Kierkegaard was Wrong & likely Mentally ill

[Isaac]

The weaker sex can wail and scream etc.; this is perhaps why the woman suffers much less than the silent, enclosed man. In this context one could be tempted to say that woman is the stronger sex, for if it is strength to defend oneself against suffering, then woman defends herself far better than man.

Research indicates that Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience depression.

Why does QRS like Kierkegaard so much? To me he just sounds like a raving manic depressive.

Maybe that's just it. Maybe Quinn, Solway and Rowden simply have depressed temperaments, and instead of acknowledging their depression as a weakness, they instead believe that it's a sign that they are spiritually advanced.

I think that's what Kierkegaard did. He had a deficiency, a chemical imbalance, namely depression - and to make this fact more manageable, more bearable, he interpreted his depression as a sign of exceptional nobility. He went from being very weak, to very strong. That was how he coped.

This is really a common trick engaged in by the mentally ill. They need to make sense of their maladaptiveness, their suffering, their isolation. There's only two ways to go, up or down. Either they are extremely special, or extremely deficient.

Of course they can't help but believe they are special - a reincarnation of Jesus, Napoleon or whatever.

It's in this same manner that mentally ill people get hung up on being "Geniuses"

[average]

It's funny to read about Kierkegaard and his schemes to win Regine Olsen.


And the effects she had on him after he broke off the engagement are even sillier.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Research indicates that Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience depression.

But Isaac, you do know that depression is not related to "experiencing suffering"? Depression is mainly thought of as a way to cope with suffering, by decreasing the experience of any affect, being it joy or sadness. Wailing and screaming is another attempt of coping.

In that sense your quoted research agrees with Kierkegaard, I'd say.

This is really a common trick engaged in by the mentally ill. They need to make sense of their maladaptiveness, their suffering, their isolation. There's only two ways to go, up or down. Either they are extremely special, or extremely deficient.

Actually it's more like a common human trait to justify ones own situation and to adapt to the most insane environments if options seem to have run out or peer pressure is too high. It might be only easier to spot in extreme cases of sickness, abuse, family situations, politics and so on. Think about it...

The rest of your post is not that bad of an idea and could be worked out a bit more, wasn't it Nietzsche that already wrote in the Preface to The Gay Science:

I mean, in its weakness or repentance or resignation or hardening or gloom, and whatever other names there are for the pathological states of the spirit that on healthy days are opposed by the pride of the spirit (for the old saying is still valid: "the proud spirit, peacock, and horse are the three proudest beasts on earth"—). After such self-questioning, self-temptation, one acquires a subtler eye for all philosophizing to date; one can infer better than before the involuntary detours, side lanes, resting places, and sunny places of thought to which suffering thinkers are led and misled on account of their suffering; for now one knows whether the sick body and its needs unconsciously urge, push, and lure the spirit—toward the sun, stillness, madness, patience, medicine, balm in some sense. Every philosophy that ranks peace above war, every ethic with a negative definition of happiness, every metaphysics and physics that knows some finale, some final state of some sort, every predominant aesthetic or religious craving for some Apart, Beyond, Outside, Above, permits the question whether it was not sickness that inspired the philosopher.

[Isaac]

It's funny to read about Kierkegaard and his schemes to win Regine Olsen.


And the effects she had on him after he broke off the engagement are even sillier.

From wiki:

"There has been scholarly contention as to the motives behind Kierkegaard's breaking of his engagement to Regine. It has been suggested that Kierkegaard's reading of the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac (told at length in his book Fear and Trembling) influenced his perspective on Regine and marriage: he believed that, if he were to sacrifice the person most dear to him as an act of religious faith, God would return her to him at the last moment. Instead, Kierkegaard was confounded when Regine moved on and married someone else."

That's really sad.

The above, to me, suggest strongly that Kierkegaard believed in divine intervention, a higher providence which would reward him. In fact, all of his writings give off the small of a believer in higher intelligence looking over man.

[Alex Jacob]

"The above, to me, suggest strongly that Kierkegaard believed in divine intervention, a higher providence which would reward him. In fact, all of his writings give off the small of a believer in higher intelligence looking over man."

Though I'm not sure, I think he may also have read the Bible. Some say 9unconfirmed) he was a Christian and believed the story line, mostly. How anyone, in any era, could believe in a 'higher intelligence' looking over man, is beyond me...

;-)

[Isaac]

Research indicates that Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience depression.

But Isaac, you do know that depression is not related to "experiencing suffering"?

What do you mean not related? Sure it is.

Depression is mainly thought of as a way to cope with suffering, by decreasing the experience of any affect, being it joy or sadness.

What's the difference between sadness and depression? I don't believe there is a difference, and I don't understand why you would think there is one.

In that sense your quoted research agrees with Kierkegaard, I'd say.

Well here's a quote by Kierkegaard:

"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known"

Why would depression be such a faithful mistress for Kierkegaard?

[Isaac]

Though I'm not sure, I think he may also have read the Bible. Some say 9unconfirmed) he was a Christian and believed the story line, mostly.

Doesn't the storyline involve some creator of the universe who gives life everlasting to those who devote their lives to God? And so isn't that what he believed?

How anyone, in any era, could believe in a 'higher intelligence' looking over man, is beyond me.

Kierkegaard's era was pretty steeped in generic Christianity - wasn't it?

[DHodges]

Maybe that's just it. Maybe Quinn, Solway and Rowden simply have depressed temperaments, and instead of acknowledging their depression as a weakness, they instead believe that it's a sign that they are spiritually advanced.

I can't speak for them, but I, for one, am subject to depression, and there have been instances when I wasn't sure if certain things were a sign of spirituality or just a manifestation of depression. For example, when losing interest in particular worldy things - on the right track, or do I just need to adjust the dosage?

What's the difference between sadness and depression? I don't believe there is a difference, and I don't understand why you would think there is one.

There is quite a bit of difference, and one can be sad without being depressed, or depressed without being sad. Depression is more a state of being uninterested in anything, ennui, things being too much effort to bother, not much responding to anything.

The opposite of depression isn't happiness, it's mania.



As for Kierkegaard, I never did care for him. It's like, Christianity wasn't Christian enough for him.

[Alex Jacob]

Isaac wrote:

"Doesn't the storyline involve some creator of the universe who gives life everlasting to those who devote their lives to God? And so isn't that what he believed?"

And in the later Vedic metaphysic, which (according to them) is a sort of science, we are all the creations of the original being, and our souls-spirits are described as particles of the Supreme, and that, really, we are never born and never die because this 'spark' is in its essence undying, and our whole world, our kosmos, is not much more than a 'play of light', a 'play of energy', and yet we are here in this place, which is referred to as a 'realm of samsara' because we the confused personalities are separated, through ignorance from our 'real selves', which is to say from the Supreme Being, but that (also according to them) this can change at any moment, and spiritual life, religious life, community life, is a process of awakening, remembering, and is 'the beginning of a road home'. Human life and culture participates in Rta, the Great Order of things.

When one has a point of comparison, or numbers of them, I personally think, one is in a better position to examine the Christian claim, which is like seeing a scene through a chink in a wall: incomplete, a little distorted, and it gives us another way of understanding what 'devotion to God' might be. You could interpret the metaphor as vague representation of 'the way things are', or one could allegories it even further. But the pattern itself remains uniquely 'religious'.

"Kierkegaard's era was pretty steeped in generic Christianity - wasn't it?"

Sho 'nuf, dawg...

And the more open become our ideas and the more wide-ranging our minds and imagination, the more that ideas can expand. They do not have to contract into some of those nauseating scenes in those youtube vids, but can actually participate in real modernity, in a very real way, in a productive, awake, responsible way.
________________________________________

"Some of us are crazy, or maybe we take turns..."

---John Trudell

[Isaac]

Maybe that's just it. Maybe Quinn, Solway and Rowden simply have depressed temperaments, and instead of acknowledging their depression as a weakness, they instead believe that it's a sign that they are spiritually advanced.

I can't speak for them, but I, for one, am subject to depression, and there have been instances when I wasn't sure if certain things were a sign of spirituality or just a manifestation of depression. For example, when losing interest in particular worldy things - on the right track, or do I just need to adjust the dosage?

What about thoughts of suicide? Isn't that part of depression?

What's the difference between sadness and depression? I don't believe there is a difference, and I don't understand why you would think there is one.

There is quite a bit of difference, and one can be sad without being depressed, or depressed without being sad. Depression is more a state of being uninterested in anything, ennui, things being too much effort to bother, not much responding to anything.

I think there's more to it than that. Involved is feelings of worthlessness, shame, inferiority and a desire to commit suicide.

The opposite of depression isn't happiness, it's mania.

To me, mania is just extreme happiness. And depression is extreme sadness.

As for Kierkegaard, I never did care for him. It's like, Christianity wasn't Christian enough for him.

He glorified suffering is what he did. I don't understand why he and others think it's necessary to try and beat out the zest and enjoyment of life.

What's your opinion of the emotions, dhodges?

[Isaac]

How anyone, in any era, could believe in a 'higher intelligence' looking over man, is beyond me...

;-)

Before I go any further here I just want to add that I do not think Kierkegaard believed God looked down on man in a geographic sense - that's too primitive. But I believe he was a bit like Newton in that he somehow believed in providence, despite the vast conception of the universe, etc.

[David Quinn]

I've never suffered from depression, and neither has Dan or Kevin as far as I'm aware. But yes, it does look like Kierkegaard did suffer from it - or melancholia, as they used to call it. It can't have been too severe as he was very productive throughout his life. But he did see his doctor about trying to find a cure for it.

