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Soren Kierkegaard and the Common Man. By Jorgen Bukdahl. Translated, revised, and edited by Bruce H. Kirmmse. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2001. xviii + 154 pages.
This book contends that impressions of S0ren Kierkegaard's political conservatism are unfair. Various proofs of his openness and respect for the "common man" are given from his writings. The fact that he never had to work for a living in an age of bourgeois domination, and that he did not trust great movements of history to make people happy, makes him vulnerable to accusations of "status quoism." Jorgen Bukdahl, in this little book written in Denmark in 1961, explores what Kierkegaard wrote about his sympathy and courtesy towards the poor. The author shows that Kierkegaard radicalized freedom and the ethical task in an "unabridged notion of equality."
The expression "Common Man" (den menige mand) is misleading, because the word "common" seems derogatory. (Of course, it is meant to include women and children who formed the vast majority of peasants and slum dwellers of the time.) "Ordinary" is equally demeaning. The Swensons used "plain" in their translations. The eighteenth century would have said citoyen - "citizen." But what is meant is people who have to work at menial tasks, for whom unemployment means malnutrition and starvation, and who are virtually powerless in society except as a mob. "The Worker" might be the best designation. It means in this context that Kierkegaard had a sense of dignity and kindness towards...