liberalism has the upper hand at present, it is not difficult to see that socialism
has the future on its side.”
Martensen—who could never understand what on earth possessed Kier-
kegaard to make him want to speak with those ordinary people down there
on the street—could handle this ideological phraseology like a true profes-
sional. Kierkegaard’s political concepts, on the other hand, cannot be said
to have been particularly well developed: In 1846 the differences between
socialism and liberalism were unclear, and it was similarly difficult to differ-
entiate between socialism and communism. Thus Kierkegaard had not
boned up on his ideologies, but he had preserved a certain visionary sup-
pleness when confronted with the traditional political spectrum, and this
enabled him to leap with ease from utter anarchy to the most Machiavellian
inflexibility. Martensen could compare the “social culture” of the day to a
pyramid, with the privileged occupying the top and the broad base made
up of those with nothing. Without having read a line of Marx, Kierkegaard
could write something similar and, like Martensen, he would use the meta-
phor of a pyramid: “Man is ‘a social animal,’ and he believes in the power
of uniting, of forming groups. Therefore the human idea is this: Let us all
unite—if possible, all the kingdoms and countries of the earth—and the
pyramid-shaped association thus formed, which grows higher and higher,
bears upon its summit a super-king. It must be assumed that he is closest to
God....ForChristianity, things are precisely the reverse of this. This very
sort of super-king would stand furthest from God, just as God is very much
opposed to the entire enterprise of the pyramid. The despised person, re-
jected by the human race, a poor, single, solitary wretch, an outcast—this,
according to Christianity, this is what God chooses and what is closest to
Him. He hates the business of the pyramid....AsGodisinfinite love, His
fatherly eye readily sees how easy it is for this human pyramid idea to be-
come cruel to the less fortunate, to the neglected, and so on, of the human
race....SoGodpushes the pyramid over and everything collapses. A gen-
eration later people begin all over again with the pyramid business.”
Liberty, Equality, and Mercy
So Kierkegaard was aware quite early of a number of the problems that the
new age, modernity, the future, would have to live with—or die of. “The
question of equality,” he wrote in 1848, “has become an object of debate
in Europe. Consequently all the older forms of tyranny (emperor, king,
aristocracy, clergy, even the tyranny of money) will now be powerless. But
there is a form of tyranny that corresponds to equality: the fear of man.”