Love, the Self and the Other,accord ing to l(erkeg aard,Hegel - and Lacan

KIRSTEN KLERCKE

I'11 be your mirror, reflecr what you are

In case you don't knowVeluet Und,erground: "I'll be Yowr Mir.r.or"

Melanie Klein has esrablished a profound distinction becween

ambivalence ... and ambiguiry. As opposed to ambivalence, arn-biguicy is an adult phenomenon, a phenomenon of macurity,which has nothing pathological abour ir. It consists in admit-ting that the same being who is good and generous can also beannoying a.nd imperfect

Maurice Merleau-Pont1: "Tlte Child and lts Relationto Otbers"

So when you see your neighbour carrying somethingHelp him with his loadAnd don't go misraking Paradise

For that home across the roadBob Dlkn: "Tlte Ballad of Franhie Lee andJwd.as Priest"

The following is an advertisement'for' rhe reading or perhaps re-reading of Soren Kierkegaard s Works of Loue ('WL), It is an amaz-ing contribucion ro rhe understanding of subj ectiviqt,love and re-ligion in an era rhat is as well post-modern as influenced by dog-matic religion. k is a marter of re-reading because it is necessary

to read Kierkegaard in a psychoiogical as well as a philosophical

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context. My reason for comparing the unorthodox Chrisdanity

of Kierkegaard with the unorthodox Freudian psychoanalysis ofLacan, ignoring considerable differences in cerminology and ap-

proach, is their concept of subjectivity that is in opposition ro the

concepts of the ego and personai idendry found in most traditional

philosophy and psychology. (Kierkegaard is more often connected

to objecc-relations theory (in a broad sense: Kohut, Fairbain and

ochers, wirh W'innicott artd Melanie Klein in the periphery)' than

to Freudian psychoanalysis). Lacan who has a few refercnces to

Kierkegaard, for instance preferring his conception of anxiery to

Sarcre's, is like Kierkegaard inspired by and critical towards Hegel,

concerning the structure of the self-other-relationship in Hegel's

concept ofrecognition. In Kierkegaard and Lacan the subject is ex-

istence, the unique person, not to be confused with consciousness,

the ego or connected to ideas of self-consciousness and self-mas-

tery. The term subjectivity is not to be understood as part of the

classical epistemological and ontological distinction between sub-

ject and objecc - it is simply a matter of psychological or human fo-

cus. The subject appears despite its Cartesian roocs as divided dur-

ing ics transformation in German Idealism and Romanticism or -especially with Hegel - alienated. Hegelian dialectics is important

in rhe understanding of how the subject is constituted through the

"alien", che other and at the same cime, why immediate recognirion

between the self and the other is regarded as problematic. This is

underescimated when anahyzed in a dyadic relationship, as in ob-

ject-relations theory and much ethical theory, instead of in a trian-

gular structure. Hegel is the link to what I see as common elements

of a psycho-logic3 of human relations in Kierkegaard and Lacan.

The innocent theme oflove or the solemn theme ofChristianiry

in this way contains far-reaching philosophical and policical ques-

cions. After having discussed some preliminary preconditions for

my interpretation of Worhs of Loae and the main route for read-

ing ir in the light of Lacanian concePts, I will first rry co illustrare

what love of the other and one self is not, through the xenopho-

bia in ethnic and cultural Christianity. The following account ofKierkegaard's cridcism of immediate or imaginary traits in human

relarions illustrares the same logic as in xenophobia., neverrheless,rn this thing called loae. Finally, by discussing what rhe principle ofloving the neighbour means, I try to demonscrate whyWorks ofloaehas relevance in che modern philosophical and political debare onreligion.

The text itself, Worhs of Loue, is not an erhical or a dogmacicChrisrian dissertadon in irs usual sense rhough irs alleged themeis christian love. It is what Kierkegaard earlier had describe d as sec-

ond etbicsa - it does noc consist of abstract, moral precepts, ethics inits 'first' tradirional sense. Ir includes the conditions of erhical re-alization as parr of echics " aftef' rhe experience of ics psycholo gicalobstacles, uldmarely the fact of sin, which is reaced in a very gen-tle way in this book, rhough. What hinders Christian ethics is herethe ordinary image of love and subjecrivity. The psychological un-masking of rhis counrerparr ro Chrisrian iove fiils rhe main part ofKierkegaard's text.

Works of Loue is in a cerrain sense not a rheory at all.i AsKierkegaard emphasizes, the dde is not "Love,,, but,.\X/orks ofl,ove,,,(real) love zs as realizarion, is action and existence. Its speeches are inaccordance wirh Sr. Paul's firsr lerter to rhe Corinthi ans upbuild.ingthey are in chemselves (speech-)acts of love. Christian love resem-bles Eros, the desire in Plaro's Sjtrnposion in which Sokrates as a lover,a lover ofknowledge, as a philosopher, as usual only knows thac hedoes not know. But Socrates knows what knowledge is not, knowswhen knowledge is illusory. This well-known Socratic cha.racteris-cic is transposed to Kierkegaard's speech of love: ic does nor knowor define love. The uia.negatiuaofKierkegaards rexr shows whac loveis not. But it'knows' rhar love - like subjectivity - does not have anobject-like character, rhat it is not an objecc ofknowledge. Becauseof the objectifying conditions of human rhoughr, imagination andlanguage the communication of the text is indirecl It can only re-fer to love as action (love as a verb rather than a substantive). In itsown formula: rhe rext is not abowtlove, bur ro the love in the reader,alou.The indirecc or negarive form of the speech aims ac a transfor-mation of the reader rhar is reminiscenr of psychoanalytical prac-rice, in so far as such praccice can be converced to cext, speaking

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converted to writing.The widespread ignoring of rhe psychological aspect is rhe

breeding ground for misundersrandings of Works of Liuewherherone reads it as a primarily ethical or religious text.

Kierkegaard is, you could argue, ralking about ethical d.emandsin rhe self-ocher-relationship. Love in its broadesr sense: ,,Love is arelation to another human being or to other human beings,, is auniversal ethical obligation. But rove is also a marter of affecdonand engagemenr direcred *€ei4sd rhe people one is artached. to.One seems co be caughc by Kands d.iscincrion berween obligationand feelings, berween ethics and empirical psychologr: uoiA oUligations qua moral have nothing to do with passions _ or parhol_ogy - but wirh a duty rhat is clear of feeling, pure dury. Vircue hasits basis in reason and has nothing to d.o wirh Christian changr, ifthrs is supposed to include love, as Kant argues.6 And. furthermorerhdprinciple of love-rhy-neighbour is different from earthly rove inits usual form. To pur love into a specific Chrisrian conrexr seemsto idendS, ic with an ideal and impossible transcendent vision, afucure after-life. chriscian love does not onry seem psychologicalyunrealistic, like Freud ar gues in Der (Jnbebagen d.er Kubur it ought tobe regarded as such.

worhs of Loue has irs own originar synthesis of the erhical, reri-gious and psychological dimensions in agreement with irs rextu_al form. It is psychologically transforming the universal erhical de_mand to a personal catbarsis of rhe read.er. Instead. of rhe Kantianconcepr of pure obligation as independent of feelin g,Works of Loueis a purificadon of feeling inro obligation. Moraliqy is not basedon fluid psychological circumsrances but can on the orher hand.not exist in an emocional vacuum.T Love has a quasi_transcend.en_cal status, but ic is not separate from concrete existence. works of

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o Af , ., .- :, status, but ic is nor separare from concrere exisrence. Works of-{/rbft qt1u$ Loue does not define or praise€tr.isria* love in opposition ro nor-mal psychological behaviour in rerations of rove, Agape inopposi-tion ro Eros, as two different aspects or d.omains of 1ove. It doesnot argue for dogmas or prove anything about the possibilicy orimpossibiliry of Chrisdan love in human reladons. Instead, in irsnegative approach, ir is love, as we normally underscand ic, chat is

9o

shown to be impossible, i.e. a kind of self-deceir. Kierkegaard s scep-

ticism towa.rds the ordinary (undersranding oq love is the same

as in psychoanalysis. The negative diagnosis of human daily-love

does not resulc in Chriscian love as simply a positive counrer-image.

