), where 'Kierkegaard's type of Christianity is in some ways a natural counterpart to his individualism', p. 218; L. Mackey. "The Loss of the World in Kierkegaard's Ethics." Kierkegaard: A Collection of Critical Essays. Ed. J. Thompson. (New York: Anchor Books, 1972), where Mackey claims that Kierkegaard 'means to say that the individual is really isolated from other beings, receiving from them neither support, insistence, opposition, nor allurement', p. 279. 4 For a selection of such scholarship consult; M. Westphal. Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987); A. Hannay. Kierkegaard. (London and New York: Routledge, 1982); R.L. Perkins. Ed. International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. (Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1984); International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Corsair Affair. Ed. R.L. Perkins (Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1990); R.L. Perkins. Ed. International Kierkegaard Commentary: Works of Love. (Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999); Kierkegaard: The Self in Society. Eds. G. Pattison and S. Shakespeare (Great Britain: Macmillan, 1998). 5 Previously, Michael Plekon has drawn attention to this link in his article 'Moral Accounting: Kierkegaard's Social Theory and Criticism', in Kierkegaardiana, Volume XII, 1982, p. 69. Here Plekon also states that 'in the end [Kierkegaard] is both a theologian and a social thinker. I would argue that for him the roles were inseparable', p. 80. In this article I take up this line of thought, and develop it not only along social, but also along explicitly political lines. 6 Louis Dupré has also treated this connection, but from a different angle. In his "The Sickness unto Death: Critique of the Modern Age". International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto Death: Ed. R.L. Perkins (Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1987), Dupré focuses on the relationship between 'despair' and 'sin'. There Dupré draws out Kierkegaard's 'emphasis upon the individual self [which] is new in a manner in which only a thinker of the modern epoch could have conceived', p. 99. Here I focus to a greater extent not only on modern politics as being a form of despair (that is a misrelation of the self), but also on the problems that this creates for the authenticity of individuals in association. 7 B. Kirmmse, Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990) 9–76, deals with these changes in detail between 1820 and 1850; compare also B. Kirmmse "'But I am almost never understood…' Or, Who Killed Søren Kierkegaard?" Kierkegaard: The Self in Society. Eds. G. Pattison and S. Shakespeare. pp. 16–7; W. Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970) 3–16; As a general summary of these conditions Nerina Jansen provides an useful account in "The Individual Verses the Public: A Key to Kierkegaard's Views of the Daily Press". In: R.L. Perkins, International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Corsair Affair, pp. 4–6. 8 J.L. Marsh deals with the relationship between Marx and Kierkegaard finding that both share a 'common interest in autonomous individuality, community, and the mutual relationship between the two' In: "Marx and Kierkegaard on Alienation". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, Ed. R.L. Perkins. p. 165. Of course, Marx's general ambivalence towards capitalism is displayed throughout his works. On the one hand he viewed capitalism as both alienating and exploitative; on the other, he also viewed it as revolutionary, and creating the foundations for a general human emancipation. This ambivalence is openly displayed in his energetic and dramatic Communist Manifesto. 9 Kierkegaard, Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Volume 4. (Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1975), Section 4192 (henceforth simply Journals 4). 10 J.S. Mill, On Liberty [Chapter 1]. 11 Journals 3, Section 2982; Journals 4 Sections 4199, 4160; see also, Kierkegaard, The Point of View, p. 106, where the crowd is simply a means of deciding and facilitating group action. Cf. J.S. Mill On Liberty [Chapter 2]. 12 Journals 4, Section 4119. 13 Kierkegaard's most sustained account of politics appears in his A Literary Review (henceforth referred to as Two Ages). Kierkegaard also discusses political matters in his numerous Journal entries. Whilst this article will draw on these two sources, it will also employ Kierkegaard's pseudonymous work The Sickness Unto Death to develop the relationship between politics and selfhood. 