Conway Paper Kierkegaard

Modest Expectations:
Kierkegaard's Reflections on the Present Age
By DANIEL W. CONWAY
Abstract
A Literary Review constitutes Kierkegaard's most ambitious foray into social analysis
and cultural criticism. In this short book, he conducts a sustained investigation of the
excessive reflection and degenerative leveling that mark the "present age" of Den-
mark in the 1840s. Although his criticisms of the "present age" are both apposite and
astute, they also raise some vexing questions about the viability of the religious solu-
tion he suggests to the crisis of pandemic leveling. For example, if individuals in the
"present age" simply lack the passion that characterizes the Age of Revolution, then
how can Kierkegaard expect them to elect the religious solution he recommends? If
the defining character of the "present age" rules out a social or political solution to
the crisis, then why does it not similarly rule out his religious solution? As we shall
see, Kierkegaard's religious solution to the crisis of the "present age" actually incorpo-
rates a significant element of patiency, whereby individuals must yield to an interven-
ing religious intensity. Kierkegaard's engagement with the "present age" may fail to
galvanize the religious intensity that he recommends, but it nevertheless succeeds in
providing his readers with an instance of repetition. Indeed, the signal achievement of
A Literary Review is its exemplification of his own repetition as a literary reviewer.
/. Introduction
En literair Anmeldelse (A Literary Review) provides welcome insight

into the social dimension of Kierkegaard's philosophy.1 In this short
review, he sketches the optimal social conditions under which indi-
viduals might strive to attain inwardness and secure an authentic ex-
istence. More so than his earlier, pseudonymous treatments of
1
My practice throughout this essay is to refer to Kierkegaard's book as A Literary
Review, in order to distinguish it from Thomasine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd's Two
Ages, which it purports to review.
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22 Daniel W. Conway
authenticity, this sketch is designed to accommodate the competing

claims upon historically-situated individuals of necessity and possibil-
ity. Throughout A Literary Review, these competing claims are repre-
sented, respectively, by the totality of the age and the freedom of the
individual. Kierkegaard describes the task of striking a dynamic bal-
ance that honors these competing claims in terms of simultaneously
asserting one's "faithfulness" to one's age and to oneself.
Kierkegaard's turn to social criticism and cultural analysis in A Lit-
erary Review is certainly noteworthy, especially insofar as it militates
against the enduring caricature of him as an unserious, apolitical
thinker.2 But we should beware of overstating the extent of his con-
tribution to social philosophy in A Literary Review. Despite the criti-
cal acuity of his "review" of social trends and issues, he offers nothing
resembling a coherent, fully articulated social theory along the lines
of those advanced by Hegel, Marx, Feuerbach, Tönnies, Levi-Strauss,
and Weber. To be sure, A Literary Review contains various scattered
remarks and observations from which one might plausibly recon-
struct something resembling a Kierkegaardian social philosophy.3 But
one must always approach such a project under the caution that
Kierkegaard himself neither executed nor attempted anything like it.
One obstacle to the realization of such a project certainly merits
our attention: Kierkegaard's remarks on social philosophy are not ex-
clusively an occasion for celebration by his avowed champions. In-
deed, many of his remarks on social philosophy appear to stand in
tension with his more familiar teachings, especially as they are popu-
larly received and disseminated. For example, his attention to the
claim of necessity is not entirely unique to A Literary Review, but it
receives therein its most sustained treatment and discussion. Indeed,
his explicit consideration of this claim both illuminates and compli-
2
No scholar has been as vigilant in discrediting the authority of this caricature as
Robert L. Perkins. See, for example, Robert L. Perkins "Introduction" in Interna-
tional Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, ed. Robert L. Perkins, Macon, G A: Mer-
cer University Press 1984, pp. xiii-xxiv.
3
Some notable achievements toward this end include Merold Westphal Kierkegaard's
Critique of Reason and Society, University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press 1991, chapters 3-4; Robert L. Perkins "Envy as Personal Phenomenon and as
Politics" in International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two Ages, pp. 107-132; James L.
Marsh "Marx and Kierkegaard on Alienation" in International Kierkegaard Com-
mentary: Two Ages, pp. 155-174; John M. Hoberman "Kierkegaard's Two Ages and
Heidegger's Critique of Modernity" in International Kierkegaard Commentary: Two
Ages, pp. 223-258; and Alastair Hannay Kierkegaard, London: Routledge 1982,
pp. 276-328.
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Kierkegaard's Reflections on the Present Age 23
cates the popular reception of his familiar teachings. Herein we dis-

cover, for example, that the optimal conditions of social organization
are not uniformly distributed across all historical epochs; in some
ages, in fact, they are altogether lacking. If, as he suggests, these opti-
mal conditions make possible the inwardness that enables an authen-
tic existence, then it would seem to follow that some ages are less
amenable than others to the quest for authenticity. Through no fault
of their own, that is, and owing to their ineluctable historical destiny,
some individuals will find it unusually difficult (and perhaps impossi-
ble) to pursue the religious life that Kierkegaard commonly recom-
mends.
Although Kierkegaard's foray into social theory complicates the
reception of his familiar exhortations to authenticity, it also affords
him the opportunity to provide a welcome exemplification of his
teaching of repetition. While individuals are not free to opt out of the
character of the historical epochs they represent, they are free to re-
sist and decline this character as a constraint on their lives. This prac-
tice of resistance and declination does not exempt individuals from
the totality of their respective epochs, but it may enable an enact-
ment of repetition, whereby they might balance the claims of neces-
sity and possibility in their own lives. Repetition enables an authentic
existence by allowing one to remain "faithful" both to one's age and
to oneself.
The exemplification Kierkegaard provides of this repetition is his
own. By virtue of resurrecting himself in a "post-authorial" existence,
he manages to repeat his earlier effort to comment on the literary
achievements of the anonymous author of Two Ages. He may fail in
this post-authorial incarnation to provide an impartial review of the
two ages under consideration, but he nevertheless succeeds in enacting
a moment of repetition. In this moment, he reveals to his readers
truths about his age and himself that most likely have eluded his own
grasp. This success is doubly important, insofar as his repetition both
constitutes his authentic existence and enables that of his readers. In
attempting a literary review, Kierkegaard thus reveals himself to be a
"wandering star." And although his readers cannot reproduce his me-
andering path, they may strive to repeat the eccentrity that informs it.
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24 Daniel W. Conway
//. Kierkegaard's Remarks on Social Philosophy
Kierkegaard's remarks on social philosophy in A Literary Review are

governed by his claim that each of the two ages under consideration
comprises a totality. By means of this claim, he intends to assert that
each age possesses a character, a validity, an identity, and an integrity
all its own. As a totality, an age can be described and evaluated as a
unitary entity or phenomenon, independent of the individuals and
events that come to represent it. Indeed, only by appealing to the to-
tality of the age can he speak meaningfully of the ascendency or de-
scendency, the flourishing and the passing, of an historical epoch. He
thus adopts the author's custom of naming the two ages in question.
Each name conveys the defining character of the age it designates.
The totality of an age is reproduced in the consciousness of its
typical representatives through the mechanism of reflexion [Reflex],
which is transacted in and throughout the social realm.4 The mecha-
nism of reflexion thus ensures that individuals in any age mirror the
basic character, truth, and validity of the age they represent. The
stamp of the age is thereby imprinted onto their very understanding
of themselves as agents. According to Kierkegaard, he inherits this
emphasis on the mechanism of reflexion from the author of Two
Ages, whom he wishes to follow as closely as possible: "[T]he novel is
more universally grounded in something that is more essential even
than the production itself....The novel has as its premise the distinc-
tive totality of the age, and the production is the reflexion of this in
domestic life; the mind turns from the production back again to the
totality of the age that has been so clearly revealed in this reflexion"
(TA, p. 32). Kierkegaard's appeal to the socializing power of reflexion
introduces a formidable element of necessity into his review of the
two ages. In accordance with the mechanism of reflexion, individuals
involuntarily reflect and embody the character of the age they repre-
sent. They must obey the "demands of the times," even though they
know not whence these demands arise (p. 8). The mechanism of re-
flexion thus ensures that the character of an age is not subject to re-
vision by those individuals who represent the age. They are not free
to decline or escape the totality of their age, and they cannot conduct
their pursuits of an authentic existence in abstraction from the defin-
ing character of the age. As we shall see later, in fact, Kierkegaard
4
Here I follow the terminological distinction drawn by Howard V Hong and Edna
H. Hong in their "Historical Introduction" to TA, pp. vii-xii.

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suggests that the achievement of an authentic existence obliges one

both to receive and to resist the "demands of the times."
Kierkegaard's treatment of the two ages as totalities furthermore
demonstrates his commitment to a version of historicism. Each of the
two ages, he repeatedly insists, is valid in its own right, such that he
may not advance a valid criticism of either age in favor (or on be-
half) of the other. As he explains in defense of the author, whose
"impartiality" he aspires to emulate,
If the author is charged with a possible prejudice for one age over the other - the
kind of charge an aggressive critic speedily puts into circulation - closer inspection
will reveal, however, that the novel is essentially an expression of impartiality. The
author's possible preference for the revolutionary age's more soul-stirring life is bal-
anced by the actual preference he has shown for the present age through his greater
artistry in depicting it. (TA, p. 34)
Why this "balance" stands as evidence of impartiality, rather than, say,

of a bi-polar partisanship, is not clear. As we will see, this question at-
tains even greater urgency as Kierkegaard claims for his own "review"
a similar (and similarly dubious) achievement of impartiality.
As this passage indicates, each age possesses its own unique truth,
which in principle stands impervious to external skeptical challenges.
For this reason, indeed, Kierkegaard regularly insists that he must not
attempt a criticism of one age based on standards or criteria supplied
by the other. Any gesture toward trans-historical standards of criti-
cism would constitute a violation of the historicism he has happily in-
herited from the author of Two Ages. A problem arises, however, with
respect to Kierkegaard's attempt to "interpret" the present age itself,
of which he too is an instance and reflection. Indeed, his diagnosis of
the ills of the age and his recommendation for their cure both reflect
the influence of the character of the age imprinted upon him. As an
instance or "reflection" of that which he presumes to diagnose, he is
too interested a party to claim for himself the impartiality that he
wishfully attributes to the author of Two Ages. As such, his diagnosis
and prescription must be subjected to a similar process of diagnostic
evaluation. This self-referential fold within the envelope of reflexion
introduces an indeterminate degree of slippage into his analysis of
the present age. As we will see, his diagnosis of the present age must
be treated as itself a symptom of the ills it presumes to chart.
The totality of an age reveals itself most vividly with respect to the
presence or absence within it of a defining idea. When present in an
age, a defining idea functions as a focus of convergence and coher-
ence. A defining idea thereby galvanizes the passional resources of

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26 Daniel W. Conway
the age, refracting them toward the attainment of a common end. In

an age whose totality does not derive from a defining idea, this lack
spells decay, degeneration, and disintegration. Without an idea to or-
ganize its diffuse passional resources, an age lacks coherence, integ-
rity, purpose, and meaning: "The avenue of the idea is blocked off; in-
dividuals mutually thwart and contravene each other; then selfish and
mutual reflexive opposition is a swamp - and now they are sitting in
it" (TA, p. 63). Kierkegaard furthermore explains that the defining
idea of an age enables the mediation whereby individuals may relate
optimally to one another as members of a thriving society. The idea
orders the passional resources of the age in such a way that typical
representatives may naturally strike an optimal balance between the
competing claims of necessity and possibility, of proximity and dis-
tance, of social cohesion and individual inwardness. Indeed, here we
encounter what might fairly be called the arch-principle of his germi-
nal theory of social organization:
When individuals (each one individually) are essentially and passionately related to
an idea, and together are essentially related to the same idea, the relation is optimal
and normative. Individually the relation separates them (each one has himself for
himself), and ideally it unites them. Where there is essential inwardness, there is a de-
cent modesty between man and man that prevents crude aggressiveness; in the rela-
tion of unanimity to the idea there is the elevation that again in consideration of the
whole forgets the accidentality of details. Thus the individuals never come too close to
each other in the herd sense, simply because they are united on the basis of an ideal
distance. (TA, p. 62)
As this rich passage indicates, the integrating presence of a defining

idea furnishes an age with measure, balance, and harmony - what
Kierkegaard calls "propriety." The idea not only relates individuals to
one another but also enforces a prophylactic distance between them.
If such an idea is not present, then individuals cannot attain their op-
timal relations to themselves or to one another. Bereft of the optimal
balance of distance and unity, individuals become prone to corrosive
displays of "crude aggressiveness." Owing to its besetting crudeness,
the disintegrating society eventually deteriorates into a "herd." The
galvanizing properties of a defining idea are thus needed not only to
secure the conditions of social harmony and "elevation," but also to
provide each individual with the distance he needs in order to "have
himself for himself," i.e., to develop inwardly. In an insight that may
surprise some of his loyal readers, Kierkegaard thus submits that pre-
vailing social conditions always influence - indeed, make possible or
not - the individual's quest for an authentic existence.

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The presence or absence of a defining idea thus determines the

prospects in any age of a typical individual's attainment of the essen-
tial inwardness that enables an authentic existence. Kierkegaard de-
scribes the three possible types of relations between individuals by
means of the following three-stage schema:
1. When individuals (each one individually) are essentially and pas-
sionately related to an idea and together are essentially related to the
same idea, the relation is optimal and normative. Individually the re-
lation separates them (each one has himself for himself), and ideally
it unites them.
2. [I]f individuals relate to an idea merely en masse (consequently
without the individual separation of inwardness), we get violence, an-
archy, riotousness....
3. [I]f there is no idea for the individuals en masse and no individu-
ally separating essential inwardness, either, then we have crudeness.
The harmony of the spheres is the unity of each planet relating to it-
self and to the whole (TA, p. 63).
Kierkegaard does not explain why any particular age might be organ-
ized (or not) around a defining idea. Some of his remarks suggest a
presupposed theory of inevitable decay, such that disintegrated ages
"naturally" follow integrated ages, and vice versa. Indeed, that a par-
ticular age is imprinted with one character rather than another would
seem to be a matter of fate, providence, or some other manifestation
of cosmic necessity.
Although Kierkegaard proposes that we treat these three relations
"dialectically without considering any specific age" (TA, p. 63), he
presents them in a sequence that mirrors the transition he describes
from the Age of Revolution to the present age. We may consequently
employ this schema with some confidence to chart the process of de-
generation that governs the transition from one age to the other. In-
deed, since stages 1 and 3 correspond so closely to his descriptions of
the Age of Revolution and the present age, respectively, stage 2 per-
haps corresponds to the transitional period in which the Age of
Revolution consumes its defining idea and subsequently yields to the
torpor of the present age.5 In any event, he thus provides us with a
5
In marking this transition, Westphal helpfully refers to stage 2 as "barbaric" and
stage 3 as "decadent" (p. 48).

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28 Daniel W. Conway
"dialectical" model of cultural degeneration, wherein a vibrant, vital

age yields to a depleted, anemic age.
Kierkegaard's emphasis on the mediating role of a defining idea
helps to contextualize his descriptions of the two ages. The abundant,
overflowing passion of the Age of Revolution is a function of the de-
fining idea of the age, which enables the mediation through which in-
dividuals may relate optimally to one another. Despite the frenzy of
passion that imparts to the Age its overwrought character, the Age
nevertheless maintains its integrity, for the frenzy is organized around
the galvanizing idea of revolution. The defining idea is neither the
cause nor the effect of the passion that suffuses the Age of Revolu-
tion; indeed, their fateful symbiosis is the defining characteristic of
the totality of the age.
The defining idea of the Age of Revolution functions not only to
engender passion, but also to focus and channel the expression of
passion. Indeed, since the Age will not direct its signature violence
toward its enabling idea (TA, p. 62), the idea prevents the discharge
of passion from degenerating into anarchy and chaos. The presence of
the idea thus serves to contain the passion of the Age, thereby pre-
serving the "essential" and productive nature of its expressions. The
idea of revolution is therefore the condition of the "essentially pas-
sionate" nature of the Age of Revolution (TA, p. 62), for it galvanizes
the available energies and enables their forceful and unimpeded out-
flow. The "essential passion" in turn secures the validity of the age, as
well as the validity of those individuals who reflect its basic character.
As Kierkegaard explains, "Fundamentally, essential passion is its own
guarantee that there is something sacred, and this gives rise to the
determinant propriety" (TA, p. 64). As a consequence of its allegiance
to an enabling idea, the Age of Revolution thus stands for something,
as do its representative exemplars.
Speaking "dialectically," Kierkegaard claims that the disintegration
of the defining idea of an age results in a loss of the focus and direc-
tion that had heretofore been imparted to the expression of its pas-
sional energies. In both macrocosm and microcosm, a social entropy
ensues, as neither the age nor its representatives can gather its native
passions into an immediate and "essential" expression. This systemic
failure precisely describes the plight of the present age and its typical
representatives. Because the present age has no defining idea of its
own, it cannot "go astray"; it can only "go badly" (TA, p. 69). Just as
the present age is devoid of an enabling idea, which would gather its
native energies into an "essential passion," so the contemporary soul