References co the Scripcure ger rheir meaning from and rhroughthe (mis)conceptions, rhe more or less unconscious craps of thesupposed reader. Christian love and mundane love have rhe same

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:s and the same aren4: rhis wodd all human beings.

e*.Ln" .o-p.riroSthar for obvious reasofls has to remain a

Ytn as an inherenc, dialectical feature of human relations and why hisview on the self-ocher-relarion is different from rradirional philoso-phy.D Ambivalence (in the age of Kierkegaard called'mixed emo-tions'8) is constitutive in human relacions - good and evil, Iove andhace are incertwined in so far as the ocher is regarded in rhe modeoflikeness, rhe orher as like or not-like oneself. The subject is a kindof contradiction in and to icself, z) "Immediare" love - in a Hegeliansense: un-mediated - cannot'mediate' good and evil, similaritiesand differences. It projecrs rhem on ro persons, objecrs, words. Therelation to the ocher is eicher a melting together, love, or an absolutedismissal, hatred. The other - the "little" other, attre,"l' - is ap-pearing in what Lacan calls theimaginary order. Exacdybecause im-mediate love does nor acknowledge ambivalence, it reveals it in aninversion as extreme devasrating hatred and into the image of theother as the absolute enemy. Or ro use the distinction of MelanieKlein: ambivalence as a spliring and projection into good and bad'objects' is different from ambiguity undersrood as an accepcErnce

of opposicions (the lasr rerm becoming fundamental in Merleau-Ponty's description of human existence). Only if one is able to ac-

cept evil impulses in oneself rowards che other(s) as being one's'own', one is able to omit evil actions against others, to act as arl eth-ical subject. 3) A fundamenral ruprure wirh this imaginary ambiva-ience - and wich love in this form - is rhe condicion for the possibili-ty of ethical demands in human relations or of another kind of love.

9t

outline is limited tp a single elemenr: the phenomenon ofrlenc e o r ambi guityvLacanian key-c o nc ep ts illuminare how

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This is in one sense rhe la,w (of *the Farher,, in Lacan, of the divinecommandment in Kierkegaard) as an entrance to Lacan's gtrnbolicorder, the social reguladon based on rhe linguistic struc.ure of rhehuman world. God is rhe ,,big,, Orher, Aurre, A - the chird _ that es_

tablishes the relation berween the serf and the orher: he is in fact de-scribed by Kierkegaard in a psycho-logical rerminology: "God. is themiddle rerm. Love God above all else; rhen you also love the neigh-bour". In another sense it is an experience of God as the paradoxi-cal unsayable crack in subjectivicy, in rhe rruch of subjectivity rheparadoxical manifesration of its unrru*5 co Kierkegaard. God maybe rhe name for Lacan's order of the r6el, which is differenc fromthe traditional concept of realiry as simply a poinc of reference. Ther6el is what in the midst of symbolization resists any symboli zation.christian love is acceprance of the ambiguous characrer of humanthoughq ianguage and love on rhe background ofthis ruprure ofrhe imaginary love between rhe syrnbobc and the r6el.

To be a stranger to yourselfThe psycho-logic of ambivalence is rhe very reason for using theconcepr of othemess, che orheq others. Ic is not jusc a d.esignarionfor a person or persons in my surround.ings, bur the ocher is a not-me. Let me sart wirh a detour to a paradigmatic case that transpos-es otherness and rhe other individual to che coflective level of theothers: xenophobia as exemplified by che most xenophobic poliri-cal patq, in Denmark , Dansk Folkeparti (Danish people,s parry) andone of its prominenr spokesmen, the priest and politician SorenKrarup, who ofren invokes Kierkegaard ro suit his own purposes.Its fundamencal expressions are q,pical of the phenomenon. TheDanish, anri-European na.rionalism is, ironically, hardly discin_guishable from other'ethnic, movements in Europe.

The'xenophobia is not only an expression of hosdle and irra_tional impulses againsrlsel&ed{foreigners: Turks, Arabs and. other

"Muslims". The hostiliry against chese strange srftagers is of coursereinforced in marginalized groups of social and. economically inse-cure situations, bur it originates from a general question of id.en_

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idendry and identifica.tion with a group or people - it is populism,by principle: "us".e Modem European demarcation of the "us/we"is the well-known ethnicity, people, narion and culrure. The cul-tural definition of a people, Herder's Volhsgeist, in Denmark repre-

sented by Grundwig, is primarily opposed to the political defini-don, rypical of the French Revolution and rhe French tradition. Itis a European development of the double meaning of 'people' inthe Greek polzi: People as ethnos is different from rhe people as dem-

^V , ot, people defined by inborn qualities is different from people de-

ery n.,.a Uy their acrive engagemenr in rhe communiry.'"f€riti*,fthrt4nat6;-@ethniciry}@i{historicaIandfactualchangesincul-q i trrr., history and national language. The development of a Danish

Denmark, a nationalism of a very mono-cultural society, was a. re-

sult of a defeat to Prussia inr864,which r.rraybe the background fora specific hard version of erhnicity in Denmark in conrradisrinc-tion to other nations with a more heterogeneous popularion. Untilthen it included Germans, Norwegians, and it was impossible toidenci$, Danish citizens only as ethnic Danes. But the erhnic argu-mentation sticks to the indefinite ideal, sraric qualiries in away char

has to end up in naturalizarion. What it is to be Danish is inevita-bly idenrified with being a na-tive Dane (common blood, race ...?)

Consequently,Saren Krarup explicidy atracks universal erhical de-

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tity and has a certain structural logic embedded in its ill-foundedargumentation.

