Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard
you to stand before your congregation to preach and "bear witness"
that Christianity prefers the single state--then you will satisfy
them altogether; for your life will furnish the guarantee that
it is all tomfoolery and great fun, or that what you say is--interesting.
Indeed, how interesting! For just as, to make it interesting,
the husband must be unfaithful to his wife and the wife to her
husband, likewise truth becomes interesting, intensely interesting,
only when one lets one's self be carried away by one's feelings,
be fascinated by them--but of course does the precise opposite
and thus in an underhand manner is re-assured in persisting in
one's ways.
Do you wish to speak about Christianity's teaching contempt
for titles and decorations and all the follies of fame--and
should you happen to be neither a person of rank nor anything
of the kind: Why, my dear sir! You ought not to undertake to
speak on this subject. Why, your congregation might think you
were in earnest, or feel insulted by such a lack of tact in
forcing your personality on their notice. No, indeed, you ought
to wait till you have a lot of decorations, the more the merrier;
you ought to wait till you drag along with a rigmarole of titles,
so many that you hardly know yourself what you are called: then
is your time come to stand before your congregation to preach
and "bear witness"--and you will undoubtedly satisfy them; for
your life will then furnish the guarantee that it is but a dramatic
divertissement, an interesting forenoon entertainment.
Is it your intention to preach Christianity in poverty, and
insist that only thus it is taught in truth--and you happen
to be very literally a poor devil: Why, my dear sir! You ought
not to venture to speak on this subject. Why, your congregation
might think you were in earnest, they might become afraid and
lose their good humor, and they might be very unpleasantly affected
by thus having poverty-thrust in on them. No indeed, first get
yourself some fat living, and when you have had it so long that
your promotion to one still fatter is to be expected: then is
your time come to stand before your congregation and to preach
and "bear witness"--and you will satisfy them; for your life
then furnishes the guarantee that it is just a joke, such as
serious men like to indulge in, now and then, in theatre or
in church, as a sort of recreation to gather new strength--for
making money.
And that is the way they honor God in the churches! And then
these silk and velvet orators weep, they sob, their voice is
drowned in tears! Ah, if it be true (and it is, since God Himself
has said so), if it be true that He counts the tears of the
afflicted and puts them into His bottle,[7] then woe to these
orators, if God has counted also their Sunday tears and put
them into His bottle! And woe to us all if God really heeds
these Sunday tears--especially those of the speakers, but also
those of the listeners! For a Sunday preacher would indeed be
right if he said--and, oratorically, this would have a splendid
effect, especially if accompanied by his own tears and suppressed
sobs--he would be right if he said to his audience: I shall
count all the futile tears you have shed in church, and with
them I shall step accusingly before you on the Day of Judgment--indeed,
he is right; only please not to forget that, after all, the
speaker's own dramatic tears are by far more dreadful than the
thoughtless tears of his listeners.
WHAT SAYS THE FIRE-MARSHAL
(No. VI, 5)
That a man who in some fashion or other has what one calls a
"cause," something he seriously purposes to accomplish--and
there are other persons who make it their business to counteract,
and antagonize, and hurt him--that he must take measures against
these his enemies, this will be evident to every one. But that
there is a well-intentioned kindness by far more dangerous,
perhaps, and one that seems calculated to prevent the serious
accomplishment of his mission, this will not at once be clear
to every one.
When a person suddenly falls ill, kindly-intentioned folk will
straightway rush to his help, and one will suggest this, another
that--and if all those about him had a chance to have their way
it would certainly result in the sick man's death; seeing that
even one person's well-meaning advice may be dangerous enough.
And even if nothing is done, and the advice of neither the assembled
and well-meaning crowd nor of any one person is taken, yet their
busy and flurried presence may be harmful, nevertheless, inasmuch
as they are in the way of the physician.
Likewise at a fire. Scarcely has the alarm of fire been sounded
but a great crowd of people will rush to the spot, good and kindly
and sympathetic, helpful people, the one with a bucket, the other
with a basin, still another with a hand-squirt--all of them goodly,
kindly, sympathetic, helpful persons who want to do all they can
to extinguish the fire.
But what says the fire-marshal? The fire-marshal, he says--well,
at other times the fire-marshal is a very pleasant and refined
man; but at a fire he does use coarse language--he says or,
rather, he roars out: "Oh, go to hell with your buckets and
hand-squirts!" And then, when these well-meaning people feel
insulted, perhaps, and think it highly improper to be treated
in this fashion, and would like at least to be treated respectfully--what
says the fire-marshal then? Well, at other times the fire-marshal
is a very pleasant and refined gentleman who will show every
one the respect due him; but at a fire he is somewhat different--he
says: "Where the devil is the police?" And when the policemen
arrive he says to them: "Rid me of these damn people with their
buckets and hand-squirts; and if they won't clear out, then club
them on their heads, so that we get rid of them and--can get at
the fire!"
