Makers of the Modern Mind
Fear and Trembling: A Solution to Political Polarisation? Oliver Udy ’20 “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision: let doubt prevail.” - Bertrand Russell Political discourse in the ‘West’ has become increasingly tribal and aggressive in recent years. The growing canyon emerging between the two political parties in the U.S. has made genuine bipartisan interaction almost impossible. Perhaps a reason why this has become the default mode of operations is a feeling of security one gets with having a ‘home’ of ideological comfort. The bliss of being absolutely certain in one’s outlook on the world certainly relieves the mental torture endured by being unsure about a particular issue society faces. Nonetheless, in order to maintain a healthy democracy, citizens must have a degree of angst: A certain level of faith in our own ability to rationally grapple with complex dilemmas and fractures within society. In order to even attempt to tackle a problem which is so deeply rooted in a human being’s conception of self and his or her purpose as an individual—as well as in relation to the collective—we must see it through a philosophical lens, through the lens of Søren Kierkegaard. We must evaluate the legitimacy of his claim that one should fall between the aesthetic, with a purely egocentric focus, and the universal, conforming to societal norms and expectations of society. Ultimately, it is only through understanding and following Kierkegaard that we can comprehend a solution (if one even exists) to current political polarisation. However, before exploring the idea more fully, it is important to point out a potential contradiction in this very argument. Kierkegaard’s “Preamble From the Heart” points out the “monstrous paradox that is the content of Abraham’s life” (Kierkegaard 62) in the sense that philosophy is not faith, nor can it give us faith by attempting to make us understand the paradox of faith that leaves Johannes “virtually annihilated.” If someone were to extend this idea to the argument that proposes a concrete solution to the problem of an unstable political landscape, it may be stated that they are compromised. They put an unhealthy amount of faith in this new system which was created by “the proudest human being, the philosopher, [who] thinks (wrongly) that he sees the eyes of the universe telescopically 29
