Either/Or 1: Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol. 3

Rating:
Summary: The first book in Kierkegaard's remarkable Authorship
Review: Although Kierkegaard had written other books before this one, mainly some literary critical works as well as his dissertation THE CONCEPT OF IRONY, this is the book that begins what he calls his "Authorship." The works constituting his Authorship have two main things in common: 1) they are all written by Pseudonymous Authors that represent points of view that do not precisely correspond with Kierkegaard's beliefs and 2) they are intent on delineating what Kierkegaard called the three stages of existence: the aesthetic, the ethical, and religious stages.

Of all the great philosophical writers, Kierkegaard was one of the greatest masters of literary form. In each work, he adapts a style and form that is appropriate to the particular point of view he is attempting to illustrate. In EITHER/OR I, he is concerned with showing various aspects of the Aesthetic Stage of Existence. Unlike the later stages of existence, the Aesthetic is extremely diverse, and can take more forms and be expressed in a larger number of shapes. Kierkegaard therefore writes a series of essays that bring out various aspects of the Aesthetic stage. Some of these are among his most famous writings. His essay on Mozart's DON GIOVANNI, "The Immediate Erotic Stages or The Musical-Erotic" ranks among the most famous pieces of musical criticism ever written. Perhaps even more famous is "The Seducer's Diary," in which an individual records his attempts to snare a young woman, though more in the sense of a Mephistopheles than a Don Juan. My favorite section, and the one that illustrates an especially developed form of the aesthetic is "The Rotation of Crops," in which our anonymous author attempts to deal with the one great difficulty facing the Aesthetic Mode of Existence: boredom. As he writes, "Boredom is the root of all evil." Therefore, the challenge to the Aesthetic is to thrust away continually boredom, and in this essay our writer provides a guide to making life as interesting as possible. We are required to continually find new friends, new jobs, new interests, since all obligations lead to tedium. Marriage is, of course, to be avoided, since this is boring (the contrary to this will be asserted in EITHER/OR II). That this task is impossible is taken up in later works by Kierkegaard.

EITHER/OR begins in classic Kierkegaardian fashion. Kierkegaard was probably the greatest master of the Preface in the history of literature. His Prefaces are such masterpieces that they can profitably be read on their own, and he himself delighted in writing them to such a degree that he wrote one book that consisted in nothing but Prefaces. In the one to both volumes of EITHER/OR, a gentleman by the name of Victor Eremita explains how he accidentally discovered the papers filling the two volumes that had been hidden in a desk. He separates them into two groups, "A" and "B". He possesses no great certainty as to the authorship, but believes that one person may have written the first group, and another the second group. Or, alternately, that the author of the "A" papers may have written the "B" papers later in life. The latter is probably what Kierkegaard wants us to believe, for it is his fundamental belief that the Aesthetic mode of existence is doomed to failure, and that it is possible (though not necessary) that this could lead to a higher level of existence, The Ethical. This new stage is dealt with in the second volume of EITHER/OR.

Rating:
Summary: The science of avoiding decision
Review: Everything I have read by Kierkegaard, Either/Or, The Seducer, Deep Park or whatever has the same central argument- the relative merits of manipulating the situation as opposed to doing or not doing whatever some inner voice tells him.

Men who get along well with women have a certain knowing of what the woman wants and use this understanding to manipulate her.
Kierkegaard is obsessed with the morality of this, it being less than mutual complete openness. In addition, when one understands a woman intuitively one loses a bit of one's SELF or inner being. This inner being tends naturally toward passivity for those who sense it. The man is "sensitive". An understanding female friend might give him the advice, "She wants YOU to be more mechanical." In Kierkegaard's view going to Deer Park presents the same sort of difficulty. He wants to go, but he does not want to decide to go. The act of decision makes him less sensitive and more mechanistic; therefore the decision to go can produce more inner stress than would a natural leader's decision to enter into a war. Kierkegaard looks for a justification for his indecision and comes to Christianity. But Christianity is "absurd" because it involves "eternal truth occuring in time." To Kierkegaard's mentality a great decision made based upon inner-felt moral grounds is easier than a small decision with no moral significance. In the first case he is empowered by the moral ground that the decision afferms; in the second case the inner self receives no affermation. In this sense morality is a crutch and an order-giver; morality commands as well as empowers; therefore, the individual acts contrary to his own interests and contrary even at times to his own understanding.
To Kierkegaard morality is a part of the inner self, not an external standard or system. Kierkegaard is good to understand, but a bad example to copy.

Rating:
Summary: Seriously, this is not a serious book!
Review: You will have the most fun reading the first book of Either/Or. The book is actually the master fisherman's best hook -much like Socrates was a midwife of thoughts- to bring you out into reflection of the question at hand: Either the esthetic or the ethical life. This book and the second part is this elaborate question concerning two opposing ways of life. This first book is ironically and seductively entertaining. He deals with various subjects like Mozart, Drama, unhappiness, Boredom and finallly the seduction of young girl. If anything else, read the last two portions of the book. One of the things that I like about the way K writes is his ability to use words from other disciplines and to incorporate them into his language so beautifully that reading him is literally an excursion.