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possesses no organizing principle by means of which it might galva-

nize the passional resources at its disposal. Individuals in the present
age suffer not so much from a lack of passion as from a constitutive
incapacity to express their passions without suffering great penalty to
themselves: "Thus an age that is very reflective cannot for that rea-
son be summarily accused of being powerless, for it perhaps has great
power, but it goes to waste in the fruitlessness of reflection" (TA,
p. 66). In the present age, passional energy thus deteriorates to an en-
tropic state, and the expression of "essential passion" is no longer
possible. Kierkegaard thus explains that, "If the essential passion is
taken away, the one motivation, and everything becomes meaningless
externality, devoid of character, then the spring of ideality stops flow-
ing and life together becomes stagnant water - this is crudeness"
(TA, p. 62). In surveying the transition from the Age of Revolution to
the present age, Kierkegaard thus describes a descensional trajectory
that mirrors his "dialectical" schema. The characteristic passion of the
Age of Revolution eventually exceeds containment and unleashes it-
self against the defining idea of the Age; there follows a revolution
against the very idea of revolution. These counter-revolutionary pas-
sions temporarily rage unchecked before exhausting themselves. Ab-
sent a defining idea to contain and temper their expression, they
eventually expend their native energies. Indeed, only in the absence
of a defining idea do individuals appreciate its power to modulate the
expression of passion, as evidenced in its capacity to lend to a re-
stricted economy of passion the appearance of a general economy.6
The passional totality of the Age of Revolution thus gives way to
the reflective totality of the present age. The defining idea of revolu-
tion is replaced in the present age not by another defining idea, but
6
The distinction between "general" and "restricted" economies is borrowed from
Georges Bataille Inner Experience, tr. by Leslie Anne Boldt, Albany, New York:
State University of New York Press 1988; and "The Notion of Expenditure" in Vi-
sions of Excess, ed. by Allan Stoekl, tr. by Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald
M. Leslie, Jr., Minneapolis 1985, pp. 116-129. A general economy is bounded by no
external conditions imposed on its internal regulation of influx and expenditure,
and it consequently squanders itself in the generation of excess. By way of contrast,
a restricted economy must govern its internal regulation in accordance with exter-
nally imposed conditions or restrictions; the calculated, measured expenditures of a
restricted economy are therefore incompatible with the generation of genuine
sumptuary excess. My interpretation of Bataille is indebted to Jacques Derrida
"From Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism Without Reserve" in Writ-
ing and Difference, tr. by Alan Bass, Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1978,
pp. 251-277.

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30 Daniel W. Conway
by the void resulting from the disintegration of the idea of revolu-

tion. Kierkegaard thus explains that "Ultimately the tension of reflec-
tion establishes itself as a principle, and just as enthusiasm is the uni-
fying principle in a passionate age, so envy becomes the negatively
unifying principle in a passionless and very reflective age" (TA, p. 81).
The present age is therefore a degenerate similacrum of the Age of
Revolution, a faded copy of its predecessor. Even their respective
names are telling: "revolution" names an enabling, organizing idea;
"present" names only a particular placement in a historical sequence.
Whereas the Age of Revolution is distinguished by "essential" traits
such as form, culture, propriety, immediacy, and revelation, the present
age is described as "essentially a sensible, reflecting age" (TA, p. 68).
Kierkegaard's recourse to the mechanism of reflexion sheds welcome

light on the strands of social theory that texture the background of
his more familiar philosophical teachings. At the same time, however,
his reliance on this mechanism raises some vexing questions about
the freedom of individual human beings to defy the totality of their
age. For example, to what extent does this relationship of reflexion
restrict the individual's quest for self-determination, authenticity, and
autonomy?
On the one hand, we know from Kierkegaard's other writings that
he generally observes a dialectical relationship between individual
and society, such that neither term fully dominates or eclipses the
other. On the other hand, his commitment in A Literary Review to
the mechanism of reflection would seem to entail a fairly significant
delimitation of the ambit of individual self-determination. As the oc-
casion for A Literary Review suggests, individuals may be unwittingly
destined as if by an unknown author, as confident in their freedom
and self-determination as they are deluded in them. Indeed, those de-
cisions and accomplishments for which they typically congratulate (or
chastise) themselves may in fact result from the inexorable propaga-
tion through them of the totality of their age. Far from self-determin-
ing agents who set and steer their own course along life's path, they
may be patients of the prevailing epoch, unwitting conduits through
which the age expresses itself in its irresistible totality.
As these conjectural concerns suggest, Kierkegaard's appeal to the
mechanism of reflexion commits him to the non-negotiable necessity
of an individual's participation in the character of the age he involun-
tarily represents. That is, the individual is not free to constitute him-
self in abstraction from the totality of the age in which he finds him-

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self enveloped.7 Hence the irony of Kierkegaard's opening discussion

of the question of remaining "faithful" to one's age: Owing to the
mechanism of reflexion, one cannot help but remain faithful to the
totality of one's age. What remains to be determined is the extent to
which one can also remain "faithful" to oneself. Indeed, how are we
now to understand the quest for an authentic existence in light of
Kierkegaard's commitment to the totality of the age and the reflex-
ion of this totality in the typical representatives of a given age? If all
"individuals" mirror the passional character of the prevailing epoch,
then wherein lie their ownmost opportunities for uniqueness and
authenticity?
Depending on the range of relationships that actually obtain under
the umbrella of reflexion, Kierkegaard's remarks on social philoso-
phy may stand in tension with the popular reception of some of his
more familiar teachings. As we have seen, the optimal conditions of
social interaction - which also enable the development of an essential
inwardness - do not obtain in an age in which a defining idea is not
present. Through no fault of their own, that is, some individuals are
not free to pursue an authentic existence under optimal conditions of
social interaction. This is especially true with respect to the present
age as Kierkegaard describes it, for in the present age the optimal so-
cial conditions of an authentic existence are simply absent. In light of
his diagnosis of the present age, we might ask, what sense can be
made of his familiar exhortations to inwardness and authenticity? If
the totality of the present age ensures the enervation, decadence, and
lassitude of its typical representatives, then how could he sincerely
expect them to hazard the recommended leap into religiosity? His
attempt in A Literary Review to honor the claims of necessity thus
encourages us to raise the following question: Can individuals realis-
tically aspire to an authentic existence if they labor under the histori-
cal destiny of social conditions that are not optimal?
This question is not novel within the history of philosophy. The re-
lationship between an age and its representatives is extremely diffi-
cult to specify, especially for those philosophers who honestly ac-
knowledge the influence of the historical epoch as a constraint on the
pursuit of individual authenticity. Here Kierkegaard joins some fairly
distinguished company, for Aristotle, the Stoics, Aquinas, Leibniz, Spi-
noza, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger all struggled with the question
7
For an extensive treatment of the problem of the "abstract" individual, see Hannay,
op. cit., pp. 302-310.

