Yet another nugget from my favorite existentialist:
“The Truth shall set ye free, but first it shall make ye miserable.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
If that’s true, and I think it very often is, that would explain why truth is so elusive. On the other hand, flattering untruths and half-truths, can be readily obtained in great abundance. Perhaps their supply is simply meeting an enormous demand 
“Without risk there is no faith. Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion of the individual’s awareness and the objective uncertainty. If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.”
-Soren Kierkegaard
While I would love to discuss this very profound observation, I’m afraid it would just be a rambling between me and myself. Suffice it to say, I consider Kierkegaard to be one of the best kinds of intellectuals: one capable of incisive observation and abstraction without the stubborn aloofness towards the gamut of unquantifiable lived experiences of which everyday life is primarily composed. He represents, to me, a model of intellectual development - depth without detachment.
This is, admittedly, ironic for me to say, because this, my blog, has been quite the detached intellectual endeavor. Blogs are, by nature, fairly impersonal, although their intimacy can be greatly enhanced by focusing on people, rather than abstractions. Believe me, I would love to focus on people more if there simply were people in my life on which I could appropriately focus!
I really like philosophy, and I gotta say, when it comes to existentialism, Soren Kierkegaard is my man! I just ran into this quote , which I think is classic insightful, cynical Kierkegaard:
“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
Too often true! Soren, you says it like it is!
This is not going to be some didactic blurb, as my posts often are. Rather, I’d like to pose an idea and get other people’s thoughts on the matter. So, I have learned from my studies of history, psychology, philosophy, and my general observations of people and society that we live in a world of complexity. However, my studies and observations have also taught me, in conjunction with my spiritual experiences and earnest applications of religious teachings, that there exist relatively simple principles to make sense of the world and forge a path forward through the jungles of complexity. This paradox of complexity and simplicity has been a continual source of wonder and interest for me, and has led me to form a maxim which I hope you, the reader, can take the time to evaluate and comment on:
“One of life’s greatest intellectual challenges is to discover and appropriately and effectively apply general, seemingly simple principles to a varied and complex world.”
What are your thoughts, people?
It’s taken me a while to figure out what I ought to focus my blog on. Originally, I thought I would write primarily about psychology, since that is my undergraduate emphasis, with some religious and philosophical musings thrown in. However, as a believing and committed Latter-day Saint (aka a Mormon) who happens to be very interested in the social sciences and philosophy, I have since decided to turn things around, focusing on Mormonism with secondary emphasis on those topics. When it comes to the doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (aka the Mormon Church), there is no shortage of things to muse on. I have found these doctrines and principles to be deeper, more profound, and more compelling than those found in any other system of thought and belief I have encountered. I have no illusions about my biases in this blog; I admit up front that the things I write here are NOT neutral. However, I am absolutely convinced that intellectual inquiry and religious faith are not, of necessity, polar opposites, and I hope that my writings will reflect an honest attempt at faith without zealotry, and inquiry without insatiable skepticism.
These themes popped up in my mind as I was writing a paper, and they are as follows:
1) hedonism, yet again
2) identity
3) anxiety
All three are actually recurring themes in the internal world of my mind. So, I was thinking that everyone on the planet becomes acquainted with anxiety - it’s an inescapable fact of existence in a large and unfeeling world. Neither I, nor anyone else I’m sure, considers anxiety to be an ideal state of being, and quite understandably we all seek to minimze its occurence in our lives. However, guess what: we all tend to be hedonists! What this means is that we, generally speaking, are inclined to avoid anything that makes us or could possibly make us feel anxious or insecure, even if the risk were justifiable by some greater causes e.g. expressing love, which entails a risk of rejection. This is not good! Anxiety and hedonism may also lead us to do brazenly (or even subtly) selfish or even terrible things - for instance, what do you think it is that motivates a man to rape a woman? Or for a less extreme example, what is it that motivates a bully to pick on other kids? I would submit that in the former it is an unabashed desire for pleasure and control at the expense of another, and in the latter an attempt to alleviate feelings of inferiority and anxiety.
As for identity, my thoughts are this: people, anxious as they tend to be in this insecure world, cling to ideas, cultures, property, and people (in other words, an identity) which seem to help them feel at ease. I am not anti-comfort, nor am I pro-suffering, but I do believe that people tend to seek for identity in the wrong places, and by “wrong places” I mean in things which are not stable enough to provide lasting stability or even a stability which is worthwhile in the short term. I believe there are many such people at BYU, people who doubt that the gospel and its author, Jesus Christ, can provide the stability which they desire, or who simply don’t want what He has to offer, either because it is too expensive (and I obviously don’t mean in terms of money) or because they have simply developed preferences which are dissimilar or even at complete odds with the gospel plan. I pity such people, but I do believe they can change, though not without some degree of pain and effort.
I was just listening to “A Farewell to Kings” by Rush, and I was impressed by the song’s lyrical depth. It beats the crap out of the nihilistic/mindless stuff that passes for lyrics these days. Check it out!
When they turn the pages of history
When these days have passed long ago
Will they read of us with sadness
For the seeds that we let grow?
We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance
Cities full of hatred, fear and lies
Withered hearts and cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude and
Scoffing at the wise
The hypocrites are slandering
The sacred Halls of Truth
Ancient nobles showering
Their bitterness on youth
Can’t we find the minds that made us strong?
Can’t we learn to feel what’s right
And what’s wrong?
Guess what? If you live in America, or, in fact, in almost any culture that is more individualistic than collectivistic (which is its own musing, to be written at another time), then chances are you have experienced the strong pull of the pursuit of individual pleasure, and perhaps even lovingly embrace such a pursuit as the preferred way of life. The word “hedonism” comes from the the Greek word “hedone”, meaning “pleasure”, and “-ism”, meaning, um, well, I don’t know. But anyway, hedonism is the philosophical stance which says that seeking to maximize personal pleasure is the best way to live among all the other ways. The implications of such a self-focused ethic are frightening! Granted, our good friend Adam Smith, one of the founding fathers of economics, taught us not to fear the outcome of transactions among individuals acting solely in their own interests, for they seem to be guided by an invisible hand to make an exchange which benefits both of them. Now, that’s nice and good when you’re trading chickens and farm produce, but what about interpersonal relationships? Imagine this:
-Man: “Here, my ego-enlarging girlfriend, I bought you this pretty diamond ring (extremely overpriced, thanks to diamond oligopolies), so that you will be more inclined, or better yet, feel obligated to continue our relationship.”
-Woman: “Oh, I do so love diamonds, because they make me feel good about myself, in large part because they make me look better and more important than everyone else. As for you, though, I’m afraid you’re not fulfilling my emotional needs, so this relationship is over.”
-Man: “What, after all the time and money I wasted on you?! Where’s the payoff? What about me?”
-Woman: “You just don’t give me enough attention, not to mention presents. How am I supposed to feel good about myself if our relationship isn’t fulfilling my needs?”
-Man: “Well fine, I can take my money somewhere else, to someone who appreciates me for who I am. Or better yet, I’ll spend the money on myself! There ARE a lot of things I want to buy!”
Ok, so that dialogue was fictional, and unrealistically extreme and forthright. However, the me-first mentality portrayed here is, I believe, alive and well, though not quite as obvious. Perhaps I ought to qualify my statements by saying that I am talking mostly about my peers, young single adults in America, although I am confident that hedonism is not at all confined to this group. Ok, now I’m also a student at Brigham Young University, so my most-proximate peers are fellow Christians, and MORMONS at that! Is it out-of-line, then, for me to accuse my peers of being hedonists? Well, I certainly can’t claim to know every heart, unlike God who knows each of us inside and out, but I do know a thing or two about our culture, having lived in it my whole life. I am about as big an advocate of the reality of moral agency (another thing to muse about later) as any you will meet, and so I certainly don’t believe we are inescapably bound by our culture’s hedonistic programming. However, I also know of the powerful pull of culture, especially when culture is preaching a philosophy which happens to be carnally-satisfying in practice. Latter-day Saints such as myself and my fellow students are warned about the doctrines and philosophies of men, but darn it!, the world we live in is saturated with them! To be good, really genuinely Christlike individuals while living in this crazy world is the great test of mortality, and combating the pull of hedonism is but one manifestation of this ongoing struggle. The good news is that it is a struggle we can win!