A rational observer will notice that the xenophobic Dane does

not recognize that a person ofanother ethnic background has the

same right to participate in che public debate or enjoy the same

political, civil or social righcsYnansh Folhepartihas succeeded in re-.ducing the rights of immigrants and refugees rp political reiliq,.Rational criticism is direcced against howlrh.i$discourse justifiesits disrespect of equalicy by selecting a distinguishing mark, intrin-sic, essential qualities as a poinr of identification of its 'own' groupor people that makes it art exception and an argument against uni-

P,

6o,Irr n-giA*agrefers only to a kind of re-

versal human equaliry

lex, never a real universality. Its basic argument is based on

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marrds, civil rights and especially Human fughts as "mecaphysical

ideas" or a new religion, while the ethnic identity is claimed to have

sprourcd. from the Danish soifsoul' And an etbnic political party

like oansh Folkeparti is unreliable regarding rhe detnoratic constitu-

tion, law and civil righcs. Totalitarianism is a latent consequence' ac

least according to Hannah Arendt's description of it'"

The rational criticism of such populist movements does not

have much effect, however' Ethnicity evades argumentation and

not only because of ignorance or irrationalism' Its discourse dis-

regard"s equalitl and sarneness in human existence, while it t:-"*: to

recognize otberness, indeed, the others as orelgn-

.rip{cr".t differentiates becween xenos) the foreign/er, and heter-

or,ifr. other). The problem is that the xenophobic person is unable

to 'thinlC difference as well as equaliry because he cannot relate

them. He thinks in pure liheness and complete dtffercncefforeig@'

It is lircratty a hindrance in his crain of thoughc that makes his ech-

nic conception of the people afantasrn, irn'aginary, with the words of

Lacan. The imagirtary means more than being based on imagination

and emotion; it is a kind. of imprisonment of thinking in a series of

sraric fixarions. Xenophobia is inabiliry to think che inevitable be-

lrrg"ta,o-in-one" elsHanrtah Arendt puts it'" Ic is of course a mistake

to ,ry it acknowled.ges che others as others' It is an exclusion of oth-

erness that becomes an exclusion of thinking. It is inability ro live

with oneself as well as with others, inabiliry to acknowledge that

personal idendry does not consist in being one, indivisible and un-

ambiguous ego, in being indisputable good' But che subject is a ten-

sion between identity and difference, between the self and not-self/

rhe orher, betw;:en s.elf-identiry and ne gativirylalteriry' Xenophobia

is ryp icanyffiissr,ag this human cond-icio hfu the aforemencione d

fixed pairs of oppositions: the other/-s and me/us, the evil and rhe

good enemies and friends, black arrd white. .W,hat

distinguishes

xenophobia from'normaf'ambivalence is its inability to cope with

these oppositions and irs fixation of them' The dichocomies are ab-

solute or exist in an exclusive disjunction to the xenophobic per-

son.,3 He is unable Co accept their incerrelatedness, to accept ambi-

guiry. At che surface it is a very stable and unequivocal point of view

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that does nor suffer from any doubt, irresolurion or is chreatened

by subde nuances. But given a closer look ir is anything bur stable.

\X/hat is missing is the dialectical logic of sameness and differ-ence between oneself and the ocher rhar is imporrant in rhe con-cept of recognition (Aruerhennung), puc forward in Hegel's chapteron self-consciousness in Phcinomenologie des Geistes. The other's self-consciousness is representing che 'inner' otherness of one's ownself-consciousness - and ic is also conscirurive of it. And one mayadd: the evil of one's own goodness. An interweaving of one's be-

ing oneself and the others being others makes it impossible ro be

one and oneself without integraring rhe othemess of oneself InHegel's phenomenology rhe road of selFconsciousness has ics scag-

es in recognition. Its first, dead end version is rhe srruggle for lifeand deach but through the famous dialectics of master and slave

the self-consciousness is recognizing the other as necessary for be-

ing recognized and recognizing its dependenry on rhis murual rec-

ognition. Or - this is the raditional version, stopping at rhis place

in Pbrinornenologie des Geistes, rhat ends up in recognicion either as

an ethical ideal (mainly in Germany, nowadays represenred byAxelHonneth) or as a phenomenological, inrersubjective process (in rheFrench tradition, due ro rhe influence ofAlexander KojEve) inwhichthe slave becomes the master of the master and liberates both. Thelast stage in the story of the self-consciousness is, however, reli-gious, "the unhappy consciousness", between the 6nite and infiniteaspect of self-consciousness, one has compared co Kierkegaard'schinking. The tradirional versions cend to forget the underlying

"third", mediating element in Hegel's concept of recognition.,+ Theperspective of recognicion lies in rhe establishing of a universaland societal order or norm, a "we", which reconciliates the inher-enc conflict in the self-ocher-relationship, a forerunner of Lacan's

symbolic order: the social, cultural, linguistic network into whichthe subject is born and subjecced to is different from a "we" based

on identification. In the Hegelian contexr) however, it is an idealis-tic and as well as a reaiistic construction, as well Geist as social real-ity. Recognition has to be a dialectical inregradon of difference(s)in idendry in Hegels sublation (Aufhebwng) of conrradicrions. The

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specific Hegelian logic or concepcual kernel in recognicion is a pre-

condition ro Kierkegaard. Otherness is part of a fundamenral se-

mantic or logical categorization of chinking; difference togerherwith sameness. It is a fundamental ambiguiry of language: one can-not escape the dictum of Spinoza: omnis determinatio est negatio.Yoscannot think any-'thing'withour irs negation, alteriry. This insightin the ordering of concepts is pardy indicaced when otherness as

a special term together with sameness is introduced in Plato's The

Sophist.s Or to refer co one of Lacan's sources, the concept of lan-guage in structuralism/semiotics is in line wich this thought. Thexenophobic person's subjeccive endeavour to avoid ambiguity andro establish identiry as free from any kind of split really is a psycho-logical or semantic problem he cannot escape. Other persons inevi-cably pave the way for acknowledging'rhinking'this splir. The xen-ophobic person has to expel orherness. He has to make the orhernon-existent, under the right circumscances licerally, as in Hegel'sstage of life-and-dearh-struggle it becomes a logic of exrinction.Thac is why he cannot rhink or express ir directly, why he cannor be

racionalfierer++ie=tt{. The xenophobia constantly has to fighragainst the revealing of the ambivalence in its seif-assertadon: rhatthe difference is inevicably connecred to identity.

Though Nietzsche is inverting rhe conceprs of masrer andslave, he describes this oscillarion beneath the seemingly unambig-uous point of view. Xenophobia is forced ro uphold irself by cre-

ating frozen images of an enemy - fiendebilled,er in Danishia,+scape-

goacslnd so exists in a kind of ressentirnenir, Nietzsche's slave-moral-iqt, rypical even of a false masrer-race. Beneath any alleged superi-ority of one's own person, group, people, councry race or se5 che

defining and determining a.nchora.ge is the inferior and negariveside of the opposicion. It is ahe ocher's counrer-image thac is che

active force in creating rhe image of oneself. Ir is re-action rarher

absolute, antagonistic otherreappears in the image of oneself When narional-socialisrc regard-ed the Arian race as the cbosen people, tmitatrngcheJews, they pursue

than action. Accordingly, rhe aggressiveness in xenophobia carriesaYone of being wounded or offended @

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"The claim to be "chosen"; this total self-mendaciry ... the rypical

I ] srgn: they do not even discover how rhey are hardly distinguishable.

I I An Anti-semite is an envious, i.e. a rotally srupidJeu/,, as NietzscheI I remarks.,6

I 1 Love can be seen as an Aufhebungof the ambivalence/contradic-

I I tion in rhe self-ocher-reiation. But Kierkegaard - and Lacan - does

I I nor believe in che form of Hegelian med.iation, rhough he acknowl-

I ] edges rhe probiem rhe mediacion is meanr ro .olu.; h. believes inI I I laradoxical Chrisrianiry. And tike advocarors of so calied culrural

I i j or ethnic chrisdaniry he does not regard chariry on line with the-

I " I ] oretical ethical principles, e.g. Human fughts. But rhe relarion of| \ i ^

"loving-thy-neighbour" is definirely a universal demand, opposed to

I I .% any differendating in being'the neighbour'. In mod.ern Christian

I 1 I V "*,r, ':"0'*:italisB

like the one oFffi*p*i,as"-t ",ot=,iSoren

Krarup,

I I I C::),,:,i,,1,y rhe 'nerghbour'is che nearest. The next oFkin is rhe nacion, rhough

I f i I tr"' ' rhe enlargement to the 5 miilion ethnic Danes seems ro make ir| \ I a not-that-near category. The religious is here combined wirh rhe

I I ethnic fantasm, the state of Paradise being simukaneously one,s

I I homeland and rhe rranscendent world.