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32 Daniel W. Conway
of defining the domain of individual freedom against the background

of divine providence, historical destiny, historicity, or, more simply,
fate. Indeed, A Literary Review comprises Kierkegaard's best effort
at striking a dynamic balance between the competing claims of neces-
sity and possibility on historically-situated individuals.
///. Kierkegaard's Reflections on the Present Age
According to Kierkegaard, the present age is characterized by a pan-

demic leveling that threatens to reduce all people, causes, goals, and
ideas to indiscriminate fodder for promiscuous reflection and chatter.
Absent a defining idea that would enforce a healthy distance be-
tween individuals (and so establish optimal social relations), the age
is powerless to legislate the modesty and propriety that would natu-
rally obviate the process of leveling.
He furthermore insists that the institution (or restoration) of a de-
fining idea lies well beyond the collective volitional resources at the
disposal of the present age. He consequently identifies the leveling
tendency of the present age as a "decadent urge" that will only accel-
erate the ongoing deterioration of society and culture:
But in proportion to the scarcity of ideas, an age exhausted by a flash of enthusiasm
will relax all the more readily in indolence, and even if we were to imagine that the
press would become weaker and weaker for lack of events and ideas to stir the age,
leveling becomes all the more a decadent urge, a sensate stimulation that excites mo-
mentarily and only makes the evil worse, the rescue more difficult, and the probability
of destruction greater. (ÔË, p. 94)
Further compounding the misery of the present age is the failure of

its enervated representatives to muster any lasting desire for the lev-
eling to come to an end: "But the hopeless abstraction of leveling will
be kept going without interruption by its servants, lest it all end with
the return of an earlier structure. These servants of leveling are the
servants of the power of evil..." (TA, p. 109). Kierkegaard thus ar-
rives at the sobering conclusion that the degenerative leveling of the
present age can neither be retarded nor arrested. The optimal ar-
rangement of social relations cannot be re-established from within
the age itself. Leveling must run its destructive course until every
trace of beauty, nobility, and goodness is obliterated:
No particular individual (the eminent personage by reason of excellence and the dia-
lectic of fate) will be able to halt the abstraction of leveling, for it is a negatively supe-
rior force, and the age of heroes is past. No assemblage will be able to halt the ab-

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straction of leveling, for in the context of reflection the assemblage itself is in the
service of leveling. The abstraction of leveling...will stay with us, as they say of a
tradewind that consumes everything. (ÔË, p. 87)
From such bleak observations on the present age, one might fully ex-
pect Kierkegaard to capitulate altogether to some version of resigna-
tionism or fatalism.
Interestingly enough, this is not the conclusion that he draws from
his survey of the two ages. Rather than bemoan the present age for
its failure to secure the optimal conditions of social organization, he
in fact applauds the age for its conduciveness to the "infinite enthusi-
asm" of religion. He alludes hopefully to the "bright side" of a "very
reflective age," claiming that "considerable reflectiveness is the con-
dition for a higher meaningfulness than that of immediate passion...if
religiousness intervenes in the individual and takes over the prereq-
uisites [for action]" (TA, p. 96). He thus insists that the abject leveling
of the present age furnishes an unprecedented opportunity for all in-
dividuals to leap into religiosity.
Despite his account of the present age as enervated, dispassionate,
irresolute, and irremediably decadent, Kierkegaard nevertheless cele-
brates the age for delivering its representatives to the threshold of a
momentous either/or: "every individual either is lost or, disciplined by
the abstraction, finds himself religiously" (TA, p. 106). As the leveling
of culture effaces all social and political inducements to authenticity,
he claims, "that is the time when the work begins - then the individu-
als have to help themselves, each one individually" (TA, pp. 107-108).
Rather than resign himself to the excessive, self-consuming reflection
that marks the present age, he urges his readers to transform their his-
torical destiny into a fortuitous occasion for religious salvation: "Re-
flection is a snare in which one is trapped, but in and through the in-
spired leap of religiousness the situation changes and it is the snare
that catapults one into the embrace of the eternal" (TA, p. 89). Kierke-
gaard thus responds to the lassitude of late modernity with an appeal
to religion. He acknowledges that passional resources are running dry,
yet he celebrates the desuetude of culture as the possibility for spiri-
tual regeneration. The barrenness of the present age provides the per-
fect occasion for an imprudent leap into religiosity. Thus we see that
even Kierkegaard's remarks on social philosophy are ultimately
grounded in his abiding attunement to religion.8
8
For a sensible treatment of Kierkegaard's exhortations to authenticity in A Literary
Review, see Jacob Golomb In Search of Authenticity: From Kierkegaard to Camus,

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34 Daniel W. Conway
The warrant for Kierkegaard's hopefulness is his belief that the

present age surpasses the Age of Revolution by virtue of its superior
extensity - indeed, this is the source of its alleged validity as an age.
He thus insists that the untapped extensity of the present age might
provide the basis for a decisive turning to the infinite enthusiasm of
religion: "Generally speaking, compared to a passionate age, a reflec-
tive age devoid of passion gains in extensity what it loses in intensity.
But this extensity in turn may become the condition for a higher form
if a corresponding intensity takes over what is extensively at its dis-
posal" (TA, p. 97). Here Kierkegaard implies that an age devoid of a
defining idea, an age in which the optimal social relations do not ob-
tain, can nevertheless sustain the quest for an authentic existence.
How are we to take Kierkegaard's epigrammatic allusions to the
possibility of leaping from the excessive reflection of the present age
to the infinite enthusiasm of religiosity? Does he thereby anticipate
the advent of a third age, which would marry the intensivity of the
Age of Revolution with the extensivity of the present age? He sug-
gests as much when he outlines what he calls the "antecedents] to
inspired, enthusiastic action." "First of all," he says, comes "the imme-
diate, spontaneous inspiration," which, I take it, he associates with the
ebullient passion of the Age of Revolution. Next comes "the period
of prudence, which, because immediate inspiration does not deliber-
ate, seems to be superior by virtue of its ingenuity in deliberation"
(TA, p. Ill), which would seem to describe the present age. "[T]hen
finally," he concludes, comes "the highest and most intensive enthusi-
asm which follows on the heels of prudence and therefore perceives
what is the most prudent thing to do but rejects it and thereby gains
the intensity of infinite enthusiasm" (TA, p. 110). This description
thus suggests that he perhaps anticipates the advent of a third age,
which, although not logically or dialectically related to the collision
between the first two, nevertheless incorporates the most notable ac-
complishments of each.
How is it that the present age might be the occasion for an infu-
sion of infinite enthusiasm, such that one might leap precipitously
into the embrace of God? Kierkegaard is sketchy on the details of
London: Routledge 1995, pp. 38-42. According to Golomb, the passion that will re-
new the present age is not simply "any emotion that affects us, but rather, emotion
originating in the first days of Christianity, in the sufferings of Jesus Christ on the
Cross: an overpowering emotion that changes, or even ends, one's life" (op. cit.,
p. 38).

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this wondrous transformation, but he does say that "the prerequisite

for acting more intensively is the thorough kneading of reflection"
(TAy p. 110). This explanation may strike us as somewhat surprising,
for he apparently means to prescribe as a cure additional doses of
the killing poison. But his homeopathic prescription may nevertheless
be sound, for he also insists that "reflection, like knowledge, increases
sorrow" (TA, p. 77). Later on, he explains that "Only through a suf-
fering act will the unrecognizable one dare contribute to leveling and
by the same suffering act will pass judgment on the instrument" (TA,
p. 109).
So perhaps it is the case that through intense, self-referential re-
flection, individuals might discover a back door to inwardness and
stumble down an undiscovered path toward the "infinite enthusiasm"
of religion. That is, perhaps the pain of self-referential reflection may
eventually wound one in much the same way as an allegiance to a
galvanizing idea; after all, if one is going to suffer, one might as well
suffer for some cause or purpose.9 Kierkegaard suggests as much
when he qualifies his aforementioned characterization of leveling as
an all-consuming "tradewind." Apparently some individuals will sur-
vive this catastrophe, their souls burnished by the examen rigorosum
of leveling: "The abstraction of leveling...will stay with us, as they say
of a tradewind that consumes everything. Yet by means of it every in-
dividual, each one separately, may in turn be religiously educated, in
the highest sense may be helped to acquire the essentiality of the re-
ligious by means of the examen rigorosum of leveling" (TA, p. 87). By
dint of his turn to religion, Kierkegaard thus circumvents the fatalism
and resignationism to which his observations on social organization
might otherwise have led him.10
At this point, however, it is fair to ask why Kierkegaard is so hope-
ful of the possibility of a leap into religiosity, especially in light of his
own diagnosis of the present age. Would this leap into "infinite en-
9
Kierkegaard records a similar observation about himself in a journal entry from
1835: "The crucial thing is to find a truth that is truth for me, to find the idea for
which I am willing to live and die...of what use would it be to me for truth to stand
before me, cold and naked, not caring whether or not I acknowledged it...What is
truth but to live for an idea?" (cited in Westphal, op. cit., p. 46).
10
Golomb persuasively explicates what he calls "the dialectic of Kierkegaard's indi-
rect incitement" to religion, whereby Kierkegaard attempts to accelerate the dete-
rioration of the present age. "By employing the very forces that prevail in his age
and hinder the emergence of authenticity he wants to assist us in overcoming them"
(op. cit., p. 41).

