Kierkegaard Vs. Nietzsche: Analysis of The Present Age and The Gay Science

In Kierkegaard's piece, "The Present Age", the opening line characterizes the present 1846 as being an age of reflection without passion. In this essay Kierkegaard repeatedly emphasizes this idea. What he means by "reflection, without passion" is that the people of the modern age are constantly reflexive; however, they are hardly ever passionate enough to do anything but reflect (Kierkegaard, 33). What he means by reflection is the conscious thoughts and ideas that people have that are never actually lived out. Kierkegaard would argue that the modern age is one of inaction. He states that "virtuosity and good sense consist in trying to reach ... a decision without ever going as far as action (Kierkegaard, 33)." It is quite amazing how many of the points he makes concerning the present age in 1846 still hold true in today's society. For example, he talks about how the revolutionary age was one full of action but the modern age is one of "advertisement and publicity (Kierkegaard, 35)." He goes to say that nothing happens and there is still instant publicity everywhere. This is obviously still the case today.

Envy is one of the reasons Kierkegaard gives for this state of the modern age. Not envy in an ethical sense, but envy that is first "selfish within the individual" and also "it results in the selfishness of the society (Kierkegaard, 48)." This "envy" causes people to consider themselves worthy of all achievements. It displays the idea that all men are created equal, even in the eyes of each other. Therefore, those that accomplish great things only do so by chance because any human could have accomplished it. Kierkegaard connects this notion of "envy" to what he terms ressentiment (Kierkegaard, 49). This he refers to as a type of resentment that looks for vengeance. These characteristics (and more) come together and promote what Kierkegaard refers to as leveling. The powers of envy, ressentiment, and a handful of other factors (Kierkegaard, 59, 69, 75, 76) all display this process of "leveling." He says that leveling is the force that relinquishes any great achievements of the age. He argues that leveling is constantly downward. "While a passionate age storms ahead setting up new things and tearing down old ... a reflective and passionless age does exactly the contrary (Kierkegaard, 51)." In other words, the process of leveling decreases the likelihood of any great advances in society by automatically tearing down every advance that happens to move forward.

So what is the alternative to this "leveling?" Kierkegaard's answer is what he calls "religion." This is not the religion of church's and preachers. He defines this religion as a self-reflexive conscious confrontation with the eternal, or God. This experience is solely experienced in the conscious of a person; and in this religion, one becomes an individual. This goes back to a part of the essay where Kierkegaard explains that it is not what people do in their lives, but how they do it. He called it "the 'how' of the age (Kierkegaard, 41)." Kierkegaard wanted readers of his piece to understand that they are in control of their lives, and no one else. It does not matter what you do, but how you do it.

Nietzsche also writes of modern life and how the modern age has become dysfunctional. However, Nietzsche's theories differ from Kierkegaard. Nietzsche wrote in his book, "The Gay Science," a sort of parable titled The Madman (Nietzsche, 181). This story symbolizes the fact that God is dead and he died at the hand of man. What he conveys in this story is that by making God into what is now thought of as the Christian God, mankind has killed God. Nietzsche would argue that God was, and is, a myth. However he does not mean a myth in the terms of reality. Rather, a myth in that to each person God is different. Because of this according to Nietzsche, God is eternal, but God is ever-changing. Nietzsche's solution to this problem lies in art, differing greatly from Kierkegaard's theory of "religion." He held strong to the belief that artistic representations of God make them real. Through these changing myths of God, values are changed. These changing values are necessary for God to be alive, Nietzsche would argue. Thus when people started believing in a standard; and that the things they believed of God were things that actually happened in reality, that is when God began to die.

Sources:

Kierkegaard, Soren. 1846. The Present Age.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1882, 1887. The Gay Science.