Soren Kierkegaard

impossible that we all can become martyrs. If we are all to become martyrs
and be put to death, then who will put us to death?’” Anti-Climacus has
to admit that when the matter is put this way, self-contradictions quickly
develop. Nonetheless, he objects, this of course does not mean that an indi-
vidual cannot take it upon himself to become a martyr. This is quite true,
but it hardly solves the problem if no one answers the advertisement for
martyrs.Anti-Climacushimself saysthanks,butnothanks, withasomewhat
ambiguous remark to the effect that he has “only purely formal knowledge
of existential secrets” and is therefore not in fact obligated to actualize the
maneuver.
What then? Well, then, nothing further. Nothing further, that is, if one
bases one’s position on the “Moral” with which the first section ofPractice
concludes, where the following is stated: “And what does all this mean? It
means that every individual, in quiet inwardness before God, must humble
himself with respect to being a Christian in the strictest sense and admit
honestly before God where he stands, so that he still might worthily receive
the grace offered to every imperfect being—that is, to everyone. And then
nothing further: then, for the rest, attend to his employment, happy with
it, love his wife, happy with her, joyfully raise his children, love his fellow
beings, take joy in life. If anything further is required of him, God will
surely inform him of it, and will in that case help him further along.” This
notion of making an admission is also present in a motto composed in June
1849 for use in connection withPractice, which Kierkegaard wrote, though
he never used it: “I do not feel that I am strong enough to resemble you
and in so doing die for you or for your cause; I content myself with some-
thing less, with worshipfully thanking you because you would die for me.”
So,nothing further.That’s all—atleast fornow. Thanksto thispossibility
of making anadmission, a person may continue to live like some sort of
Judge William with anenlightened false consciousness. Either mediocrity or
martyrdom—that is the moral of the story. And therefore, more than any-
thing else,the moral looks awfullymuch like soimmoral a thingashypocrisy,
inasmuch as from beginning to endPracticehad described one long move-
ment in the direction of marginalization. And the individual’s inward “ad-
mission” isnotsufficient to annul all those cunning plans about being a
witness and a spy and whatever else one might call a martyr—all the less so
because these plans had been so long in the making, and it would be a
peculiar interruption of the trajectory if these plans were now to be called
off by the “Moral” inPractice.
Nor were they called off. For while the reader might perhaps be satisfied
with (as Grundtvig put it) “a humble, hearty, active life on earth” with
his spouse and his little well-brought-up children, Kierkegaard went on