I ] Religion, not only Chrisdaniry may also co an arheisr represenr

I I a posirive factor in restricting human omniporence an4 human evil-

I I doing' The Third Reich indirectly admitred rhis in irs development

I I of a home-made religion in accordance with Nazi-ideology against

I i the religious danger: Protestanr and Catholic Christianiry.,T Bur the

I ] role of Chrisrianity is more often rarher dubious as rhe instirution-I I alizing of a religious fantasm. Kierkegaard., who lare in his short

I I I ^, , rife involved himself in an ardenr atack on rhe Chrisdan church

I / J 1/ of his age.looks at Chrisrianiry from a complerely differenc angle

I , | , -1 Sortt iS than the current dangerous alliances berween religion and narion-

I \ I 'i,f nii alistic poutics.f"d€1'ffia#kab*€4hn$,h. ;, iruo."r.i in a deFence ofI I " / Lhrlst1an tnterpretation of love wichin a Lacanian psychoanalysis,

I I especially by AIan Badiou and Slavoj Zizek:,t1tlI I Lost in the mirror

I / But why does immediate love involve hostile impulses tn \yorks oftlt1l' 97

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J Loue? H:uman beings are social They have a capactqt to 1ove othersand a demand for the orher's love. The problem isit*aiiilse-ft"ras=is. I L--

z**€+jr+{ a narural need drive - and Kierkegaard claims, not quire{ :^ ^--^^^^-- ---i-L L:--- - .1 .

^t4', ,rYl"*,iY! :" agreemenr wirh hisrory rhat Chrisdanity has never been against,l;+!rff'qM -r*rn^7tusr - it-i*e,qlali€#ifeeling, a prefere-nce. Erocic love, espe-

F,.nui yag

*'reccarnal lusc - it-irerqg ed{feeling, a preference. Eroric love, espe-cialiy in rhe romanricift*{oie#, is symbiotic.tit. t*o lou.., a.. t.-

!i., .--.^!-

"\/ v:.+'i t{11 coming one;ur+ired-in{ikenesi. o.re loves anorher, orher personsor groups literally "as oneself". It is narcissistic, Kierkegaard agreeswith psychoanalysis. Psychologically rhe difference berween overrselfishness and akruism, the larter being a candidare of ethics, onemight think, is of vanishing importance: chey are borh mod.es ofself-love. The other remains within rhe circle of one,s own ego. (AsKierkegaard draws arrenrion ro, rhe formulation of Christian love

"Love thy neighbour as yourself', is reflecrive, capruring rhe narcis_siscic basis of subjectiviry, teasing rhe ,.self,,. Ir is not formulated. asa law or an ethical principle in rhe ordinary sense). In more prosaicforms of s).nnpathy, love is still based on likeness: Lihe-for-Lihe.

However, likeness, the belonging rogether as being of the samekind, is a-mbiguous, Kierkegaard maincains. One can never answerthe question: Do I love him, because he is loveable or is he loveablebecause I love him? The immediate love and its ranguage have "rheimperfectability rhat rhere are rwo questions and so far an ambigu-

hl/ FffitLuruparrsorr..l LoaeJoa oecal,rse jo/4 are b?able Ln so tar as you7 are beauriful, cleveS rich etc., because of something. Bur exactly be-

cause this sometbingis a matter of comparison in reladon to some-bodylthing else or ro pasr and furure srates, the loveabre quality isalways in principle changeable and limired. It is always possible rofind someone who is berrer, more lovable; ir is always possible rhatthe beioved will change, become 1ess beaurifur or more stupid. orloose rhe forcune and so on. The immediace basis ofidentifiing thelikeness between lovers is srares or intrinsic proprieties; the afore-mentioned untenable essentialism, as if chese were fixed., stablepoints of identifica.rion of rhe orher and oneself Love in its imme-diare mode does nor acknowledge chac to be loving/loved. is nor a

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11 iry: firsr rhere is che quesrion of rhe objecr and rhen of rhe rove or4/CO^dt'hbnQlff*are both a quescion of the object and the love". Love is relative,

' "-i, 6+s€it+tt'oinparison.rbaejtowbecauseyouarelouableinsofarasyou

propriety or qualiry as such (Egenshab),but a relarion, by which andin which you are for orhers (for andre). Any positive qualiry is in rherelarion as a" limit, defined by im negacion. In rhis dialectic of rhelimit, of the finite - Kierkegaard's terminology is taken from theHegelian logic of being, where rhe caregories of finitude are some-

thing or someone, Etwas, and something else, some other, And.eres,

as the sides of the limir - likeness is always a difference, coo. Love

as the attachment to values in che beloved is as comparing (see-

ing the likeness) always a matrer of differentiaring (Sarnmenlignende

Forskjellighed). It is impossible to include anorher as being of one'sown kind wichour excluding rhe ocher's being differenr. ft is im-possible to include someone withour excluding somebody else.

Someone is always in principle someone else, so to speak, Etu)as is

always etwas And,eres. That is why fear or anxiery accompanies love:

signs of che other's orhemess, any crack in what is like-me in che

beloved the friend, rhe family, che homeland is an attack on meand reveals the constiturive ambivalence: "spontaneous (umiddel-

bar) love can be changed within irself, ir can be changed inco its op-posite, into hate. Hate is a love thac has become its opposire, a lovethat has perished (gaae til Grande). D eep down (i Grunden),s rhe loveis conrinually aflame, buc ir is rhe flame of hace; not unril the lovehas burned our is rhe flame of hate also put our" (Hong 34). Theambivalence of immediate love consists in its trnaginary clingingto rhis "something" thar is the basis of rhe comparison as if it was

a fixed quality, whereas the rruth of rhe desire is recognition of rheindefiniteness of the loveable qualiry that is desired.