As for his affair with Regina, you shouldn't believe too much in what Wikipedia says, or what a bunch of scholars happen to speculate. He basically saw it as a watershed issue in his life, a crossroads. He was in love with Regina and really wanted to marry her, but he wasn't prepared to sacrifice his relationship to God because of it. He may have hoped that things would pan out as they did for Abraham, and that he could have both Regina and God, but that was probably just some wishful thinking borne out of a moment of weakness. I can forgive him for that.

As for accusing Kierkegaard of mental illness and the like, I really have to laugh. When you begin to approach the depth and soulfulness of Kierkegaard's writing and start churning out works of his incredible quality, then you can begin to stand above him in judgment and point out his flaws. There is something terribly wrong with the idea of talentless critics tearing down those who have immense talent and genius, and the courage to use them.

-

[xerox]

...

[sue hindmarsh]

DHodges wrote:

As for Kierkegaard, I never did care for him. It's like, Christianity wasn't Christian enough for him.

That’s interesting Dave – what drove you to “not care for him” is exactly what stirred my initial interest in him. There he was, living in a part of the world where EVERYONE was a Christian, and he vows to dedicate his life to encouraging people toward Christianity!?!

After reading just a small portion of his work it quickly became clear that what he was talking about had nothing whatsoever to do with what the world called Christianity.

Here he makes that very clear:
Christianity is the kind of orthodoxy that is hearty twaddle. Mediocrity with a dash of sugar. What we have come to call Christianity is precisely what Christ came to abolish.

[sue hindmarsh]

Isaac wrote:

Diebert wrote: Depression is mainly thought of as a way to cope with suffering, by decreasing the experience of any affect, being it joy or sadness. Wailing and screaming is another attempt of coping.

There are also many, many other ways people “cope” with suffering. We can use just about anything to keep it at bay by constantly occupying ourselves with things such as careers, relationships, sex, tv, music, games, religion, and so much more.

He glorified suffering is what he did. I don't understand why he and others think it's necessary to try and beat out the zest and enjoyment of life.

Isn’t suffering also a part of life?

And - if you have spent your life thus far escaping suffering by coping with it in the ways I mentioned above, how do you conclude a life lived directly (that is, a life lived understanding suffering) is without “zest” and “enjoyment”?

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Research indicates that Women are almost twice as likely as men to experience depression.

But Isaac, you do know that depression is not related to "experiencing suffering"?

What do you mean not related? Sure it is.

Sorry, what I meant is that experiencing depression or what is commonly described as 'clinical depression' cannot be just equalled with the experience of suffering or sadness. One has to distinguish between the 'depressed mood', a temporally depleted, down state of functioning which is often prone to several negative emotions, and depression as an illness.

"In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant. My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known"

Why would depression be such a faithful mistress for Kierkegaard?

One problem is that the term depression is often used for extreme moods of sadness or regret. Like if one would study all the horrors of human society in full detail one could experience all kinds of emotion: compassion (in the sense that one literally starts to identity emotionally with the negativity one perceives, the other suffering becomes your suffering), questioning the why, feeling insignificance to change the world, hopelessness etc.

Every human with a bit of conscience left has experienced the melancholy above. The question remains then when it becomes depression in a clinical sense.

It's an interesting topic and I too see a danger that people could confuse spiritual progress with mental defects.

It's perhaps a bit like the idea of courage. An escaped mental patient jumps in a burning house and saves a family because he thinks he's invulnerable, forgetting all caution. Compare that to a courageous fireman aware of all the dangers and still jumps in and saves people. From the perspective of the family being saved it's hard to explain the difference, they might not even care. From a more analytical point of view, there are fundamental differences and one action is considered an unlikely coincidence and the other action is considered a form of a man doing what a man's gotta do.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

Isaac wrote:

Diebert wrote: Depression is mainly thought of as a way to cope with suffering, by decreasing the experience of any affect, being it joy or sadness. Wailing and screaming is another attempt of coping.

There are also many, many other ways people “cope” with suffering. We can use just about anything to keep it at bay by constantly occupying ourselves with things such as careers, relationships, sex, tv, music, games, religion, and so much more.

Exactly right. Any observant reader would now realize that" coping with suffering" in these sentences could as well be written as "coping with life". Suffering in the deepest sense cannot be divided into 'bad' suffering and 'good' suffering, or 'necessary' and 'unnecessary' suffering. Because it's easy to see that one person might suffer to make another person prosper. The underlying movement of life causes both.

Still I'd say that depression and forms of emotional drama are both specific mechanisms to deal with extreme anxiety. In one case the experience is shut down or diminished, in the other case it's projected outwards, attempts to "blowing off steam' or passing the buck. Note that both 'tactics' are never completely successful, only to the point of avoiding a total break down.

