“Then That Poet Suddenly Transformed Himself”
To counteract the inertia of stupidity that is built into the media themselves,
Kierkegaard repeatedly insisted from quite early on that he would prefer
not to have to operate viaThe Moment. In the very first article of the very
first issue, he embraced the old adage “that willing hands make light work,”
but he modified it, saying that “true seriousness only emerges when a com-
petent person is compelled by a higher power to take on a task against his
will—that is, a competent person in opposition to his own desire.” Kierke-
gaard argued that if this reversal of appetite and duty were genuine, which
it was, then he would be able to relate himself quite “properly to the task
of ‘taking action in the moment.’ For God knows, nothing is more alien to
my soul. Being an author—well, yes, that appeals to me. If I am to be
honest, I must say that I have loved being productive....Iamthesort of
person who truly does not take the slightest pleasure in taking action in the
moment—presumably it is for this very reason that I have been chosen to
do so.”
The situation was extraordinary, and so is the role Kierkegaard assumed.
In the draft of the tenth issue ofThe Moment, dated September 1855, Kier-
kegaard displayed all due modesty in describing his situation: “The point of
view I have to exhibit, and do exhibit, is so singular that in eighteen hun-
dred years of Christendom, I literally have nothing analogous, no corr-
esponding situation, to which I can refer. And thus—face to face with eigh-
teen hundred years—I stand quite literally alone. The only analogy I have
before me is Socrates; my task is a Socratic one, to scrutinize the definition
of what it is to be a Christian.” In the same piece, Kierkegaard informed
his readers that there “is only one person alive who has what is required to
produce a genuine criticism of my work, and that is myself....Theonly
person who has occasionally spoken with some truth about my significance
is Prof. R. Nielsen, but this truth he heard in private conversations with
me.” Nor was Kierkegaard in doubt about the importance of his cause to
the history of his country, though his opinions remained in his journals:
“The cause I have the honor to serve is the greatest Denmark has ever had;
it is the future of Christianity, and it must begin here. As is proper, for my
part, this cause has been served with such zeal, effort, diligence, and
selflessness that Denmark has had no cause that resembles it in this respect.”
The matter was without parallel, beyond all analogy, but nonetheless,
when Kierkegaard indicated the theater that would be the scene of his ac-
tions, everyone could see that he had found his stage props in the Colosseum