In other parts of Kierkegaard s oeu.ure he uses the concept re-

flection in the same conrexr. In a way pure immediary is impossibleto human existence. It does not exist without a certain 'reflection', aconcept that can be understood in rwo senses (at leasr). In rhe firsrsense of the cerm, raken from Romanticism and Hegel it is linkedto rhe reflection oflighr and ro rhe mirror. The other is reflecrion orthe mirror-image of oneself. Many of Kierkegaards pseudonymousbooks describe this aesrheric love as an infinite mirror-room, butthe earliest, "The Seducers Diary'', a critical imitation of FriedrichSchlegel's romantic novel Lucind,e, from Eith er-Or (t84) is surpassing

99

later works. The 'poetic' seducer creates [he woman as his own selF

reflection, bur is also seduced by his own seduccion and becomes a

part of this imagery himself.Johannes) the seducer, is like "the un-

hrppy mirror which can grasp her image, but not her, the unhap-

py mirror which cannot hide her image in its secrery ... Everything

is image, I myself am a myth about myself '.." Reflection in rha"t

sense signifies an intensification of immediacy. In the second sense

it means afterthought or consideration but still within immediacy'

(Ir partly resembles Lacan's crossing of che imaginary and the sym-

bolic order: chere is no pure imaginary without a certain symbolic

ovedapping, linguisric idenrificarion of the imaginary). In so far as

one's insight in oneself grows one may suPPose that one is free ofthe mirror and cgg9;g-ktry oneself, but rhis is to Kierkegaard a

philosophical and theoretical illusion. He sides with psychoanaly-

.sis when ic comes to the impossibiiity of absolure self-knowledge,

transparency ofself-consciousness - transParenry is achieved in che

religious belie{as it is expresse d, in Sickness unto Death - but this

does not mean rational insighc in oneself

The mirror-stage, the prototype of the imaginary in Lacan's

more concrete@approach is the moment

the child acknowledges irself by irs reflection in the mirror or inthe other ("a"). The specular image is whar it identifies with but

also is alienated from, because of the very difference between its im-

age and itself between che body-image as awhole, autonomous ego

and its experience of inabiliqy to conffol its own body' The imagi-

nary is not only a stage. Subjectivity remains within the imaginary

'ordeC and its appearances.'o Because of che discrepanry betrween

the ideal image and oneself the alienation, it is accompanied by the

larenc aggressiviry, as xenophobia illustrates. Or again, its founda-

tion is a constitutive ambivalence. To Kierkegaard as weil as Lacan

one does not necessarily remain lost in the mirror or the mutual

imagery of oneself and the other. Christian love is this possibility

in Worhs ofloae:"inlouingthe actuali.ndiuidwalpersonitis irnporta,nttha.t

one does not sl,tbstitu,te d,n irnaginary id.ea ofhow we thinh or cowld uish tbat

tbis person shoul-dbe.The one who does this does not love the Personhe sees but again something unseen, his own idea or something

'./?q

h

,e

similar" (YL,p. 164). The warning againsr che imaginary idea is a re-

peating of Kierkegaard's descripcions of aesthetic (Romantic) love.

They circle around terms like mirror and reflection and specwlatioe

philosophy (from Latin specu.hlnti mirror).To put it another way: the correspondence between Kierkegaard

and Lacan is evident in rheir use of pronouns. To Kierkegaard self-

love sees the other as "another I": "In the beloved and the friend,it of course is not che neighbour who is loved but the other d orthe firsc 1 once again" (WL, p.57-8). This "I" is the iirrlagirrary ego,

thar is based on identification with the specular image, a"me" (moi

in contradistinction to je).To Kierkegaard the principle of loving

fi ,, rhe neighbour is direcced noc to a"me", but to a"you". Christian

ftrY ,o-,.love has (an @usaa{expression for) a commandmenc or a law, it/ftttCl6i'l is addressed ro a "you", different from imagin xy love: "You shall

love your neighbour as yourself" - Kierkegaard adds "in the rightway''. The right way has co do with a shift in pronouns: "Ir is a markof childishness to say: Me wants, rne-rtue; a mark of adolescence rosay,"I -ar.dl- andl" (X/L, p.9o). Maturiry "is to will ro underscandthat this t has no significance unless ir becomes the you, ro whomeremity incessantly speaks and says: You shall, 1ou shall, 1ow shaLl"

(ibid.). The "me" is the subject in an objectified form, primarily inrhe dative case: "me" means narcissism: "for" me, "to" me. In otherwords: the Commandment as duqy, law, obligation is an addressee

to a you from anocher other, the Other, "11' - God! Christian loveis not psychologically unrealisdc in so far as it is the consequence

of che inherent illusion of the me and the other being nothing buta doubling of myse$ It is liberation from the burdensome formsin which iove becomes dependency and ambivalent, Kierkegaard as

well as Lacan maintains: "withour the law freedom does not exisg

and it is the law that gives freedom" The law is a prohibition againstthe slavery of narcissism and its anxiery. The law, the difference be-

tween the other person and the big Other, "A", the symbolic orderis a demarcation of the limit of loving "as me".

tol

I

,rl

V&W

Law and Love

This account may seem an ethical irrelevant, rather complicated

psychological way of arguing for human equaliry as superior to

individual preferences of love as it is at most or, scill, an example

of ethical idealism or wishful chinking: Kant's categorical impera-

tive or Human fughts, the universal brother- or neighbourhood as

a duqr, in case immediate impulses should make one forget it. In

what sense is God's law - che law of ethics and meaning (speech,

rhought)" - decreeing equaliry? In what sense is it different from

humanism and universal human equality? And is it not fundamen-

talism, chen?

Equaliry in front of God is not the sarne as equaliry on a hu-

man, finite scale, man-to-man. The comparison with Hegelian rec-

ognition when mistakenly considered as a dual structure has its

limits here: it cannot establish real equality. "The just human con-

ception oflove never can go further than to reciprociry: that the lov-

ing is the beloved and the beloved che loving" Kierkegaard argues.

Chriscian love is a "triangle": the loving, the beloved and the third,

love as such: God is love. Recognition at the finite human level is

"otly'' reciprocity, a Lihe-for-Lihe.'Works of Loue describes even altruis-

dc love as a bargain: Love is a demand noc for egoistic benefits but

nevertheless a demand for love in return, whereas charity is poscu-

lating che possibitity of setting reciprocity in love aside: you shall

love the other regardless ofwhether the other loves you (even your

enemy), regardless of arry human criteria, regardless of ir being re-

turned. Reciprociry and equaliry seem to be divided.yEthics or ethical concepts of equaliry based'recognicion -

which consider recognition in line wich the political concept ofthe social contract (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau) - cannot accePt the

one-sidedness of the commandmenc of love. The echicd objecrion

to the lack of reciprocity in che religious commandment is thar

it eliminates the significance of concrete o[her Persons, inrersub-

jectiviry (famous examples are Adorno- and Levinas). Ame Gron

claims that Kierkegaard demonstrates a "W'iderstreit zwischen der

Souverdnitet des Liebenden, die zu Unabhingigkeit von dem an-

deren wird, und der grundlegenden Gleichheit, die fordert, dass

to2

nft

das Verhdlmis von beiden Seiten isr,,.,: Ir is because erhics cannoraccept the non-racional elements in mutual recognition and be-cause recognition is considered as a one-to-rhe other, dual relation.Psychologicaily the empirical other is nor rhe same as rhe orher co

which rhe subjecc is related in his inner life, the psychic realiry. Theother is intrasubjective too, due to fanasy, imagination, personalcategoization. When psychoanalysis considers rhe other person as

an 'object' of one's love, it likewise acknowledges thar rhe other canbe subsdtured wirh anorher from the subject,s poinr of view. Theother appears in a way as an occasionof tovingba&Le4"w,tr

