The Crowd is UNtruth by Soren Kierkegaard -- some thoughts in light of January 6, 2021

 The events of January 6, 2021, a terrible day for the United States, and I fear not the end, have prompted me to post some thoughts on this short book. It seems to me that I might think I'm being an individual when I'm online when I'm really not, I'm really part of a crowd, but it's not always clear which crowd. There are philosophers who think we are always part of a crowd since we inherit our language and mores from various crowds, and they may be right. But I want to suggest that, notwithstanding, there is usefulness in considering ourselves as individuals. If I posit myself as an individual, does that make me one? Maybe so. Another reason to think I might actually be an individual is that it sure seems like my body is distinct from that of others, and furthermore the character of my mind and heart, including the details of my aortal sclerosis, are unique to me.

So I want to, perhaps against the grain here, suggest that there ARE individuals and that you are one, and I am one. And that we should avoid crowds, beware when we find ourselves slipping into one, at least, be aware when we slip from one crowd to another, especially if we think of ourselves as all independent.

"There is a view of life which holds that where the crowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have the crowd on it's side." (Kierkegaard p. 6)

This view, in fact, the scientific world view, insists that a specific crowd -- of scientists -- have to assent to something and to the method by which a particular truth is supported, or at least not falsified. But Kierkegaard is radically unscientific, and I like him for it: being UN scientific, in this way of thinking, is not the same thing as being ANTI scientific. But even in the scientific world, individuals are present, it's part of the problem of philosophy of science. My smartphone works for me, and the truths used to create them are public truths, yet they affect me as an individual. But this is NOT what Kierkegaard wants to talk about, as we shall see.

"There is another view of life; which holds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry the matter out to its furthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that "the crowd" received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance) untruth would at once be let in." (Kierkegaard p. 6)

I can't go further without reminding myself of the line from Walden: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it's because he hears a different drummer." I've wondered about me and different drummers, because I certainly am not keeping up. It could be that I'm just not too bright, but it's more pleasant to flatter myself about a different drummer.

Critical Theorists are surely right that our own self-talk is conditioned by our society, and perhaps there's no room for an individual form of life(see Wittgenstein here), but what if there IS room somewhere? What if there IS a private language? The nice thing about a private language is that it's private, you don't get to know about mine or I yours. 

But we have to be aware that in our attempt to be 'individuals' we might actually act in bad faith and join a crowd -- and that's what has led me to think about January 6. If we are to be individuals, how do we avoid this, or can we? An element of the self set over AGAINST ALL CROWDS, period. I think of the romantic poets and novels about solitude and so on. Not all of us in solitude are authoritarian personalities, spinning strange conspiratorial webs. You can be an individual without ending up in the Capitol sporting a pair of horns. You can be an individual without buying into Ayn Rand or the Chicago School. And you can be an individual with at least a passing familiarity with The Frankfurt School, Critical Theory, the POMOs, and social psychology. And you don't even have to believe in free will.

 Kierkegaard says of this Biblical line(I Cor, 9:24) -- 

"Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize."

-- that the race is won as an individual. Our relationship with God is as an individual, "only one" wins the prize, that is, only AS one, not in a crowd. Perhaps this is why the soul on the burning sands loses: he runs the race for the public prize. But the prize is not public, it is private, for you alone to win or lose. It has nothing to do with the world's prizes.

He goes on:

"The worldly, temporal, busy, socially-friendly person says this:

    'How unreasonable, that only one should receive the prize, it is far more probable

    'that several combined receive the prize; and if we become many, then it becomes

    'more certain and also easier for each individually.'

Certainly, it is far more probable; and it is also true in relation to all earthly and sensuous prized;

and it becomes the only truth, if it is allowed to rule, for this point of view abolishes both God

and the eternal..."(Kierkegaard p. 8)

In Inferno Canto 15, Dante refers to a soul in Hell running on the burning sands, as one who won the race, instead of lost -- this is both a reference to the Bible and to an annual race in Verona. He makes an impressive show, but he loses. Over the course of my life, the main thing I have run after is security and safety. I would also like to have people think I'm great and awesome, the best and all that. But it does feel like I'm running on hot sand, goaded by something very unpleasant, and in the end it's all fake news. So I'm trying to step off, all the way off, let it go. Blow it all off.

Kierkegaard continues:

"so that to be a human being is like being a specimen which belongs to a race gifted with reason, so that the race, the species, is higher than the individual, or so that there are only specimens, not individuals."(pp.8-9)

Again, how romantic, but how awesome.

Crowds never, he says, work "for the highest end."(pg. 9) To work for the highest end requires an individual, with the help of God.

    Kiekegaard gives what are by now cliché warnings about how people do things in crowds they wouldn't do as individual, but then he says some very strong things about what we would call 'populist demogogues':

"There is therefore no one who has more contempt for what it is to be a human being than those who make it their profession to lead the crowd."(Kierkegaard p. 14) 

But Kierkegaard is usually far more radical than most people are willing to be. I think Kierkegaard is saying this about ANYONE who leads crowds for a living. Anyone who does that is undermining their individuality. Whatever the crowd decides is the truth, for Kierkegaard, cannot be the real, human, individual truth, and thus, it is UNtruth. A crowd leader is someone who discovers that they have the ability to talk and convince others, a power Socrates warns about. I don't suppose I can follow Kierkegaard all the way here. Some leaders are great, the words they use have good effect. But the individuals under the sway, even of a great leader, should try to maintain their individuality, or else.