Distractions like the ones Sue mentioned are the other main tactic, all basically a more complex mix of shutting down experiences (numbing) or projecting them outwards, demanding sacrificial goats.

This reasoning leads to the diagnosis of our society becoming as whole more and more hysterical and depressed. With its individual members just going through these motions defined by the confused herd.

[Jason]

This reasoning leads to the diagnosis of our society becoming as whole more and more hysterical and depressed.

I don't see how it leads to the diagnosis that on the whole things are getting worse.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This reasoning leads to the diagnosis of our society becoming as whole more and more hysterical and depressed.

I don't see how it leads to the diagnosis that on the whole things are getting worse.

That's why I wrote only about hysterical and depressed behavior getting worse, or at least more common. If that means that "on the whole things are getting worse", that depends on which things you happen to value.

[Diebert van Rhijn]

This reasoning leads to the diagnosis of our society becoming as whole more and more hysterical and depressed.

I don't see how it leads to the diagnosis that on the whole things are getting worse.

Or did you mean how I came to the conclusion of the society as a whole becoming more hysterical and depressed? It's merely an observation of a significant rise in clinical stress related diseases and the absurd increase of entertainment, distractions and so on. The whole story of cause and effect of what's happening here might be a bit more involved though :)

[Carl G]

As for Kierkegaard, I never did care for him. It's like, Christianity wasn't Christian enough for him.

It wasn't Christianity that wasn't Christian enough for Kierkegaard, it was the institution known as The Church. Big difference. Unfortunately the Church, namely most 'Christian' religion, is only passingly Christ-related, and can more accurately be called its opposite, that is, satanic.

[Jason]

Ya know those portable public address speaker boxes that have a wireless microphone, like this one, the type that salespeople use outside the front of shops? It would be spectacular to hide one of them near a church's ceiling, and standing outside with the wireless microphone, midway through a service, boom out "Hear me my flock! This is your Lord! I know what you have been doing to the alter boy Father McGilly!" blah blah blah

Or perhaps hide something like this next to the priest and secretly activate it at opportune times, like whenever the congregation stood and then sat.

Of course, you would secretly record the events to video too. Fun for the whole family.

[Ryan Rudolph]

Kierkegaard had some fairly decent writings, but genetically, he had a few demons. Plus it seems to me that he was conflicted deeply. One can tell a lot about the strength of a man’s character by the last moments leading up to his death. Apparently, Kierkegaard pronounced his love for Regina and left all his financial assets to her – this being a woman that had been married to a different man for years, and he had stopped communicating with decades earlier. Kierkegaard struck me as a tortured soul, a soul deeply conflicted between a worldly life, and that of a solitary philosopher.

He fought with feelings of isolation, and even ideas that he was being punished by god, and that god was testing him with his present solitary predicament, he also believed that his entire family had been forsaken by god. He didn’t take his understanding of causality all the way in my opinion, he needed fantasies of the supernatural to fight off the urge to get married and have children. If Kierkegaard had taken his understanding of causality all the way, he might have understood that he had the type of character that needed a woman in his life in some capacity, even if just as a pragmatic companion to help with daily affairs.

I think he would have been less tortured if he had the presence of a woman companion in his life.

In my opinion, Men cannot live without the passions, the passions cause men to do everything, and part of the understanding of causality is realizing what passions are required for ones own unique subjective stability. Moreover, this involves understanding the limits of ones own subjective character, and living within the bounds of those limits. Kierkegaard made everything sound so black and white as far as choice is concerned, he left no room for any sort of grey area based on personal weakness. And it was the absence of the grey area that tormented him so. For instance: getting a supermodel beauty queen and having sex with her everyday until you’re a karmic mess is much different than getting an average rigid type of woman who will help out with chores, and will provide a bit of casual companionship, rather than talking to god so to speak.

Some of Kierkegaard’s best writings were probably written when he was manic. Again, this is all speculation, and based on evidence provided by various sources. Personally, I believe that Kierkegaard exhibited intense moments of genius, but that genius was most likely born through significant genetic/character deficiency.

[sue hindmarsh]

Ryan,

There is madness in genius, but it isn't the weak, sickly kind as you seem to be ascribing to Kierkegaard. His madness was having passion.

[sue hindmarsh]

Jason wrote:

I don't see how it leads to the diagnosis that on the whole things are getting worse.

The forever hungry modern monster that is Consumerism is surely evidence of people's hysteria. It cries: Buy! Buy! Buy! And quell your fears! But the fears return ever larger, pushing people to continue to toil longer and harder to purchase more things in an effort to feel secure for a time before the feelings of insecurity return. And return they do!

When people aren’t working, they’re consuming -- a template most are too afraid to question for fear that the few moments of pleasure they gain will be lost, and never replaced. So they just remain locked in that cycle.