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36 Daniel W. Conway
thusiasm" not presuppose the presence of individuals who can will to

attempt such a leap? And is the emergence of such individuals, em-
boldened by inwardness and enlivened by the "essential passion," not
precisely precluded by the totality of the present age? Kierkegaard
bravely decrees that the leveling of the age will either transform or
crush an individual, but whence the legitimacy of this either/or? That
is, on what basis does he believe that some individuals might survive
the examen rigorosum of leveling? If "the single individual...has not
fomented enough passion in himself to tear himself out of the web of
reflection and the seductive ambiguity of reflection" (TA, p. 69), then
how is he supposed to leap into the embrace of a God in whom he
no longer invests passionate belief? Against the background of Kier-
kegaard's review of the two ages, the leap from the "swamp" of the
present age to the lofty peaks of religiosity takes on a magical, fan-
tastic quality.11 The God whose embrace we are urged to seek begins
to resemble a deus ex machina.
My concern here is not simply that the recommended leap into re-
ligion is absurd. The absurdity of religious faith in any age is a well-
established tenet of Kierkegaard's philosophy. Rather, my concern is
that the leap may not be possible for typical representatives of the
present age to undertake. To be sure, any such leap requires faith,
which one will possess, if at all, by virtue of the absurd. But it also re-
quires the passional capacity to leap, which representatives of the
present age supposedly do not possess. Kierkegaard deploys the fig-
ure of the leap as distinctly muscular, active, decisive, voluntary, and
volitional. Leaping is to be distinguished sharply from falling, stum-
bling, acquiescing, yielding, surrendering, submitting, resigning, and
giving up. The figure of the leap thus suggests a strength of will, a
resoluteness, and a decisiveness that are simply incompatible with the
muted passions of the present age.
It is somewhat ironic that Kierkegaard himself incorporates this
very concern into the formulation of his exhortations: "Even if it is a
rash leap, if only it is decisive, and you have the makings of a man, the
danger and life's severe judgment upon your recklessness will help
you to become one" (TA, p. 71, emphasis added). The concern I wish
11
For his excellent elaboration of Kierkegaard's "swamp" imagery in A Literary Re-
view, I am indebted to Peter Fenves "'Chatter': Language and History" in Kierke-
gaard, Stanford: Stanford University Press 1993, pp. 218-221. Fenves helpfully ex-
plores the tensions that obtain between Kierkegaard's exhortatory image of the
"leap" and his account of the present age as an expanding swamp.

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to pursue is sheltered in the hypothetical clauses he inserts: For what

if one cannot muster the passional resources needed to undertake a
"decisive" leap? What if one does not "have the makings of a man"?
Indeed, here we see that he presupposes of his prospective leapers a
measure of vitality that he otherwise disallows to the typical repre-
sentatives of the present age.12
Let us consider an example close to Kierkegaard's own heart, that
of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham's leap, his "double gesture," was un-
deniably absurd, but he was always fully capable of attempting such a
leap if he so resolved. That is, he possessed sufficiently directed pas-
sional energies that he both framed the intention to sacrifice Isaac
and implemented his plan to execute this intention. Only the inter-
vention of an angel persuaded him to stay his hand. But Abraham
was a knight of faith, a hero, and as Kierkegaard himself admits, "the
age of heroes is past" (TA, p. 87).
This concern is amplified by Kierkegaard's anti-voluntarist termi-
nology in several crucial passages that treat the recommended transi-
tion from excessive reflection to the "infinite enthusiasm" of religion.
On at least two occasions he describes the hyper-reflective individual
not primarily as an agent, but as a patient, who is seized by the ad-
ventitious intervention of religiousness. On the first occasion, Kierke-
gaard explains that the superlative extensity achieved by the present
age might serve as a precondition of religion: "if enthusiasm inter-
venes and persuades the reflective powers to make a decision, and
because a high degree of reflectiveness makes for a higher average
quality of the prerequisites for action - if religiousness intervenes in
the individual and takes over the prerequisites" (TA, p. 96). In the
very next paragraph, he explains, "[b]ut this extensity in turn may be-
come the condition for a higher form if a corresponding intensity
takes over what is extensively at its disposal" (TA, p. 97).
12
Marsh argues cogently that objections like mine pertain only to social and political
solutions to the crisis of the present age, and not to the religious solution Kierke-
gaard recommends. According to Marsh, "a solution on the- sociopolitical level is
impossible...because such a solution presupposes the genuine individuality and
community that are so lacking. What is possible, however, is that the individual, re-
flecting on his own alienation in the public sphere can recover himself before God.
The public, by making the individual so unhappy that he turns to God, educates the
individual" (op. cit., p. 164). What remains unclear, however, is how the individual
"recovers himself before God," how, that is, he gains the passional resources to tear
himself out of the web of reflection.

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38 Daniel W. Conway
His formulations in these two passages, referring to an "interven-

ing" and "taking over" by a "corresponding intensity" that he associ-
ates with "religiousness," strongly suggest a crisis of agency on the
part of those individuals who undergo this religious transformation.
Indeed, rather than leap decisively into the embrace of God, these in-
dividuals are said to yield to an adventitious intervention on the part
of an anonymous religious intensity. Decision is described as a prod-
uct or result of this intervention. In these paragraphs, at least, Kierke-
gaard exhorts his readers not so much to leap as to prepare them-
selves to be seized by divine providence, to wait patiently for their
salvation, and to surrender to the intensity of religiosity when it fi-
nally descends upon them. Despite the overtly religious tone of these
paragraphs, moreover, they make no mention of faith. In fact, discus-
sions of religious faith are conspicuously absent from A Literary Re-
view as a whole. The question of faith in God has apparently been re-
placed by the (more secular) question of "faithfulness" to one's age.
When later explaining the examen rigorosum of leveling, Kierke-
gaard again emphasizes the patiency of those individuals who are
seized by an intervening religious intensity. Here he maintains - sub
specie aeternitatis, as it were - that the leveling of the present age actu-
ally plays a role in God's larger plan: "[LJeveling itself is not of
God...but God permits it and wants to cooperate with individuals, that
is, with each one individually, and draw the highest out of it" (TA,
p. 109, emphasis added). He goes on to claim that the suffering in-
duced by the examen rigorosum will enable individuals to contribute
indirectly to the "defeat" of leveling. In so suffering, moreover, these
individuals will discover patiency itself as the heretofore unrecognized
law that governs their existence: "The unrecognizable one...does not
dare to defeat leveling outright - he would be dismissed for that, since
it would be acting with authority - but in suffering he will defeat it and
thereby experience in turn the law of his existence, which is not to rule,
to guide, to lead, but in suffering to serve, to help indirectly" (TA, p. 109,
emphasis added). Only divine providence, it would seem, can override
the reflexive relationship that obtains between a decadent age in its
totality and its representative individuals.13
13
Bruce H. Kirmmse thus explains that "'the present age' is a sort of holocaust from
which only those who have won themselves in religious struggle will emerge, and
there is in this a hopeful element of theodicy: To learn our limits is a way to greater
self-knowledge; it is salvation's way" in Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark,
Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press 1990, pp. 277-278.

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It is certainly tempting here to dismiss or explain away this appar-

ent tension between Kierkegaard's exhortations to leap and his de-
scriptions of prospective "leapers" as patients. For example, we might
attribute this tension to the complexity of the experience of religious
conversion, to the need simultaneously to leap and to surrender. Per-
haps Kierkegaard means to say that one must be transformed by the
intervening intensity before one can leap, and that patiency prepares
one for transformation. Or perhaps the "choice" to surrender is sim-
ply the outward sign that the religious intensity has already inter-
vened. Indeed, the word "passion" itself suggests an agency that origi-
nates "outside" the individual, or at any rate independent of his will.
My hunch, however, is that this may not simply be an accidental tex-
tual inconsistency. Kierkegaard's emphasis on patiency may derive
logically from the social theory that he sketches in A Literary Review.
This hunch is not intended, however, to precipitate a criticism of
his foray into social theory. Indeed, he becomes a more engaging
thinker as he attempts to balance the competing claims of necessity
and possibility. As we will see in the next section, in fact, the achieve-
ment of this balance in the present age is seen most clearly in the ex-
ample of Kierkegaard himself.
IV. Reflexion and Self-Reference
And what of our friend Kierkegaard, writing now under his own signa-
ture, but no longer as an author? He has helpfully classified for us the
main characters of the novel Two Ages, as well as its author. But he has
avoided classifying himself. To which age does he belong? Or is he
somehow a tertium quid, a philosopher whose insight into an iron law
of dichotomy frees him from the constraints of this dichotomy?
To claim for oneself the exemption of an unclassifiable tertium quid
has been a popular gambit throughout the Western tradition of social
and political philosophy. Those thinkers who discern the basic divi-
sions and structures of the social realm are typically reluctant to situ-
ate themselves firmly in any one of the groups or dimensions they di-
chotomize. As the need arises, they transit effortlessly between, or
disappear behind, the various social divisions they have legislated. This
indeterminate status is their prize, as it were, for having designed or
discovered the ideal social system. Is this true of Kierkegaard as well?
In his own defense, Kierkegaard claims not to be a self-appointed
diagnostician of culture. He merely "reviews" and "interprets" the