14 We might add that this kind of 'speculation' is one of the reasons why Kierkegaard rejects the thought and system of GWF Hegel. 15 Whilst I recognise that there are special difficulties in dealing with Kierkegaard's signed and pseudonymous authorship, and whilst I would generally accept that the pseudonymous works should not be taken as indicative of Kierkegaard's own position (as a Christian writer), I think that there is sufficient evidence and arguments in favour of cautiously relaxing these strictures in the instance of The Sickness Unto Death. First, there is there evidence that Kierkegaard wrote the piece intending it to be signed but changing his mind at the eleventh hour (cf. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, The Sickness Unto Death, pp. xviii–xxiii). Second, what Anti-Climacus says about selfhood and despair in this piece chimes with what Kierkegaard has to say about these topics under his own name. Third, it should be remembered that through the pen of Anti-Climacus Kierkegaard is presenting an ideal Christian position. Thus, we can assume that what Anti-Climacus has to say about selfhood and despair represent a Christian position, a position that Kierkegaard would seek to assent to (even if he cannot achieve this ideality). Thus, in this instance, Sickness can be treated (cautiously) as akin to Kierkegaard's own position. The complexities of Kierkegaard's relationship to his pseudonyms who explore the ideal Christian are addressed in his Armed Neutrality where Kierkegaard writes that he has wanted to 'make clear what is involved in being a Christian, to present the picture of a Christian in all its ideal that is, true form' without provoking 'fanaticism' and whilst recognising that he falls short of the ideal placing trust in God that 'in his mercy he will receive me as a Christian' (The Point of View, pp. 129, 132–133, and 136, respectively). For a wider discussion of the problems of Kierkegaard's authorship consult Mark C. Taylor Kierkegaard's Pseudonymous Authorship. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975); R. Poole 'The Unknown Kierkegaard: Twentieth-Century Receptions'. The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. Eds. A. Hannay and G. Marino. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); P Lübcke 'Kierkegaard and Indirect Communication'. The History of European Ideas 12: 1 pp. 31–40; John W. Elrod, Kierkegaard and Christendom. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981) [Chapter 7]. 16 Sickness, p. 13. 17 Sickness, p. 14; Cf. p. 49. 18 Cf. John D. Glenn Jr., 'The Definition of the Self and the Structure of Kierkegaard's Work'. International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto Death, Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 5. 19 Sickness, p. 30. 20 Sickness, pp. 37–42. 21 Sickness, p. 16; John W. Elrod, Kierkegaard and Christendom, p. 140. 22 Sickness, p. 33; Two Ages, p. 62. 23 This is also the theme of some of Kierkegaard's signed works. For example, 'To Need God Is a Human being's Highest Perfection'. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), and 'On the Occasion of a Confession: Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing'. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 24 Sickness, p. 26. 25 Cf. George Price, The Narrow Pass. (London: Hutchinson of London, 1963) 57. 26 Sickness, p. 29; Cf. also, George J. Stack, Kierkegaard's Existential Ethics. (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1977), pp. 167–169; Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard. (London and New York: Routledge, 1982) 194. 27 Sickness, p. 42. 28 Sickness, pp. 42–47. 29 Journals 3, Section 2999. 30 Sickness, p. 44. 31 Sickness, pp. 47–49, 67–74; cf. also Alistair Hannay. Kierkegaard and Philosophy. (London and New York: Routledge, 2003) 84–85. 32 Hence, for Anti-Climacus, the devil's despair is 'the most intense despair'. Sickness, p. 42. 33 Cf. Stephen N. Dunning. Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Inwardness. (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985) 223. See also, Alastair Hannay. Kierkegaard and Philosophy. (London and New York: Routledge, 2003) 76–88. Here Hannay makes a case for despair as defiance as the 'paradigmatic form of despair', p. 88. However, Hannay also notes that the text of Sickness claims 'there is no clear cut distinction between the two authentic forms of despair', p. 86. 34 Sickness, p. 42. 35 Sickness, p. 42. 36 The misrelation is despair over the eternal and oneself. Cf. Stephen N. Dunning. Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Inwardness, p. 221; Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard, pp. 167, 197. 37 Sickness, p. 44. 38 Sickness, pp. 47–66, and pp. 67–73, respectively. 39 Sickness, pp. 14, 20. 40 This impression is left after reading the accounts given by Stephen N. Dunning. Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Inwardness, and George J. Stack. Kierkegaard's Existential Ethics. 41 Sickness, p. 49; but cf. also Hannay, Kierkegaard, p. 88. 42 Sickness, pp. 22–23, 26. 43 Alastair Hannay, Kierkegaard, p. 163. 44 Sickness, p. 16. 45 Sickness, p. 15; a statement which echoes those of Vigilius Haufniensis, Anxiety, p. 42. 46 Sickness, p. 15. We shall return to the concept of the 'natural man' shortly. 47 Cf. George Price, The Narrow Pass. (London: Hutchinson of London, 1963), p. 52; Alastair Hannay. Kierkegaard (London and New York: Routledge, 1982), pp. 167, 202. 48 Sickness, pp. 13–14. 49 Stephen N. Dunning, Kierkegaard's Dialectic of Inwardness, p. 217. 50 Works of Love, p. 40. 51 Sickness, pp. 35, 56. 52 Sickness, p. 25; and thus consciousness playing a crucial part in the intensity and development of despair, Sickness, p. 42. 53 Works of Love, p. 40; Cf. Sickness where the end of the 'illusion' of not being in despair exposes the despair 'which lay underneath', p. 44. 54 Thus despair is clearly related to the anxiety (or dread) as explored by Vigilius Haufniensis in Anxiety. 55 Works of Love, pp. 40–43, 252–256. 56 Works of Love, p. 255; John W. Elrod. Kierkegaard and Christendom, pp. 88–89, 163. 57 Journals 3, Section 2968; see also Journals 4, Sections 4183, 4186, 4231, 4234. 58 For example, compare what Vigilius Haufniensis has to say in Anxiety, pp. 43–44, 49, 155, and what Kierkegaard also writes in Works of Love, pp. 52–53. 59 Indeed, it would seem that Kierkegaard was all-too-aware that his category of the 'Single Individual' might lead some to think that he was uninterested in, or even opposed to, sociality, Works of Love, p. ix. Works of Love itself is an exploration of the duties the Christian owes to others in the form of the neighbour. 60 It is interesting to note here the coloration between Kierkegaard's thought and that of Martin Heidegger. This is especially apparent in Being and Time, IV, and where Heidegger discusses 'Everyday Being-one's-Self and the "They"'. It is clear that Heidegger both knew Kierkegaard's work and was influenced by it—a debt that, in the words of Roger Poole, 'should be a matter for a little embarrassment, perhaps', and not simply restricted to the concept of 'Das Man' (Roger Poole in Alastair Hannay and Gordon D. Marino. The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, p. 52). 61 Works of Love, pp. 47–48. Attacks on the established state church of Denmark are a prominent theme of Kierkegaard's later work. The problem for Kierkegaard was of how to reintroduce Christianity to Christendom. Works of Love, p. 48; Journals 3, Section 2958, Section 2992. 62 Two Ages, pp. 84, 87–88. 107–108; Works of Love, pp. 71–72, 147; Journals 4, Section 4131. 63 Works of Love, pp. 53–54; John W. Elrod. Kierkegaard and Christendom, pp. 93, 116. 64 Cf. Works of Love, pp. 62–63, 107. 65 It is in this way that Kierkegaard would find a Kantian 'kingdom of ends' unacceptable. In such a 'kingdom' individuals respect and recognise each other as rational ends, not as spiritual ends. As such, they cannot (for Kierkegaard) be true selves, nor can their form normative ethical-religious relations with each other as neighbours (which they are commanded to do as a response to their relationship with God). In this way we can also see how Kierkegaard might object to Judge William's position in Either/Or. Whilst the judge implores the aesthete to 'develop in his life the personal, the civic, the religious virtues' (Either/Or II, p. 262), he does not sufficiently emphasise the spiritual conditions for selfhood, and focuses instead on making the temporal and accidental, 'rational'. 66 Cf. Westphal. Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society, p. 44; Journals 3, Section 2952. 67 Two Ages, p. 90. 68 Journals 3, Section 2952. 69 Journals 3, Section 2952; compare also Two Ages, pp. 63 and 91, where Kierkegaard writes that 'the existence of a public creates no situation and no community'. 70 Cf. Patricia Cutting, "The Levels of Interpersonal Relationships in Kierkegaard's Two Ages". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, Ed. R.L. Perkins. 78, R.L. Perkins, "Kierkegaard's Critique of the Bourgeois State". Inquiry, 27: 212. 71 Two Ages, p. 94. 72 Journals 3, Section 2985, Section 2935. 