For Kierkegaard, human existence is possible only in tension—in tension between man’s simultaneous life as an individual in the spirit and as a citizen in society.
Disintegration of the rational character of society and the rational relationship between individual and society is the most revolutionary trait of our times.
Society must make it possible for man to die without despair if it wants him to be able to live exclusively in society. And it can do so in only one way: by making individual life meaningless. If you are nothing but a leaf on the tree of the race, a cell in the body of society, then your death is not really death; you had better call it a process of collective regeneration. But then of course your life is not a real life either; it is just a functional process within the life of the whole, devoid of any meaning except in terms of the whole. Thus an optimism that proclaims human existence in society leads straight to despair. And this despair can lead only to totalitarianism. Human existence is possible as existence not in despair, as existence not in tragedy; it is possible as existence in Faith. Faith is the belief that in God the impossible is possible, that in Him time and eternity are one, that both life and death are meaningful.
ACTION POINT: Reflect on the following: “Human existence is possible only in tension—in tension between man’s simultaneous life as an individual in the spirit and as a citizen in society.”
The Ecological Vision
The End of Economic Man
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker