Kierkegaard and the Ideal
One of the central lessons we can still learn from Kierkegaard today is how to have an ideal. In a certain sense, his entire philosophy can be condensed into this enigmatic point. Our own age, even more than Kierkegaard’s, celebrates the “realistic.” To be realistic is considered wise; we are told to seek what is possible within the horizon of necessity and realism. Anything else is dismissed as utopia. Yet already as a young man, during his stay in Gilleleje in northern Zealand (today the area is known for its chique and upper class atmosphere, a place there the ‘cultural elite’ goes to relax and party — Kierkegaard’s journal entry is the exact opposite of this), 1st of August, 1835). Kierkegaard insisted not on the opposition between the necessary and the ideal. It is most often read as the celebration of the ideal against the necessity of everyday life, the way the ideal opens up a horizon of possibility that cannot simply be reduced to its “realization”. While this is true, there is more to it. Kierkegaard focuses not simply on the ideal opposed to necessity, but in a dialectical way but on the necessity of the ideal itself. We do not have necessity versus ideal. We have two kinds of necessities, and one necessity includes the ideal. Without the ideal, he claimed, life cannot be lived. Life must, in other words, contain a point where it does not merely coincide with “life” as such, but exceeds itself — even to the point of risking life itself.
It is in this context that Kierkegaard reflects on the necessity of subjective truth. Truth is never merely a matter of “truth in general,” but of a truth that is true for me. Far from being egotistical or selfish, this subjective truth binds the subject to something greater than itself. It is a truth for which one is willing to sacrifice oneself, and in this sense the subject becomes subject to Truth. As Kierkegaard writes in his journal (I will quote first in English, then the Danish original):
“What I really need is to be clear about what I am to do, not about what I am to know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. It is a question of understanding my destiny, of seeing what the Deity really wants me to do; the point is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die. And what good would it do me to be able to explain the meaning of Christianity, to be able to unfold the various phenomena it encompasses, if it had no deeper significance for me and for my life? What good would it do me if I were able to develop a theory of the state, to combine the details of many historical examples into a totality, to construct a world in which I did not live myself, but only held it up for others to see? What good would it do me to be able to review the various philosophical systems, point out their inconsistencies, and, if required, produce a critique of them all — what would it profit me if I discovered so-called objective truth, if it had no significance for me and my life? The thing is to understand myself, to see what God really wants me to do; the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die. That was what I lacked: to lead a completely human life and not merely one of the mind, so that I base my thought upon something that is not just called objective — something which in any case is not mine — but upon something which is rooted in the deepest ground of my existence, through which I am bound fast to the Divine, even if the whole world were to collapse around me.”
“Det, der egentlig mangler mig, er at komme på det RENE med mig selv om, hvad jeg skal gjøre … det kommer an på at forstaae min Bestemmelse, at se, hvad Guddommen egentlig vil, at jeg skal gjøre; det gjælder om at finde en Sandhed, som er Sandhed for mig, at finde den Idee, for hvilken jeg vil leve og døe. Og hvad nyttede det mig dertil, om jeg udfandt en såkaldet objektiv Sandhed; om jeg arbejdede mig igennem Philosophers Systemer og kunde, når forlangtes, holde Revue over dem; at jeg kunde påvise inkonsekvenser indenfor hver enkelt kreds; — hvad nyttede det mig dertil, at jeg kunde udvikle en Stats-teori og af de mangestedsfra hentede Enkeltheder kombinere en Totalitet, konstruere en Verden, hvori jeg så igjen ikke levede, men som jeg blot holdt frem til skue for andre; — hvad nyttede det mig at kunne udvikle Christiendommens Betydning, at kunne forklare mange enkelte Phænomeners forudsætninger, når den for mig selv og mit Liv ikke havde nogen dybere Betydning? (…) Det var det, der manglede mig, at føre et fuldkommen menneskeligt Liv og ikke blot et Erkjendelsens; så jeg derved kommer til ikke at basere mine Tanke-Udviklinger på — ja, på Noget, man kalder objektivt, — Noget, som dog i ethvert Tilfælde ikke er mit eget, men på Noget, som hænger sammen med min Existents’ dybeste Rod,⁵ hvori jeg så at sige er indvoxet i det Guddommelige, hænger fast dermed, om så hele Verden styrter sammen.”
Kierkegaard’s point, then, is not to be “realistic,” but to find an idea for which one can live and die, to find “min Existents’ dybeste Rod”. Without something greater than oneself, life collapses inward, becoming claustrophobic. This is, however, not simply done by stating it. Kierkegaard wrote this in 1835, but his “aesthetic” period comes after this (for example in relation to Regine in 1840). Even while one knows that one needs an ideal, to sustain it is therefore extremely difficult. Kierkegaard’s own ideal came when he gave up Regine and married life, as well as to become a priest and wholly dedicated himself to writing, including religious writing. In psychoanalytical terms, we can say that an Ideal needs a “working-through”, perhaps years of time to “come to itself”.
