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Kierkegaard and Being
As a (non-humanistic) rationalist I have always relished in the works of Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, Descartes, Kant and the like. While I may not necessarily agree with all of the philosophical premises or ideas that they have discovered, I greatly admire them for their contribution to human thought and culture. Yet, nothing has been more foundational to my philosophical framework as the writings of Søren Kierkegaard.
Now, don’t get me wrong, Kierkegaard’s ultimate rejection of the authority of the Scriptures due to it’s objective propositional truth was erroneous at best and heretical at worst. This does not mean the rest of his work should be rejected, however. In fact, there is quite a lot of wisdom that Kierkegaard has to give the church and us as Christians.
But, We Have Lost The Way
The way of life can be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls…Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. – Charlie Chaplin
This is an excerpt from the comedy The Great Dictator released in 1940. If you haven’t yet seen this movie, I would highly suggest watching it. One very inspiring rendition of the speech that I quoted above can be found on youtube and is entitled “The Greatest Speech Ever Made” which has garnered over 13 million views as of the writing of this post.
I must admit, I had not seen the movie let alone heard the speech until just a few months ago. When I finally did, I was really captured by each and every word that was spoken in Chaplin’s speech. In fact, it brought an extreme variation of emotions to the forefront of my mind. I felt everything from despair and shame to courage and hope.
Interestingly, the context of the movie/speech is that it was produced during the beginning of World War II. Although it is labeled as a comedy, the film ideologically opposed the rising Nazi regime and therefore had a serious undertone to it. Even though it had a noticeable application to the World War II era, I believe that we can apply the words from this speech to our society today.
Disclaimer
The ideas and thoughts expressed in these posts do not reflect the beliefs of any organization or individual, except my own. Ironically enough, however, these posts may not even reflect how I currently think or feel. I have grown and changed over the years - and rather than delete or edit old content I have decided to leave my posts as I originally wrote them to preserve their authenticity.