73 This is not to say, however, that particular individuals cannot experience the higher forms of despair, but they do so qua individuals and not as members of the Crowd. 74 Two Ages, p. 85; cf. Works of Love, p. 74. 75 A feature which is also connected to theoretical problems surrounding the 'will' of the 'demos' in democracies. Cf. S.I. Benn and R.S. Peters. Social Principles and the Democratic State. (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd, 1959) [Chapter 15]. 76 John W. Elrod. "The Social Dimension of Despair". International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto Death, Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 108. 77 John W. Elrod. "The Social Dimension of Despair". International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto. Ed. R.L. Perkins. Death, p. 114. 78 Works of Love, pp. 59–60; John W. Elrod. Kierkegaard and Christendom, pp. 148, 291. 79 Journals 4, Section 4127, where the Danish are envious towards those who rule; Section 4147, where Denmark is 'ungovernable' because of envy; Section 4180, where 'public life is carried on in a lurching between envy and pity, but no pathos, no enthusiasm for greatness, no gratitude'.; cf. also John W. Elrod. Kierkegaard and Christendom, p. 110. 80 Two Ages p. 81; see also Perkins. "Envy as Personal Phenomenon and as Politics". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. Ed. R.L. Perkins, pp. 107–132. 81 Two Ages, p. 82. 82 Two Ages, p. 84 (emphasis as in original); compare also Journals 1, Section 794, to see how in fact envy might be employed against itself to produce extraordinariness. 83 Louis Dupré, "The Sickness unto Death: Critique of the Modern Age". International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto Death Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 90. 84 Cf. Best and Kellner who write that 'Kierkegaard sees mass democracy as a great levelling force that… reduces individuals to a herdlike, anonymous existence'. International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Corsair Affair. Ed. R.L. Perkins, pp. 36–37. 85 The Point of View, pp. 121–124, 126. 86 Sickness, pp. 33–34; "The Single Individual". The Point of View, p. 107; cf. Patricia Cutting's observations that for Kierkegaard 'it is the abstract crowd… that leaps in and takes over the responsibilities and the choices of the members of society'. International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 78; And Merlod Westphal in Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society, p. 50, where the Crowd has freed itself from 'a framework for which the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, is essential to decision and action.' 87 Cf. J.L. Marsh, "Marx and Kierkegaard on Alienation". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 169; Barrett's, "Kierkegaard's Two Ages: An Immediate Stage on the Way to the Religious Life". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. Ed. R.L. Perkins, pp. 53–71; Dru 1962: 18; and Kierkegaard. Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Volume 3. (Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk, Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1975), Sections 3704, 3711. 88 Sickness, pp. 35, 46; Journals 3, Section 3001. See also, John W. Elrod. "The Social Dimension of Despair". International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Sickness Unto Death. Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 108. 89 Two Ages, p. 68. 90 Armed Neutrality in The Point of View, p. 131. 91 Journals 3, Sections 2930, 2931. 92 Armed Neutrality in The Point of View, pp. 130–134. 93 It is not my intention to conflate the positions of these two pseudonyms with that of Kierkegaard, but merely to recognise this point of correspondence between them. On the deficiencies of the authors of Either/Or on the notion of the 'self' Cf. John W. Elrod. Kierkegaard and Christendom, pp. 86–88, 156. 94 Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part I. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) 142 (henceforth simply Either/Or Part I). 95 Kierkegaard, Either/Or Part II. (Translated with Introduction and Notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) 262 (henceforth simply Either/Or Part II). 96 Two Ages, p. 84; Kierkegaard, Søren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Volume 1. (Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk, Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press, 1967), Section 794. 97 Either/Or Part I, p. 141; A comment which is also reflected in Journals 4, Section 4117. 