This stands in sharp contrast to the dominant ethos of our time, in which politics is guided by the criterion of individual happiness. As St. Juste says about the French Revolution: “happiness has become a political problem”. Precisely because of his theological standpoint, Kierkegaard is also a deeply political thinker: he is political at the very point where the “realistic” is suspended. For him, the true values of life cannot be derived from shifting norms or prevailing dictates. The idea stands outside of normativity. For Kierkegaard, my existence is at the same time the most “inner” (that is not relative to others, or social order), but at the same time it is a pure exteriority (“invoxet i det Guddommelige”), that is my truth (a truth that matters to me, is at the same time the point where I don’t really know myself, where God takes over, so to say). This means that you don’t get to truth by looking inwards, by a platonic reminiscience, as though the truth lies buried deep within you, waiting to be discovered. On the contrary, the more we look within, the more we find something strange, something pointing outwards, a foreign element (God). This is why Kierkegaard again and again tries to revise the Socratic claim of “know thyself”, since to know yourself, is to know only yourself as a stranger, since the “self” is in Lacanian terms that of extimacy: deep within there’s a tramatic Other (God).
This is why truth is at the same time traumatic, a radically invasion from some external point (here God), that always uproots me from any kind of comfort og self-interest in the usual sense of the term.
At the same time, the idea is not given in advance. It must be won by the individual subject. This point is especially striking given Kierkegaard’s historical context: he formulates the necessity of the idea precisely at a moment when liberal progressivism promised a horizon of unlimited opportunity. Against this optimism, Kierkegaard insists that life cannot be reduced to possibilities of improvement; it requires an anchoring in an idea that exceeds all such horizons.
The idea, moreover, is not defined by content but by form. An idea is something I decide to follow. But I must fill this “empty form” with content. In this sense, it anticipates what Badiou calls an “immortal idea”: something that disrupts the consistency of the symbolic order, much like the Event. For both Kierkegaard and Badiou, the decisive issue is not the enthusiasm of the moment but fidelity — the work of sustaining loyalty after the fact, redefining existence in its wake, and allowing the Event to reconfigure symbolic reality. Kierkegaard repeatedly insists that the true task is not the intoxication of the instant but the “morning after,” the hard work of everyday commitment. One thing is to have the Idea, much harder is to have the will (viljen) to keep sustaining the commitment to this idea.
This is precisely what makes Kierkegaard relevant in the epoch of artificial intelligence. Contemporary digital infrastructures function by flattening singularity into patterns: they classify, predict, and optimize, rendering the individual as data points in systems of recognition and control. The danger here is the very nivellering (levelling) Kierkegaard diagnosed: a leveling of existence where individuality dissolves into conformity with prevailing norms, today dictated not only by ideology but by algorithmic systems. To insist on an idea, on a truth that is true for me, is to resist this flattening. It is to assert the irreducibility of singular existence against the abstractions of technological rationality.
An AI system can predict my behavior, estimate my preferences, and calculate my probable choices. What it cannot do is identify “the idea for which I can live and die.” No algorithm can provide this kind of truth, because such a truth is not a matter of probability or prediction but of commitment. It does not emerge from patterns in data but from a decision that binds me to my existence in a way no system can anticipate. Subjective truth, in Kierkegaard’s sense, is inassimilable to digital rationality because it is not about what I am likely to do, but about what I must choose to become. Such a choice is in a way never-ending, since I must, as living individual, constantly navigate in new circumstances and make difficult decisions.
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It follows that the idea has nothing to do with happiness. It does not make one happy, but it does make one passionate — and passion entails suffering. To be passionate is, in a sense, to “forget oneself” in devotion. Yet this does not mean seeking out suffering as if it were a badge of authenticity. Kierkegaard calls this error “Klosterlivets fejltagelse” (the mistake of monastic life): treating suffering as a trophy to display, thereby betraying the idea for the sake of recognition. This mistake is a bit like calling all your friends to let them know how sick you have fallen, because you have worked all night on a project. While this may be true (you really have become sick, haven’t slept, etc, you are looking to get some recognition and empathy from being sick, hence you are not dedicated to the project alone, but get an surplus pleasure out of it), to speak with Kierkegaard, you do not have the “purity of heart”. He also refers to this type (I know it from myself) as the “martyr”, as “the holy one” (den Hellige). He is not really religious, because he is very concerned that other people should see and recognize him for his piety.