tgq. To love (in rhe non-narcissisric sense) a-norher is ro acknowl-edge chat it is rhe acr of love and che Love (God) as preconditionthac are decisive in love, not the qualities of rhe beroved or the lover.It is a way of seeing rhe proprieties of oneseif and che other as rela-tive, a matter of relation. The point is not to give up concrete otherpersons but to give up clinging ro them in one,s love. The point isnot to give up rhe Feeling of love bur ro give up clinging to rhe feel_ing. "Love never dwells" as Kierkegaard says. It is not a questionof being indifferent, bur gerring free of one,s fixation ro rhe otheror, rather, one's fixarion ro oneself When Kierkegaard. praises thelove ofa dead person, it has to be undersrood in rhis psychologicalsense and not as i{ like Adorno sees ir, Works of Loae recommend,sro love all human beings as if they were dead. When Works of Loaeadmorrishes rhe reader to be able to set the concrere rove aside ifthe beloved loves one more rhan God, it is not to be undersrood asif ic was a kind of competirion. Ir may, undersrood iiterally, sound.as if the concrete other person is unimporrant, bur he is nor - he isthe beloved, really imporrant. Kierkegaard elsewhere uses the cru-cial concept double-mouernen - for instan ce tn sickness unto Death - asthe movemenr from rhe finire ro infiniry and back ro finimd,e. Onehas ro give oneself up ro get one back. Likewise, one has to give upthe orher - into love as such - ro ger rhe other back. Lacan may il_luminate this by his famous dictum about love: Loue is to giue whatone does not haue - one cannot satisfy the other's fantasy - favouringthe term desire as free of rhe imaginariry of immediate love, whichit is necessary to acknowledge. what from an ethicar point of view

r03

l.%

#.4*s*il

appears as murual respecr psychologicany has ro be separaced. from

a* mu.rual identification, bur erhics cannot accepr rhat mutuar recog-r'> 'j nidon rrasfeh+{idenrificarion as irs roor, rhough

^furgh"rrever chanI

rhe romandc narcissism d, d.ewx.(The English rerm: to recognize forthe original German wor d anerkennenis in rhis sense unsatisfactoryin so far as it does not separate it from wied.ererhennen).

Bur even if reciprociqy at rhe human levei is dubious _ whyshould human equaliry and universal morality, the ,,we,,, in itselfbedifferenr from equaliry in rhe Chrisdan sense? Human beings areequal in being lovable. But ir is not rhe same as being equal

", if .h.

loving quality was a common dominator in human relacions. If thefoundadon ofequaliry is based on quarities common ro an hu.manbeings, humanism has the same problems, on another and in6nire_ly more reasonable level, as erhniciry and xenophobia in definingthese. It may be a way of subsritucing the nationalisric wich a hu_manisdc fantasm. Christian love brings equaliry (Kierkegaard. playswith the Danish word Mennesheligbed. (Humaniq)

^" Uenoerhr_ilgb,rd

(human likeness, equality)). But in my opinion he also ,"y, rh" op_posite: Christian love makes a difference. Ir seems as if Chriscianlove like rhe principles of Human fughrs or equality in human con_ditions - which I by the way amnot arguing against _ is exposinghuman equaliry, a universa-l dig.rity in every hum*r p"rro.'fuJ

tl\

i$lAut Chrisdanro the la4-Sl*ej+j{more rhan rhe law, it is the fulfilment of che law as .., .*p"r-

sion of ic. The "God-like,, equality, Christian love, so to speak, is ex-acdy rhe one rhat preserves differences in an identiry, in a *ay noimmediate love and no human kind. of ardculadon of identity can.The problem is that any human d.efinirion of equaliry has ;rs tim_its. One has to keep a distance ro rhe difference berween human be_ings (conflicrs and ambivalence) but also ro human likeness, equal_ity (immediare love, friendship and. community berween like_mind_ed individuals) as it is undersrood. ar the human level To love]hy_neighbour is to love everybody as oneself and at rhe ,"-" ti_" tolove everybody as complerely different from oneself,

Christian love is an absoluce, uncond.itional and infinice de_

to4

mand that brings anocher form of equality. Though ar rhe surfacecompletely different from Kierkegaard's point ofview, Levinas is inagreemenc with Kierkegaard regarding this inrrusion of che abso-

lute "responsibiliry for the Other, being-for-rhe orher". Ii16 an exis-

tential demand char breaks any 6nire repa)rwent-loue, iimired econ-omy, the pure grft, in Derrida's wordsi "a cal.cul.ation that claims rogo beyond calcula.tion, beyond rhe cotaliry of che ca-lculable as a fi-nite totality of the same".'4 Ir is a gifr that is an infinire debc,Worhs

ofLooe echoes.

If we recurn co rhe Hegelian vocabulary of the self-other-rela-tionship: recognition berween one's own self-consciousness andthe other self-consciousness, it has moved to the relation betweenan infinite (aspect of) self-consciousness and a finire (aspecr of)self-consciousness, as in the scage of"the unhappy consciousness".B#jrrn. kernel is the Hegelian logic in which infiniry is solving, is

mediating antagonisms at a finire level. Infinite, erernal Christianlove dissolves the finite Lihefor-Like, too. When your love is perme-

ated fui eterruit) everybody is lovable in an infinite, eternal "measure"(Kierkegaard's word for ir) to you, presupposing love (God) as such.Christian love is a.n infinite Likefor-Lihe. To use Kierkegaard's ownconcrete example: it would be absurd to imagine money (the finite)in heaven (the infinite). One wants a lor of money (a lot of love), burwhen you can get anyrhing, money loose their value. Do we not livein a world where one has ro pay artd use money? Do we not love theconcrete other persons we meet? Yes ... and 'Works

of Loue does notprecend to understand heaven, eternity, God or God's love. But lov-ing the concrete other person in the light of presupposing and be-

lieving in an infinite love make us free of any fecishism rega.rdingmoney - and love.

Metaphysical cerms like infiniry and ererniry cannor hide charthe Christian love is and has ro remain unsayable - in opposition toHegelian or any other conceprual mediacion - a rnatter of existenceitself As a fundamental law, rhe law of every other law, the Law ofthe laws, thac wha-t makes a law a law, it is not itself a law in the tra-ditional sense.'s To say'something' about God is co make him hu-man as negative theology claims. The measure by which everything

t05

(/L

else can be measured cannor icself be measured: rhat would be co

understand the infinire in finite cerms. There exiscs alanguage-d,ffir-ence of eternigt; rhe Christian has to take any word in a mecaphoricaisense: God and God's love is not directlyvisible, communicable andcannot give any direct prescripdons. "There is a world of differenceberween the two; rhe one has made the transitio n (Ouergang) or letitseif be carried over (fore ouer) to the ocher side ... Just as rhe spiritis invisible, so is its language a secrer,, ('WL, p. zo9). The mecaphordoes not simply poinr ro somerhin g,,beyond,imagination (che mera-phor as sign of a mystery) but is a "meraphor th*breaks against theimagination" (rhe metaphor as related to paradox). This discinc-rion, writes Louis Mackay "is a function of the different contexts,classical-realisr and Hegelian-idealist, within which the ancienrsand Kierkegaard respectively assert che Christian claim. His recog-nition of rhe ultimary of rhe meraphor (rhis side of Vision) makesKierkegaard a poet; his recourse toobrohen meraphor makes him a'peculiar kind of poec'.,6

W'hatever makes one able co love or acknowledge love, the con-dition of love, is not irself an objecr of love and acknowredgmenr.In chat sense no immanent mediacion exists berween God. and hu_man beings bur r1rz.r on rhe orher hand is exacdy why a tradidonalconcept of a ffanscendenc God has no meaning. Due ro the ambi_guity, the dialecrics of finirude in human language irsel{, rhe com_mandment of "Love-thy-neighbour as your self,, in 'Works

of Louehas to use its words as fundamentally hidden and as a doubre-ed,ged.

sword: use ambiguiry against rhe ambiguiqt. Works of Loue, accord-ingly, seems contradictory - and is inrerpreted in opposite direc-tions. Chrisdan love is to love everyone as anyone, but it is also toregard the other as rhe complere orher, his singularity. As a gifr it isto be in debc to rhe other. Love as help is to negare one,s own help.One has to look ar rhe orher as he is, bur also to look rhe ocher way,at least when ir comes ro his failures and deficirs. Love is conrinu-ation and faichfi.rlness but also a matter of acting instantrp "Loveis what it does". One shall of course love the nearesr) the people wesee, the living concrete persons around us, but also be able to leaveone's father and mother and anyone else. Many of rhe crucial word.s

ro5

I

\!

in the book have a double meaning; hate for insrance is differentdepending on if it is originated in immediace love or charity. Self-

denial, to regard oneselfas noching, is good in one sense, but in an-

other the opposite. The shifting statements are dependent on the

supposed reader in che course ofthe textual speech. The point ofreference in judging and speaking about works and words of love

is eternal and infinite in a way human language cannot represent.

