Kierkegaard did not wish to develop this matter further inA Literary
Review, and scarcely had he put a period at the end of the sentence about
suffering action before he launched into a new section in which he repeated
the familiar practice of his pseudonyms: With an odd grimace, Kierkegaard
insisted that the whole affair had in fact been nothing but “foolery,” of no
more significance than “playing skittles or tilting at a barrel.” Nonetheless,
this was more than a trivial experiment, and in 1849 Kierkegaard self-con-
sciously noted that: “What is really remarkable is to read the description of
the future that is found toward the end ofA Literary Review of “Two Ages”
and then to consider how quickly and precisely it was fulfilled two years
later, in 1848.” He wrote something similar inThePointofViewforMyWork
as an Author, where he again emphasized that the concluding section ofA
Literary Review, the part aboutsufferingaction, was of decisive significance.
We may therefore ask what actually did happen in 1848?
“100,000 Rumbling Nonhumans”
“1st Act .Two dogs have begun to fight .The event causes a great sensation.
An incredible number of heads appear at windows to have a look .While it
lasts, all work comes to a stop .People drop everything .2nd Act .Two ladies
come out of the doors of the two houses nearest the battle, each from her
own door .These two ladies appear to be the owners of the dogs .One lady
insists that the other lady’s dog started the fight .The ladies get so vehement
about this that they start fighting .I did not see any more than this, but it
could easily be continued .Thus,3rd Act .Two men arrive, the husbands of
the two ladies .One insists that the other’s wife started it .The two men get
so vehement about this that they start fighting .After that one may assume
that more men and woman join in—and now it is a European war .The
cause of it is the question of who started it .You see, this is the formula for
war in the second degree .War in the first degree is war, in the second
degree it is war about who started the first war.”
Kierkegaard sent this little three-act play to his walking companion J.L.A.
Kolderup-Rosenvinge in the early part of August 1848 .The battle of the
dogs—surely something Kierkegaard had witnessed—is a striking illustra-
tion of Kierkegaard’s a-plague-on-both-your-houses attitude with respect
to the political turmoil that characterized Europe at the time .As a mitigating
circumstance we may note that his arrogance included a dash of humor and
that in this same letter he openly acknowledged his lack of acumen about
realpolitik: “No, politics is not for me .For me, at least, it is impossible to
follow politics, even domestic politics, nowadays.”