Summary: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (page 9)

This confusion of ethics with what the age demands ¹ is linked to the success of Hegelian philosophy, but it is also a consequence of the elites' lack of interest in ethics, which is regarded as something of so little value that its teaching is preferably left to seminarians and village schoolmasters.

Against the pride of one who seeks to play a role in universal history, one must return to humility—the very condition of ethics:

Dare, says ethics, dare to renounce everything—and in particular this distinguished yet deceptive commerce with the contemplation of world history; dare to become nothing at all, a particular individual, from whom God ethically demands everything.

One must understand that these are two opposed viewpoints that nothing can reconcile: From the standpoint of world history, a proposition will be false which, from the ethical standpoint, is true. A privileged example: To be an individual is nothing, from the world-historical standpoint—absolutely nothing; and yet it is the only true and the highest significance of a human being.

By demonstrating the irreducibility of the ethical standpoint and its incompatibility with Hegelian philosophy, Kierkegaard offers here a formidable critique of the latter.

With a touch of malice, he remarks in a footnote that in his History of Philosophy—which recapitulates the different essential moments of philosophy—Hegel privileges his own country and even his own person, which casts doubt on his impartiality:

The method admits only one Chinaman, but not a single German professor is excluded—and certainly not a Prussian; for whoever hands out decorations first decorates himself.

This may seem anecdotal, but it is quite revealing: the identification of the different stages of History is not carried out according to genuinely scientific criteria, but according to irrational factors—pride, chance, and so on: Hegel's ordering of the process of world history […] ultimately rests on arbitrariness and the leap. So, although in its general principle it is seductive, the Hegelian method presents itself more or less as a piece of buffoonery when it has to be applied to a particular detail.

We now understand better why 'becoming subjective' is the greatest duty assigned to every human being, a duty sufficient for the longest life, for it has this peculiar property that it ceases only when life is ended: it is a task, a duty, because a person can lose himself in objectivity. We have just examined a privileged example of this: abandoning the ethical standpoint in order to adopt that of universal history.

Yet a difficulty remains. Granted, it is a task to be carried out. But why should it be an infinite task? Once one has understood that one must not yield to the sirens of objectivism, this would seem to require nothing more.

That would be a mistake, according to Kierkegaard. He illustrates this with two examples.

To do good, to be moral, seems simple once one has understood the distinction between good and evil. Yet throughout our existence we are exposed to the temptation to act wrongly. As soon as we discover within ourselves, like Socrates, this disposition to do evil, then the road of ethics becomes very long, for it begins only when one makes this discovery.

Likewise, praying seems simple, and yet how difficult it is! It requires an altogether clear conception of God, of myself, and of my relation to him. It also requires sustaining a fervent faith throughout one's life, and so on.

In the same way, becoming subjective—that is, existing, since these two terms are ultimately synonymous—seems simple, like praying or acting morally; but it is an infinite task to which we must apply ourselves throughout our lives:

To be an existing human being is for every person a task so demanding, and yet so natural, that one naturally chooses it first of all, and will presumably find enough to do for a whole life in this demanding task.

In the end, it is the highest task assigned to every human being, just as the highest reward—an eternal blessedness—exists only for the subjective person, or more precisely is engendered for the one who becomes subjective.

But what can this task consist in? What must someone do if he wants 'to become subjective'? The content of this expression is still vague, and has so far been approached only negatively—to be subjective is not to do this or that, and so on. The time has come to give it positive determinations, and Kierkegaard begins that work here, focusing on two essential features.

¹ Our translation. The references for the quotations are available in the book Kierkegaard: A Close Reading