98 For example, David B. Fletcher claims that 'Kierkegaard's conservatism is of a novel sort'. Social and Political Perspectives in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard. David Bruce Fletcher. (University Press of America, 1982) 5; M. Plekon writes that 'Kierkegaard was hardly a dogmatic or even an orthodox conservative'. "Towards Apocalypse: Kierkegaard's Two Ages in Golden Age Denmark". Ed. R.L. Perkins. International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, p. 47; and Bruce Kirmmse argues that, 'Far from being the politics of an authoritarian conservative or demented irrationalist, Kierkegaard's politics should be seen as the healthy and enormously fertile and insightful self-criticism of bourgeois liberal society, posited from a radically otherworldly Christian point of view'. Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990) 4. 99 Two Ages, p. 67. 100 Journals 4, Section 4235. 101 Journals 4, Sections 4144, 4235. 102 Cf. M. Plekon. International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 44; And Lee Barrett, op. cit., p. 68, where 'the danger is not riotous reflective aestheticism, but the dissolution of potential individuals into the amorphous "public".' 103 Journals 4, Sections 4144, 4166. 104 Cf. Barrett, "Kierkegaard's Two Ages: An Immediate Stage on the Way to the Religious Life". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, Ed. R.L. Perkins p. 57, where 'the multiple values and expectations of society can dominate the subject. In such a state the self is unconscious of itself a something distinguishable from its natural and social environment, and is incapable of true responsible, purposeful activity'; See also, Merlod Westphal, Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society, who writes that 'when human society insists on being something more than human, it ends up as something catastrophically less than human', p. 40, and that this occurs through the 'self-deification of the We', p. 33. 105 Cf. J.S. McClelland, A History of Western Political Thought. (London: Routledge, 1996) 469–470; Nietzsche. Beyond Good and Evil, (Translated by R.J. Hollingdale, Introduction by Michael Tanner; England: Penguin Books, 1990), Section 262; Nietzsche. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. (Translated with an Introduction and Notes by R.J. Hollingdale; England: Penguin Books, 1969), II Sections 6 and 12. 106 Two Ages, p. 86. 107 Two Ages, p. 86. 108 Two Ages, p. 87. 109 Two Ages, p. 88; cf. Sickness, p. 46. 110 Plekon, "Towards Apocalypse: Kierkegaard's Two Ages in Golden Age Denmark". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 43, where levelling is the creation of a false equality; and Cutting, "The Levels of Interpersonal Relationships in Kierkegaard's Two Ages". International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages. Ed. R.L. Perkins, p. 78, where levelling introduces an alienating equality. 111 Two Ages, p. 90. 112 Journals 3, Section 2999. 113 Two Ages, p. 94. 114 Two Ages, p. 96. 115 Two Ages, pp. 84–85, 89; The Point of View, p. 103–104; Journals 4, Sections 4131, 4206. 116 R.L. Perkins, "Kierkegaard's Critique of the Bourgeois State". Inquiry 27: 207–218. 117 Journals 4, Section 4109. 118 Journals 4, Sections 4109, 4202. 119 Two Ages, p. 95. 120 For an account of this affair consult Lowrie, A Short Life of Kierkegaard, pp. 176–187. 121 Journals 4, Sections 4160, 4166. 122 Journals 4, Section 4182. 123 R.L. Perkins, "Kierkegaard's Critique of the Bourgeois State". Inquiry, 27: 214. 124 Cf. R.L. Hall, Word and Spirit (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1993), where 'As a matter of phenomenological description, then, bedrock to our concrete human existence is the fact that we speak… . At the heart of what we do uniquely as persons is our capacity to speak in the first person, to speak in our own voice', p. 10. 125 Julia Watkin. Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard's Philosophy. (Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2001) 64–65. 126 The Point of View, p. 103. 127 Cf. Westphal, Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society, p. 40; and, Gene Outaka, "Equality and Individuality: Thoughts on Two Themes in Kierkegaard", The Journal of Religious Ethics 10: 2 (1982) 172. 128 In this way, Kierkegaard's thought suffers from some of the 'limitations' of others of his time, especially Nietzsche and Marx both of whom provide critiques of politics, but leave us wondering as to exactly what their alternative society would look like. 129 Sickness, pp. 32–33.