now
the careful reader may notice that i am experimenting with an anti-academic post-scholarly way of writing about ideas without calling it 'philosophy' and without using the names of philosophers.
my hypothesis is that the use of names is alienating. if i say 'kierkegaard' or 'heidegger' i am assuming that means something to you, dear reader — and by implication, if those names do not mean anything you, i am saying : you are an uneducated oaf. so instead of 'kierkegaard', i might write : 'an old danish philosopher'. if the reader wants to follow up on this, typing 'old danish philosopher' into a search engine will instantly find søren kierkegaard's wikipedia page.
one of the givens❊ yesterday was a diary fragment about suffering from an old danish philosopher written in the year of his death (1855) in the newspaper. he says something remarkable :
A human being must be so tormented that they would not hesitate for a moment to commit suicide. In this situation they must – live.
in other words, you have to live despite the fact that you're suffering and it is so unbearable that you want to kill yourself. but of course this is for those who want to connect to god. if you're an atheist you would just kill yourself — in the humanest possible way and without leaving a mess.
but what about postatheists? what does a postatheist want to connect with? what would a postatheist take on suffering be?
Dagboekfragment: Kierkegaard 2-7-1855 : Een mens moet zo gekweld worden, dat hij er geen ogenblik over zou aarzelen om zelfmoord te plegen. In die toestand moet hij – leven.