Chrisrian love dissolves any firm belief in prooFs, signs, words, ac-

tions as loveable, love cannot be given or received as such, measured

and described it nevertheless is in or as its acting - that is the com-mandment oflove. And the God of this religiosity is in'Worlu ofLoue

a paradox, t hid.den uisibiliry - like the pseudonymow Philosophiral

Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript underscore - ambig-

uous, also: he is known as the one, one cannot know But one can

know that one does noc know him, if one considers him as one, one

can know. (Christian)" love believes everything - and yet is never tobe deceived" whereas the person that is eager to know if he is de-

ceived in love always is deceived he is deceiving himself for love.

The symbolic order, che Law of.Lacan, may sound as ific is thelinguistic andorganizing order of society, like a Hegelian conscruc-

cion. But this is not connected to an ideq to an explicit echical rule,the foundation of chis'order' is the (Maste r) signif.cant, rot a signif q

there is no transcendental measure in it. In that sense the centre ofsignification is "empty''. The God of Works of Loue remains unsaya-

ble, he in no way is something (one can speak abour) - what remains

is "chat" there is love, "that" chere is God the resc is silence - and

existence and action. It is a God that is not a "God". And the lateLacan sees another possibility of love against the law, which may be

connected ro che r6e1. Christ is God as an exception chat is not an

exception to the rule, it suspends the law in making any exceptiona law and invocating any subject as a completeLy singularity.'7 This is

at the same time the reason why chis subjective Christianity can be

understood as truly universal. Subjectivity in this sense is not hu-manistic. This is partly che point in Slavoj ZiZ"k'r@tributeto tbe Christian legagt and Alan Badiou following St. Paul's passage

betweenJewish law and Christian love.

t07

(nra

I at least hope to have indicated that Kierkegaard's Christianityis non-dogmatic to an extent that almosc removes any relation toinstitutionalized Christianity. Does ir have any concrete relevance

in so far as ir does not deliver concrete prescriptions to our life?

Regarding for instance xenophobiq which is che cause of mon-

srrous evil actions, it in fact does. Xenophobia is placing the ques-

tion of personal identity in a wrong, totally imaginary context, in awrong'logic'. Attempts to meet xenophobia, fundamencalism and

similar phenomena with identity-politics in order to preserve che

coherence of the community seem at certain points dubious, a dan-

gerous giving in to imaginary conceptions. The more sensible and

racional formalism ofHuman fughts is on the other hand not suf6.-

cient co meer suchF.rretiwa}distortions. The principle of love-thy-

neighbour is a demand for a continuous and radical questioning of

@dsubjectivity.'8

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Main, Suhrkamp,rgT4)Arendt Hannah, Eichmann in Jerusalem, A Report on tbe Banaliry of h.,il (New

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Arendt, Hannah, The Origins of Totalitarianisrn (New York, Harcourt, Brace,

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Badiou, Nan, Saint Pau.l. Lafolndation de I'uniuersalivne (Paris, Presses univer-sitaires de F raoce, 19 97)

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zooo)

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r08

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zoq)Jegstrup, Elsebet (ed.),Tlte New Kierkegaard (Bloomington and Indianapolis,

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r09

Notesr KjerlighedensGjerninger(847),WorlcsofLove,trans. HowardV. Hongand Edna

H. Hong (Princeton, NJ. princeton Universiry press, 1995).z For insrance by c. srephen Evans "Kierkegaard's view ofthe Unconscious,,

in Kierkegaard in post/Modemity ed. Marrin j. Matustik and Merord westphar(lndiana University press, Bloomington and lndianapolis, 1995).

3 Logic is of course not to be understood as formar rogic bur as rogic of con-tent, involved in semantics. you might also call it a ..conceptual

web or con_figurarion", "a pa*ern of thinking,, ,,a mapping of relationships,,as withJohn K. Roth in his arricle "cenocide and the "Logic" of Racism,, in cenocideand Human Nghts,, (ed. John K. Roth, N.y., zoo4), p. 255_265.

4 An expression raken from The concept ofAnxiefl. Especiaily Arne crsn hasdrawn aftention to work of Lorze as a furfirmenr of che project of The conceptof Anxiety and has changed the focus in Kierkegaard-research in'read-ing Kierkegaardian ethics in connexion with Hegerian recognition. ArneCron: Subjectivitet og negativitet (Subjecivity and Negativiry), (Cyldendal,Copenhagen 997)

5 This does not mean thatworr<s of Lorze is wirhout theoreticar insight, but hasro do with the form Kierkegaard deliberately chose. That Kierkegaard ex-plicitly does not wanr to write rheory often seems too problematic to thephilosophical interpreters of worr<s of Love whereas "riteran/'readers rendto overlook che theoretical insight concentrating on the form. An outstand-ing balance is found inThe New Kierkegaard (ed. ElsebethJegstrup), (lndianaUniversity Press, Bloomington & lndianapolis, zoo4).

6 ln "Crundlegunl zur Metaphysik der Sinen,,: ,,So sind ohne Zweifel auchdie Schriftstellen zu versrehen, darin geboten wird, seinen Nd.chsten, selbstunsern Feind, zu lieben. Denn Liebe as Neigung kann nicht geboten wer_den, aber Wohkun aus pflicht selbsr, wenn dazu gleich gar keine Neigungtreibt, ja gar narrirliche und unbezwingriche Abneigung widersteht, ist prak-tische und nichr pathorogische Liebe, die im wiilen riegt und nichr im Hangeder Empfindung, in Crundsirzen der Handlung und nicht schmelzenderTeilnehmung, jene aber allein kann geboren werden., BA 13, lmmanuel KantWerke in zehn Bdnden, 5, (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt1958), p. z5/26

7 F or a furth er e laboratio n of th is poi nt of view: Arn eJ ohan Vetresen an d peterNomred Falelser og moral (Feelings and Morality), (Cyldendal, Oslo, 1996)

8 ln Concept of Anxiety, which is inspired by the Hegelian K. Rosenkranz,Psychologie oder die Wssenschaft vom subjectiven Cerst, (Konigsberg 837),Kierkegaard's pseudonym vigirius Haufniensis incrudes 'mixrure, in i"eringsin general, not rhe least in anxiery itself (attraction and repulsion), and isfrequently using the term ambiguity. The more rechnical Hegelian term is

ilo

condition of reflection (Reffexionsbestimmung) which means coexisting

contradictions, i.e. am bivalence. Thanks to his affinity to H egel Kierkegaard

does not as his Danish contemporaries just consider mixed emotions as a

blending, but as dialectical, something he mentions himself according to

biographical sources (Broechner). Cf. Kresten Nordentoft Kierkegaard\ psy-

chologr, (Duquesne University Press, Pittsburgh t978).