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40 Daniel W. Conway
two ages so masterfully depicted by the author. He consequently

commands no transcendent, ahistorical vantage point to which he
might revert in order to pass judgment on (much less escape) the
limitations of his age. A full century in advance of Jacques Derrida,
Kierkegaard aspires to write sous rature, leaving no trace of himself
on the page, lest he become a revanant author. Indeed, when his
authority does emerge, or so he avers, it promptly subverts itself:
"[T]he novel...at no time has been forgotten. The above criticism is
my own interpretation of what I have learned from the author, and
therefore if anything immature, untrue, or foolish is contained in it, it
is my own doing" (TA, p. 110). By virtue of his post-authorial status
in A Literary Review, Kierkegaard thus claims for himself a measure
of indeterminacy. He is consequently free to identify himself with the
passion of the Age of Revolution and to distance himself from the
languor of the present age, even though he is as far removed from
the former as he is inextricably mired in the latter. But is his claim to
a post-authorial existence credible? It is my contention that we have
strong Kierkegaardian reasons both for refusing him the liminal posi-
tion he reserves for himself and for rejecting the validity of his claim
that he is no longer an author. Rather than demonstrate his critical
distance from the present age, in fact, his preoccupation with the pos-
sibility of life after the death of the author further implicates him in
the excessive reflection of the present age. Indeed, here I suggest that
we read Kierkegaard against Kierkegaard and subsume him within
his own diagnosis of the present age.
Kierkegaard's claim to post-authorial immunity requires us to envi-
ron him within the circle of self-reference. We must place him in one
age or the other, and we must subsequently apply to him the terms of
the diagnosis that he advances of the age to which we judge him to
belong. He certainly cannot belong to the Age of Revolution, for it
has passed. But what are we to make of his obvious preference for
the Age of Revolution and its enabling idea, especially when this
preference rhetorically eclipses his avowed neutrality between the
two ages? Indeed, what are we to make of his own expressions of
"revolutionary" passion, especially those directed against the pan-
demic leveling of the present age?14 Does his oppositional stance to-
14
Fenves makes a strong case for viewing the present age as "revolutionary" - not so
much in the bellicose sense associated with the Age of Revolution as in the astro-
nomical sense of a planet moving around a center or focus. According to Fenves,
"Nothing is more revolutionary than this muddy situation, even as it denies any-

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ward the present age demonstrate his (partial) exclusion from its
compass?
To be sure, he outlines a solution to the crisis of the present age, by
means of a precipitous leap into the "infinite enthusiasm" of religion.
As we have seen, however, this recommendation verges perilously
upon a deus ex machina solution, for it requires individuals to draw
upon passional resources that, according to Kierkegaard's account of
the present age, they do not and cannot possess. The "solution" he
proposes to the crisis of the present age thus stands in tension with
his diagnosis of the present age. Indeed, the present age is deemed
valid only insofar as it occasions the leap into religion, which we have
seen to be extremely problematic. If the present age were not the
precondition of something greater than itself (and it would appear to
be so only under the slightest condition of logical possibility), then its
alleged validity would vanish and Kierkegaard's romantic allegiance
to the Age of Revolution would manifest itself even more vividly.
If Kierkegaard's proposed solution to the crisis of the present age
is viable, then presumably it must differ somehow from the banal
chatter that characterizes the present age as a whole. But on what ba-
sis could he (or his champions) claim such a difference? If all indi-
viduals are reflexions of the totality of the age, then he too toils in
the envelope of reflexion. This would imply that his chatter about re-
ligion is virtually indistinguishable from everyone else's chatter about
other topics. Indeed, if he intends seriously his remarks on the total-
ity of the present age, then he cannot realistically hope to escape this
totality merely by railing against it or subjecting it to criticism. These
gambits simply reproduce the fundamental impotence of the age as a
whole.
If Kierkegaard does intend to distinguish himself from the age he
documents, then is he not obliged eventually to act! After all, pen-
ning a literary review is not to be confused with the passionate, deci-
sive exploits that characterize the Age of Revolution. Should he not
instead strive to perform one of those "great and good actions" (TA,
p. 71) that characterize the predecessor age? Indeed, rather than as-
sure his readers that a leap into the "infinite enthusiasm" of religion
thing like a revolutionary moment, a leap into another age. The secret of 'the pre-
sent age' - that which because of its noncommunicability would allow for its 'indi-
rect' notification - is that it is, after all, revolutionary, indeed more revolutionary
than any other age. Its revolutionary character does not consist in a return to na-
ture, albeit fully cultivated, but to an interminable turning in place" (op. cit., p. 223).

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42 Daniel W. Conway
is in fact possible in the present age, should he not undertake such a

leap himself?15 As a demonstration of his "inwardness," would he not
do well to abjure his chatter in favor of "silence" (TA, p. 97)? Here it
would appear that his proposed "solution" to the crisis of the present
age actually repeats the chronic deferral of decision that defines the
totality of his age. He may protest that his ghostly, post-authorial ex-
istence is not amenable to a more active, embodied response to the
crisis of present age, but how would this dodge differ from the typical
postponements against which he regularly inveighs? As he himself
observes, "the present age is the age of anticipation" (TA, p. 71).
While others anticipate various fantasy events and occurrences, Kier-
kegaard anticipates a magical leap into the embrace of God. Whence
the difference?
In the end, Kierkegaard belongs squarely in the present age. As a
representative of the present age, he is imprinted with its prevailing
character. He is but one more occurrence of the reflexion of the total-
ity of the age. In attempting a diagnosis of the present age, then, he
stumbles into the ubiquitous snare of self-reference. The "revolution-
ary" passion he expresses in his criticisms of the present age is exactly
what he diagnoses in other representatives of the age: brief flares of
enthusiasm that temporarily distract him from his failure to secure the
essential inwardness that might enable an authentic existence. His "in-
dividuality" is largely illusory, except insofar as it betokens the age as a
whole. His discursus on chatter is chattersome; his reflections on re-
flection are hyper-reflective. He recognizes that "forecasting the fu-
ture" is "only a recreation," like bowling or tilting the barrel (TA,
p. 110), and his own forecasts would seem to confirm this general ob-
servation. Indeed, the more mightily he strives to distinguish himself
from the age he documents, the more clearly he reflects its totality -
much like the characters in the novel he so admires.
Kierkegaard's own status is best described not by the post-author-
ial indeterminacy that he claims for himself, but in comparison to a
kindred character from Two Ages. Like Charles Lusard, who spans
15
In failing to leap, Kierkegaard may open himself to the one significant criticism that
he levels against the author of Two Ages, who, he claims, compromises his [sic]
achievement by appending to the book a Preface. Along similar lines, Fenves main-
tains that "the author does not restrain herself from writing a preface to her work.
To leap would mean to trust in the work without having to support oneself by an
authorized reading. It would be to trust in the aesthetic integrity of the novel with-
out having to send out advance guards to protect the novel from misunderstanding"
(op. cit., p. 214).