That is to say, in the case of a fire the whole way of looking
at things is a very different one from that of quiet every-day
life. The qualities which in quiet every-day life render one
well-liked, viz., good-nature and kindly well-meaning, all this
is repaid, in the case of a fire, with abusive language and
finally with a crack on the head.
And this is just as it should be. For a conflagration is a serious
business; and wherever we have to deal with a serious business
this well-intentioned kindness won't do at all. Indeed, any
serious business enforces a very different mode of behavior
which is: either-or. Either you are able really to do something,
and really have something to do here; or else, if that be not
the case, then the serious business demands precisely that you
take yourself away. And if you will not comprehend that, the
fire-marshal proposes to have the police hammer it into your
head; which may do you a great deal of good, as it may help
to render you a little serious, as is befitting so serious a
business as a fire.
But what is true in the case of a fire holds true also in matters
of the spirit. Wherever a cause is to be promoted, or an enterprise
to be seen through, or an idea to be served--you may be sure that
when he who really is the man to do it, the right man, he who,
in a higher sense has and ought to have command, he who is in
earnest and can make the matter the serious business it really
is--you may be sure that when he arrives at the spot, so to say,
he will find there a nice company of easy-going, addle-pated
twaddlers who pretending to be engaged in serious business,
dabble in wishing to serve this cause, to further that enterprise,
to promote that idea--a company of addle-pated fools who will
of course consider one's unwillingness to make common cause
with them (which unwillingness precisely proves one's seriousness)--will
of course consider that a sure proof of the man's lack of seriousness.
I say, when the right man arrives he will find this; but I might
also look at it in this fashion: the very question as to whether
he is the right man is most properly decided by his attitude to
that crowd of fools. If he thinks they may help him, and that
he will add to his strength by joining them, then he is _eo ipso_
not the right man. The right man will understand at once, as
did the fire-marshal, that the crowd must be got out of the way;
in fact, that their presence and puttering around is the most
dangerous ally the fire could have. Only, that in matters of
the spirit it is not as in the case of the conflagration, where
the fire-marshal needs but to say to the police: rid me of these
people!
Thus in matters of the spirit, and likewise in matters of religion.
History has frequently been compared to what the chemists call
a "process." The figure is quite suggestive, providing it is
correctly understood. For instance, in the "process of filtration"
water is run through a filter and by this process loses its
impurities. In a totally different sense history is a process.
The idea is given utterance--and then enters into the process
of history. But unfortunately this process (how ridiculous a
supposition!) consists not in purifying the idea, which never
is purer than at its inception; oh no, it consists in gradually
and increasingly botching, bungling, and making a mess of, the
idea, in using up the idea, in--indeed, is not this the opposite
of filtering?--adding the impurer elements which it originally
lacked: until at last, by the enthusiastic and mutually appreciative
efforts of successive generations, the idea has absolutely disappeared
and the very opposite of the original idea is now called the
idea, which is then asserted to have arisen through a historic
process by which the idea is purified and elevated.
When finally the right man arrives, he who in the highest sense
is called to the task--for all we know, chosen early and slowly
educated for this business--which is, to throw light on the matter,
to set fire to this jungle which is a refuge for all kinds of
foolish talk and delusions and rascally tricks--when he comes
he will always find a nice company of addle-pated fools and
twaddlers who, surely enough, do think that, perhaps, things
are wrong and that "something must be done about it"; or who
have taken the position, and talk a good deal about it, that
it is preposterous to be self-important and talk about it. Now
if he, the right man, is deceived but a single instant and thinks
that it is this company who are to aid him, then it is clear
he is not the right man. If he is deceived and has dealings
with that company, then providence will at once take its hand
off him, as not fit. But the right man will see at a glance,
as the fire-marshal does, that the crowd who in the kindness
of their hearts mean to help in extinguishing a conflagration
by buckets and hand-squirts--the right man will see that the
same crowd who here, when there is a question, not of extinguishing
a fire, but rather of setting something on fire, will in the
kindness of their hearts wish to help, with a sulphur match
sans fire or a wet spill--he will see that this crowd must be
got rid of, that he must not have the least thing in common
with this crowd, that he will be! obliged to use the coarsest
possible language against them--he who perhaps at other times
is anything but coarse. But the thing of supreme importance
is to be rid of the crowd; for the effect of the crowd is to
hamstring the whole cause by robbing it of its seriousness while
heartfelt sympathy is pretended. Of course the crowd will then
rage against him, against his incredible arrogance and so forth.
This ought not to count with him, whether for or against. In
all truly serious business the law of: either--or, prevails.
Either, I am the man whose serious business this is, I am called
to it, and am willing to take a decisive risk; or, if this be