“If a bow-legged man were to appear as a dancing master, without being able to assume a single proper position, he would be comic. So too with the religious. One hears such a ‘holy man’ as if he were counting to himself, exactly like someone who can dance well enough to know how to count the beat, though he himself never succeeds in keeping time. In the same way the ‘holy man’ knows that the religious is absolutely commensurable, that it is not something belonging only to certain occasions and moments, but something one can always carry with oneself. Yet the very moment he attempts to make it commensurable, he is not free; one notices how he quietly counts to himself, and one sees how, nonetheless, he misses the beat and makes a poor show of it with his heavenly glances, his folded hands, and so forth. That is why such an individuality is so anxious before anyone who has not undergone the same training, and why, in order to fortify itself, it must resort to those grand pronouncements that ‘the world hates the pious.’”
But isn’t the monastic way of life precisely a rejection of human concerns and recognition? No, precisely by withdrawing from wordly life, it is still operative, gets its significance from this withdrawal. This is why the “monk” or the “holy One” is usually much less pious than it may seem.
The idea can also be compromised when it is claimed as “my idea” in the sense of possession or pride. In Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand (1847), Kierkegaard formulates the dictum: “Hjertets Renhed er at ville ét” — “Purity of heart is to will one thing” (SKS 8, 138). This line, presented in the first discourse of En Leiligheds-Tale (“An Occasional Sermon”), takes its cue from the Apostle James’s exhortation to purity of heart.
For Kierkegaard, to will an idea is precisely to will one thing (at ville Ét). This entails a form of autonomy: a consistency of the will unmixed with extraneous interests such as the respect of peers, the approval of parents, or even self-congratulation. Recognition may come, but it must not dictate fidelity to the idea. Here Kierkegaard stands in striking proximity to Kant. Both insist that true freedom is not heteronomy, not obedience to external authorities or to the pursuit of reward, but self-legislation. Yet where Kant grounds the categorical imperative in reason, Kierkegaard grounds his imperative in passion (Lidenskab).
This divergence has profound consequences. Kant’s categorical imperative appeals to rational universality: to act only according to a maxim that one could will to be universal law. Kierkegaard, by contrast, insists that the decisive task is to appropriate an idea subjectively, with inward passion, so that it becomes the truth for which I am willing to live and die. For Kant, autonomy is secured through reason’s detachment from desire; for Kierkegaard, it is secured only through the passionate intensification of existence. Purity of heart does not consist in suppressing passion for the sake of rational clarity, but in directing passion singly, without dispersion or compromise, toward one thing.
Politically, this difference is decisive. Kant’s framework tends, at least in most readings, toward formal universality and therefore fits easily into modern liberal-democratic ideals, which appeal to shared rational norms. Kierkegaard, however, emphasizes the irreducible singularity of the individual: hin Enkelte, the single one who must decide in passion. In a time like ours — dominated by algorithmic infrastructures that classify, normalize, and predict behavior — this Kierkegaardian insistence is all the more radical. Algorithms thrive, at least on the face of it, on Kantian universality, on the assumption that subjects can be modeled according to generalizable patterns. Kierkegaard’s “willing one thing” points instead to the excess of individuality over all such classifications. To will one thing is not to conform to a system of rules, but to affirm the singularity of existence in a way no algorithm can calculate. In this sense the algorithms function a bit like “speculation” in Kierkegaard’s universe, which always signify the danish hegelians attempt to “systematize” and reduce human conduct to what can be generalized.
Nor is the idea measured by its results. If one seeks outcomes, the idea is reduced to a utilitarian principle. For Kierkegard, the idea is “immortal,” a blind spot within the order of reality, untouched by consequences. In Lacanian terms, the idea stands closer to the death drive than to the pleasure principle: it exceeds both pleasure and reality, sustaining itself precisely beyond the calculus of utility.
It is crucial to note that Kierkegaard formulates these reflections in the wake of the Enlightenment — precisely when optimism about human progress was widespread, when democracy, education, healthcare, and social reform promised universal happiness. It is against this background that Kierkegaard insists on the necessity of “a truth that matters to me.” The danger of this optimism, in his view, is nivellering — the flattening of individuality into conformity, whereby everyone becomes a marionette of prevailing ideologies. In our time, such dictates are encoded less in liberal-progressivist ideals and more in neoliberal and digital infrastructures. Kierkegaard’s insistence on the necessity of the idea thus remains a living challenge: it names the point of resistance to conformity, whether ideological or algorithmic, and affirms the irreducible singularity of existence.
Bibliography:
Kierkegaard, Søren. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vol. 17 (Journals AA–CC). Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn et al. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013. Journal AA, entry from Gilleleje, August 1, 1835.
Kierkegaard, Søren. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, vol. 8: Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand. Edited by Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Johnny Kondrup, Alastair McKinnon, and Finn Hauberg Mortensen. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013, 138.