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the two ages depicted in the novel (TA, p. 57), Kierkegaard connects
the two ages as he describes them in A Literary Review.16 Although it
would be an exaggeration to claim that Kierkegaard is a product of
the Age of Revolution, he nevertheless struggles to accommodate
himself to the new ways of the present age. Like Lusard, he is "too
young to belong to the past, and he is not wholly unaffected by the
reflectiveness of the present age" (TA, p. 57).
As a consequence, he cannot help but evaluate the present age by
appealing to standards he has imported from the bygone Age of Revo-
lution, a practice that leads him inexorably to a resentment of the pre-
sent age. Like Lusard, in fact, Kierkegaard "essentially is not a part of
either age. The idea he represents - after having renounced his own
life in order to make a few people happy - is essentially alien to both
ages" (TA, p. 58). As Kierkegaard points out, however, Lusard's aliena-
tion renders him singularly admirable, for he alone in the present age
possesses the virtue of constancy (TA, p. 58). This in turn means that
he enjoys a "life-view" all his own, which can be displayed and refined
in the course of repetition. Precisely on this point Kierkegaard most
closely resembles Lusard: He redeems the alienation characteristic of
his age by seizing it as an occasion to remain constant in the face of
change and degeneration. He thereby makes possible the repetition
that he claims for himself in A Literary Review.
Indeed, there is some truth to Kierkegaard's claim not to belong to
either age, for he labors to situate himself in an epigonic age in which
his "revolutionary" passion is not welcome. The task of remaining
"faithful" to his age is thus complicated by his post-authorial exist-
ence; he has no age that he can claim unequivocally as his own. His
mistake, however, is to treat his own liminal existence as somehow
exceptional, when in fact he has described the present age itself as
characterized by a pervasive sense of alienation or homelessness. In
his diagnosis of the present age, in fact, this mistake is revealed as a
general symptom of its besetting alienation. Nothing is more charac-
teristic of the present age than to refuse one's place within it and to
distance oneself from the leveling that marks the age as a whole. In
16
According to Kierkegaard, "The novel presents two ages. The two parts are sepa-
rate from each other, but there is still a connecting link, an ingenious kind of transi-
tion that unites them. This figure is Charles Lusard" (TA, p. 57). Note the self-refer-
ential character of Kierkegaard's description of him: Indeed, this description of
Lusard is helpful in situating Kierkegaard himself in the two ages. According to
Fenves (op. cit., p. 209), Lusard even mouths Kierkegaard's "doctrine" of repetition!

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44 Daniel W. Conway
adopting an oppositional stance toward the present age, that is, Kier-
kegaard is simultaneously "faithful" to both ages - which means, of
course, that he is really faithful to neither. He is simultaneously re-
sentful of the age in which he lives and nostalgic for the age that has
passed.
V. Repetition in Ë Literary Review
By virtue of his resentment and nostalgia, Kierkegaard clearly situ-

ates himself in the present age. Yet the review he pens is not identical
to the chatter it describes. That he too engages in chatter reflects the
element of necessity that bespeaks his envelopment in the reflexion
of the age. That this chatter is uniquely his reflects the element of
possibility that informs any historical epoch. Indeed, despite his im-
plication in the reflexion of the totality of the age, he distinguishes
himself from the author of Two Ages, and from the characters whom
the author so realistically depicts. By reflecting on the reflections of
the present age, by chattering about chatter, he performs an instance
of repetition. He thereby strikes a balance between the competing
claims upon him of necessity and possibility. And it is by virtue of this
repetition that he is able to pursue an authentic existence, for his
repetition enables him to remain faithful simultaneously to his age
and to himself.
As Kierkegaard indicates in his repeated claims to a post-authorial
incarnation, A Literary Review stages a repetition of the novel Two
Ages, which itself attempts a faithful reproduction of the two ages it
undertakes to describe. He thus attempts to emulate the author of
Two Ages, whose constant "life-view" contributes the element of per-
manence that makes repetition possible: "The author...has an intrin-
sic faithfulness and reproduces his own originality in the repetition"
(TA, p. 14). As this passage suggests, moreover, A Literary Review is
also supposed to enact a repetition of Kierkegaard himself. As he re-
minds us in his Introduction, he has attempted once before to meas-
ure the literary merits of the author of Two Ages. In his first book,
From the Papers of One Still Living (1838), he pseudonymously is-
sued what he now calls a "review or, more correctly, an effusive dis-
course" on the author's predecessor work, A Story of Everyday Life
(TA, p. 23). Eight years later, he now wants a "second and last try" at
reviewing, "again using A Story of Everyday Life" as his point of de-
parture (TA, p. 23). He conjectures that the author of these works,

Authenticated
upon reading Ë Literary Review, will find him "unchanged or, if pos-
sible, changed in the repetition: a little more clarity in the presenta-
tion, a little more lightness in a flowing style, a little more considera-
tion in recognition of the difficulty of the task, a little more
inwardness in discernment: consequently changed in the repetition"
(TA, p. 23). Here we might pursue even further the motif of repeti-
tion: Kierkegaard's resurrection of himself in a post-authorial incar-
nation demonstrates that his literary review arises "from the papers
of one still living."17
If we are to believe Kierkegaard on this point, his own repetition is
the humble goal of A Literary Review. By means of this repetition, he
can remain "faithful" to his age and also to himself. He thereby
strikes a dynamic balance between the competing claims of necessity
and possibility. Repetition frees him not from the historical condi-
tions that define the character of his age in its totality, but from the
constraint of these conditions.18 By eliminating the constraint of his
age upon himself, he may now turn his historical destiny to his advan-
tage, as the condition of his accession to an authentic existence. That
is, if he embraces the "demands of his times" as an opportunity to
distinguish himself from his peers (and from his former incarnations),
then he need not view the totality of the present age as simply an ob-
stacle to the assertion of his autonomy. He does not legislate the "law
of his existence," but this law need not constrain his freedom to at-
tempt a repetition.
Indeed, the importance of resisting the defining character of one's
age lies not in the prospect that one might thereby escape its totality
(for this is impossible), but in the prospect that one might thereby
enact an instance of repetition. Refusing the "demands of one's
times" will never eliminate or repeal these demands, but it may ren-
der them less "demanding." Through repetition, that is, one under-
17
This point is stated persuasively by Bruce H. Kirmmse. According to Kirmmse, "By
pointedly alluding to From the Papers of One Still Living in A Literary Review, SK
calls attention to the symmetry of the authorship he hoped he was concluding, an
authorship that had allowed for the repetition and deepening of the same themes
over and over again but that had also seen the essential movement from
pseudonymity to direct communication" (op. cit., p. 266).
18
Hannay pursues a similar line of interpretation: "What this development seems in-
tended to show is a gradual appropriation by the individual of the authority, what-
ever its nature, needed to maintain society: from being an authority exercised over
him as a member of the generation, it becomes an authority vested in himself as an
individual" (op. cit., p. 281).

Authenticated
46 Daniel W. Conway
stands that the necessity imposed by the mechanism of reflexion

need be neither totalizing nor suffocating. In criticizing the pandemic
leveling that characterizes the present age, Kierkegaard thus succeeds
not in distancing himself from his age, but in asserting his own auton-
omy within the enframing totality of his age. His repetition thus be-
comes a means of securing inwardness and approaching authenticity.
As Kierkegaard's description of his repetition indicates, his expec-
tations of it are extremely modest, especially when compared to the
"existentialist" aspirations that are popularly attributed to him.19 He
hopes to achieve in the process of repetition only "a little more" of
what he had earlier achieved, which would demonstrate simply that
he has been "changed in the repetition" (TA, p. 23). One such change
is the appearance of his own name on the title page of A Literary Re-
view, which demonstrates the constancy of thought in reference to
which his repetition might transpire. These modest expectations accu-
rately express his respect for the necessity conveyed by the mecha-
nism of reflexion, for he cannot realistically hope through repetition
to escape the defining character of his age. His modest expectations
also reflect his desire to remain "faithful" both to his age and to him-
self. In attempting a simple repetition, he simultaneously obeys and
resists the "demands of his times." In this respect, his repetition en-
ables him to claim to have secured for himself an authentic existence.
Having "changed in the repetition," he acquires for himself as much
inwardness as the totality of his age will allow under the prevailing
relations (optimal or not) of social organization. Repetition thus frees
him from the invidious comparisons that would invariably arise from
any appeal to trans-historical standards of faithfulness and authentic-
ity. While some readers will find this account of repetition to be dis-
appointingly deflationary, it does cohere with the anti-voluntarist cur-
rents that inform A Literary Review.
19
Here I might disagree, for example, with Golomb, who perhaps understates the
claim of necessity on the authenticity-seeking individual: "Kierkegaard's notion of
authenticity is not about the realization or fulfillment of one's self but about its
spontaneous creation. The self is something that should be created and formed, not
something possessing an intrinsic essence to be further developed" (op. cit, pp. 53-
54). While Golomb is certainly right to refuse on Kierkegaard's behalf any appeal
to an "intrinsic essence," the presence of an antecedently existing "essence" is not
the only possible obstacle to the "spontaneous creation" of one's self. As I have at-
tempted to demonstrate in this essay, Kierkegaard's Ë Literary Review is more cen-
trally concerned with the necessity imposed on one's pursuit of authenticity by
one's historical destiny.