9 Kierkegaard's insistence on the singular, Hin Enkelte, is directed against this

constitution of one's identity in a group or a crowd (Mangde). This is unfor-

tunately often misunderslood as a denial of the imporcance of others. lt is

the membership of the mass, Poe's "The Man of the Crowd", Heidegger's

Das Man he criticises. And existence is though being in and of this world not

constituted by a home-land, but psychologically homelessness. Again he is

misunderstood, when he quotes the Christian demand in Luke, 4:25 "|f an'

yone come to me and does not hate his fatherand his mother, his wife and

children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own Iife - he cannot be my

disciple" - it is simplythe contingency or the arbitrariness of one's concrete

situation in relation to ones existence, he is pointing at.

ro A distinction Ove Korsgaard especially has drawn attentio n to in Ka mpen o m

Folket lfhe Fight for the People], (Cyldendal, Copenhagen, zoo4). Cf. also

Jacques Derrida Of Hospitality. Anne Dufourmantelle invitesJacques Derridd to re'

spond. (Stanford Universiry Press, Stanford California, zooo).

r r H an nah Arendt Tota li ta ri a n i sm. Pa rt th ree of Th e O ri gi n s of Totd I ita ria n ism, esPe-

cially ch. 4 about ideology. (Orig. t95t)

rz lt is of course especially Hannah Arendt's concePt of thinking I use here,

and its connexion to the ability to echical judgement while the "banality

of evil", exemplified in Eichmann is an inability to think, thoughtlessness:

"Thinking and Moral Considerations", tgV, also found in PeterThielst (ed.)

Om vold, tenkningogmoral, (Det lille Forlag, Kobenhavn, 1998). And ofcourse

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Bdndlity of Evil, revised edition, (Viking,

New York, r965).

r3 Kierkegaard writing as the pseudonymous authors of Either-Or and Concluding

IJnscientific Postscript is defending an absolute disjunction in a complete dif-

ferent sense. lt is a principle of action, decision and not of acknowledgment,

because the latter remains in the realm of possibility cannot distinguish be-

tween good and bad.

r4 I n fact the them e of recognition goes through other stages in the Phenomen-

ology, and the concept of recognition is much more subtle than this - com-

mon - interpretation expels, but this is the form in which the concept of rec-

ognition has achieved its enormous influence in the twentieth century.

15 One often forgets that'otherness'(to heteron) originally is stressed together

with 'sameness' as a basic trans-linguistic category of lan guage by Platon in

The Sophist (254 D-255E).

!lt

16 Though Nietxche's atrirude towardsJudaism is compricated and he was(mis)used by rhe Nazi-propaganda, he developed a hard criricism ro_wards anri-semitism in his rater years. Friedrich Nietzsche Stimtriche werke.Studienausgabe in 6 Bdnden. Ciorgi Colli and Mazzino Montinari (ed.),(MLinchen, r98o), vol. r3, p.5gr, mytranslation.

17 This religion of rhe Nationar-sociarisrs which Eichmann was engaged in ison the other hand a continuation ofthe nationaristic traits in LucheranianProrestantism: Nationarprotestantismus, that combines poriticar and rerigiousaspects in the uniry of the Cerman nation, already in rg7r, as the ,,heilige

evangelische Reich deurccher Nation ... in diesem sinn erkennen wir die spurcottes" (Adolf sroecker) Hans-Urrich wehrer Deutsche Geseilschaftsgeschichter9t4-49, (C.H_ Beck, Mlinchen , zoq), pp. 436_445

18 Salvoj ZiZek, The Fragile Absolute - or, why is the christian legary worth fghtingfor?(Verso, London & Newyork, zooo); On Betief, (Routledee, London & NewYork, zoor)' Alan Badiou saint paur. La foundation de |univerarisme. (pressesUniversitaires de France, paris, t997)

l9 "Crund'(oes not only mean foundation but also ,the reason why, in Danishand Cerman. lt is used as well as an ontological and epistemological con_cept in the Logic of Hegel. So wirh Kierkegaard in the description of love.Cod, Cod's love is rhe basis, and ,rhe reason why,. He is not designated as

'the cause,, ir is not Cod as the Creator that is invocated..zo The mirrorstage is ,.a phenomenon to which I assign a twofold value. ln the

first place, it has hisroricar varue as it marks a decisive turning-point in rhemental development of rhe child. ln rhe second place, it cypifies an essenriallibidinal relationship with the body-image" "some reflecrions on rhe ego,,,lntJ. Psycho-Anal., vol 34, t953, p.t4

zt woil<s of Love is not exposing the image of cod as the Creator in rhe tradirion_al sense. He is also the condirion of possibiliry for meaning and speech, theoriginal speech actr cf. Urrich Lincorn Ausserung. studien zum Handrungsbegriffin Soren Kierkegtards "Die Taten der Liebe", (warter de cruyter, a".rin7r.re*York, zooo).

zz Theodor w Adorno Kierkegaard. Konstruktion des Asthetischen, (suhrkamp,Frankfurr am Main, g74(t%3)) with a supplement,,Kierkegaard,s doctrineof Love".

z3 Arne cron ,,cegenseitigkeit in Der Liebe Tun?" in Kierkegaard Revisited.Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series r, Niels_Jorgen Cappelorn and JonfStewart (ed.), (Berlin & Newyork, ryg7), p.237

z4 )acques Derrida The Gift of Death, crans. David Wills, (Chicago, Universiry ofChicago Press, 1995), p. ro7

z5 The Law is considered in the same, but perhaps more nihilistic, way, byKafka in "Before the Lara/, especially in the reading ofJacques Derrida

"Pre1ug6.s. Devant Ia loi,, in J. De*ida et al. La facuttd de juge4 6ditions de

l2

TJ oW{-/-ktr{4/.s

Minuir, Paris 1985. That the raw is without meaning as such but is what givesmeaning analogous to the way Cod is appeari ngin Worl<s of Lore, is also toKafka influenced by aJewish counrerparr co the tradirion ofnegative theor-ogy and mysticism.

z6 Louis Mackay Kierkegaard: A Kind ofpoet, pennsylvania g7t reproduced inDario Conzales "Poetics and the .,Being,, of Love,,, yearbook r99g

z7 I fur'r"mvetr-in4eb*lto Kirsten Hyrdgaard 6r this interpreration and itsconnexion to Zizek and Badiou,s interpretations of Kierkegaard thoughlfave not hldroom for a furrher eraborarion in this contexr. Cf. for in-staircEKirsten Hyldgaard .,1 begyndelsen var den Anden,, (ln the beginningthere was the Other) in Jonas Lieberkind et al. Dannelse mellem subjel<tet ogdet almene, DPU, Copenhagen 2ooj and Kirsten Hyldgaard Det utidige subjeit[The Untidy Subject], (Roskild e, zoo3).

z8 I am much indebted toJean-Christian Deray, sune Froerund forcriticar com-ments - and to Chrisrian Falden, Museum Tusculanum press, for help withthe English translarion.

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