Authenticated
What expectations of Kierkegaard's repetition might his readers

form for themselves? That is, how might they remain faithful both to
him and to themselves? First of all, they might acknowledge the via
negativa he treads as an occasion of the reflexion of his age. As we
have seen, he is no more faithful in his "review" of the two ages than
is the author of Two Ages, from whom he claims to inherit his "im-
partiality." Indeed, he fully exemplifies the alleged ills of the present
age, even as he presumes to diagnose and treat them. His "review" of
the present age must therefore be treated as itself a symptom of the
ills it presumes to diagnose. In this light, his proposed solution to the
crisis of the present age may in fact be viable, but his readers cannot
know it to be such on his authority alone, for he too participates in
the reflection and leveling that characterize the present age. Ironi-
cally, his repetition of the author's "impartiality" is accurate even in
ways he fails to discern, including its resumption of the author's sig-
nature prejudices.
In this light, it is indeed fortunate that A Literary Review schools
its readers in the art of reading Kierkegaard against Kierkegaard.
Practitioners of this art are positioned to appreciate that his repeti-
tions serve to expose - and perhaps to neutralize - the prejudices, ex-
aggerations, resentments, and errors that inform his own, self-referen-
tial evaluation of the present age. Here it is helpful to remember that
En literair Anmeldelse comprises not only "a literary review," but also
"a literary notification," which bears witness to the age it describes in
ways of which Kierkegaard himself is not entirely aware.20 If chatter
typically debases and devaluates whatever it addresses, then his own
brand of self-directed chatter may yield an overly deflationary ac-
count of the present age. If reflection typically recoils from the pas-
sional character of the age, then we might expect his reflections on
the present age to issue a misguided inventory of the passional re-
sources available to its typical representatives. His repetition may
therefore provide his readers with new insights into the totality of the
present age, including insights that might oppose or contradict his of-
ficial (albeit partial) account of its character.
If we read Kierkegaard against Kierkegaard, we may find that the
present age in fact commands a greater intensity of passional re-
sources than A Literary Review allows, as illuminated in the collisions
20
I am indebted for this point to Fenves: "Hidden and yet altogether apparent in En
literair Anmeldelse is anmeldelse: not 'review' but 'announcement,' or better still,
'notification'" (op. cit., p. 213).

Authenticated
48 Daniel W. Conway
that result from his self-referential chatter. Some of his readers may
discover, in fact, that a leap into religion is possible for them after all.
For they stand to him as he stands to the author of Two Ages. In their
review of his Review, they may discover aspects of his age that are
unknown to him, aspects that come to light only in the course of his
repetition. His performance of repetition thus occasions an indirect
inducement to an authentic existence.21 To be "faithful" to them-
selves, as well as to their age, Kierkegaard's readers must not allow
him to impede their quest for authenticity.
Second, there is also the via positiva Kierkegaard treads as an
agent of repetition. The teaching of repetition has long puzzled his
readers, primarily because he offers several different accounts of it.
Although A Literary Review does not solve the puzzle of the teach-
ing of repetition, it does purport to offer an example of Kierke-
gaard's own repetition as a reviewer of Two Ages. In so doing, it also
purports to demonstrate how he fulfilled his own modest expecta-
tions of repetition, having been changed in the process in subtle ways
that he deems faithful to his age. As we have seen in the case of
Charles Lusard, the enactment of repetition presupposes an element
of permanence or constancy, in relation to which change may reveal
itself as repetition. Kierkegaard's own repetition in A Literary Review
thus furnishes an outward sign of the operation within his thought of
a single "life-view." We might then say of him what he says of the
author of Two Ages - namely that he "has an intrinsic faithfulness
and reproduces his own originality in the repetition" (TA, p. 14).22 A
Literary Review thus provides a welcome example of repetition and
the pursuit of authenticity under the unique historical conditions that
characterize the present age.
Kierkegaard's example of repetition in A Literary Review cannot
be reproduced by his readers in the particularity of its singular de-
tails. It can be repeated, however, by those readers who are willing to
stand to him as he stands to the author of Two Ages, those readers
21
I am indebted here to Golomb's account of Kierkegaard's "indirect communica-
tions" as "enticements" to authenticity (op. cit., pp. 42-44).
22
Ë Literary Review thereby disproves the opinion of PL. M011er, who charged Kier-
kegaard with failing to command a 'life-view' of his own. As Fenves reconstructs
the slight, "An anonymously published review by PL. M011er...accuses Kierkegaard
of the same failure that Kierkegaard had diagnosed in Hans Christian Andersen,
namely, that he had failed to attain a 'life-view' and was therefore condemned to in-
terrupt his literary work with references to 'lived' experience - in short, that he had
a tendency to chatter" (op. cit., p. 197).

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who are content simply to add their own modest interpretations to

an extant palimpsest. Indeed, here we see that Kierkegaard's post-
authorial experiment is intended in part to acknowledge the necessity
of his envelopement in the totality of his age: The degree of original-
ity implied by "authorship," which involves the creation of something
completely "new," is not entirely compatible with the defining char-
acter of the age. He consequently lowers his expectations to match
the degree of originality implied by "interpretation," whereby one at-
tempts to contribute a signature filigree to the ongoing elaboration of
something "old." He consequently concludes his literary review with
some simple, homespun advice to attempt a particular repetition: "It
is not up to me to direct attention to the novel; in my own opinion
that would be unseemingly presumptive. But if anyone asks me for
my advice, I would advise him to read it, and if he has read it, to read
it again" (TA, p. 112). In refusing himself the prerogatives of author-
ship, in fact, he thereby aligns himself with the patiency that has been
revealed to him as the "law of existence" that governs the present
age. Indeed, modesty of expectation may be as close as he can come
to the propriety that characterizes the Age of Revolution.
Kierkegaard ultimately fails to defend the impartiality of his post-
authorial incarnation. In the process of claiming it for himself, how-
ever, he dispenses some welcome wisdom concerning the prospect of
attaining an authentic existence. Perhaps the most valuable lesson he
bequeaths to the present age is conveyed via his caution against the
allure of great expectations. Often it is the little things in life that
best promote inwardness and secure authenticity. Those who would
be "wandering stars" must be careful not to wander too far.

Authenticated

Conway Paper Kierkegaard

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Modest Expectations:

Kierkegaard's Reflections on the Present Age

En literair Anmeldelse (A Literary Review) provides welcome insight

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authenticity, this sketch is designed to accommodate the competing

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cates the popular reception of his familiar teachings. Herein we dis-

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//. Kierkegaard's Remarks on Social Philosophy

Kierkegaard's remarks on social philosophy in A Literary Review are

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suggests that the achievement of an authentic existence obliges one

Why this "balance" stands as evidence of impartiality, rather than, say,

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the age, refracting them toward the attainment of a common end. In

As this rich passage indicates, the integrating presence of a defining

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The presence or absence of a defining idea thus determines the

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"dialectical" model of cultural degeneration, wherein a vibrant, vital

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possesses no organizing principle by means of which it might galva-

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by the void resulting from the disintegration of the idea of revolu-

Kierkegaard's recourse to the mechanism of reflexion sheds welcome

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self enveloped.7 Hence the irony of Kierkegaard's opening discussion

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of defining the domain of individual freedom against the background

///. Kierkegaard's Reflections on the Present Age

According to Kierkegaard, the present age is characterized by a pan-

Further compounding the misery of the present age is the failure of

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The warrant for Kierkegaard's hopefulness is his belief that the

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this wondrous transformation, but he does say that "the prerequisite

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thusiasm" not presuppose the presence of individuals who can will to

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to pursue is sheltered in the hypothetical clauses he inserts: For what

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His formulations in these two passages, referring to an "interven-

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It is certainly tempting here to dismiss or explain away this appar-

IV. Reflexion and Self-Reference

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two ages so masterfully depicted by the author. He consequently

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is in fact possible in the present age, should he not undertake such a

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V. Repetition in Ë Literary Review

By virtue of his resentment and nostalgia, Kierkegaard clearly situ-

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stands that the necessity imposed by the mechanism of reflexion

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What expectations of Kierkegaard's repetition might his readers

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who are content simply to add their own modest interpretations to