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have you done a piece on the pop culture book that followed in Kierkegard's footsteps : ALVIN TOFFLER - "FUTURE SHOCK" it still rings true today in some parts
Hi! Japanese audience here! Thank you so much for such a wonderful content! Kierkegaard is really a famous and loved philosopher in Japan as well! Hope you do more videos on existentialism!
Swedish experts studied AI and found out the bias about humans is CREATED AND SPREAD BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE because AI is able to not just spread desinforamtion about humans, but also convince humans about its own truth 82 percent more than being convinced by real human. In 2026 the AI will write 90 ppercent of articles. So maybe it makes you think twice a bout what you just said...human intelligence is even more thruthful in good environment, than AI mambo jumbo nonsense.
I'm 50 next week and I can't remember the last time I felt passionate about anything. Feel like work takes everything. Waiting for the weekend but feel like it's just there to rest up for next week.
33 here… could not relate more to your statement yet I am too much of a coward to make the necessary, drastic changes and at this point I feel I lack the discipline and confidence to commit to my ideas
Well.. make a change. Never to late... until it is. Live everyday like it's your last. If you knew today was your last full day of life, what would you say to your family? Your loved ones? Your friends? Reflect on your mortality. It will give you perspective. How do you want to be remembered? What legacy do you leave behind? None of this requires money, prestige or any material thing. Good luck!
I did not expect Kierkegaard's ideas about passion be so similar to my experience. Unlike depression, apathy does not rob you of energy. You can still do your tasks, but now... you do not even feel any motion to do so. Without reason, you lose your mind. But without passion, your soul dies.
I've never related to anyone the way I can relate to Kierkegaard. Found "diary of Soren Kierkegaard" at 20, 17 years ago, and it changed my whole outlook. I still have parts memorized ❤
I do like an expressive young man with something wonderfully interesting and intelligent to say on RU-vid who stands by his own thoughts. Thank heavens they still exist.
Individually, people are OK. But group dynamics can definitely devolve into the "pitiless public". The worst part is how people just walk away as if they didn't do anything wrong. Now, there are kids under 11 years of age who are killing themselves because they understand the horror of this.
I love Kierkegaard. I found him 17 years ago at 20, an angry abused kid that had a hard life since i could remember. His book changed me and my outlook forever. Even as an atheist/agnostic. It translates.
@@dallenpowell2745read Either/Or. it’s great as a literary novel not just work of philosophy. Fear and Trembling is accessible if you have a Christian background or have read the Bible.
Paradox of infinite possibilities. Inversely: less is more. We are aware of too much, we see too much, we are pressed to choose from too many options. Self limitation is a must, or we self-implode and cease to engage in any meaningful way.
I'm not sure the possibilities are infinite What's left of Galilean relativity once Einstein introduced the SR postulates? Not much, but the continuum hypothesis And it is a hypothesis, but it allows singularities, which causes problems In view of the uncertainty principle over measurements of position, and that SR reveals that space and time are the same thing, let's postulate that spacetime is in fact discrete, as in "loop quantum gravity" Down around the Planck length, and say 10^-42seconds, if it comes in pieces and our lives are finite... Now consider the resolution of our senses, IF there comes a point where we cannot distinguish between say 4k imagery and reality - not that but at some finite resolution, and the rest of our senses similarly... Then the possible sights, sounds etc are also finite - huge, makes moves in chess look tiny, but finite So, there'd be finitely many possible lives worth of available experience So, not infinite
The idea of passionless living is oddly relatable to what I've just researched into Filipino culture. And oddly enough, the government of all places has been deeply concerned about this "passionless" way of living since the 1990s. In their own terms, they call it "form over substance" meaning that Filipinos (generally speaking) care more about appearance and aesthetics rather than the substance or the "point" of it all. I notice this at public schools where teachers are more concerned about the way they speak and how to present the content to students rather than WHAT the hell it is that they're teaching in the first place. In entertainment, they care more about mindless slapstic humor rather than cerebral storytelling. In news, we care more about chismosa (gossip) than what job prospects are more available for future highschool graduates. Sometimes in the 90s the Filipino government tried to come up with social reforms to change school policies and diversify entertainment trends to help "elevate" Filipino society, but to no avail. This passionless meaningless "form over substance" is already deeply ingrained in the culture, making it impossible to value individuality and independent thinking. Sorry for the long lecture, just realized an immediate connection from anecdotal evidence.
Whilst I find the content here both fascinating and absorbing, the speed at which it is delivered I find completely overwhelming. So much so that I have to look away from the screen most of the time to fully hear what is being said. Furthermore, instead of leaving sufficient gaps at the end of each statement in order to fully digest the information, we are subjected to edits and screen zooms which snatch and grab at my attention making my brain circuitry feel totally overloaded. Great content though
Could be one of those rare youtube channels or people you have to listen to multiple times. Or simply replay interesting or intriguing sections. I know lots of people do this on their phones, but for me, a little notebook or pad next to the laptop, on which i scratch the time of an impt. point or question and a word or two as to what that topic was, helps if i want to go back and just replay certain points. What if we were in conversation with Einstein or Kierkegaard himself? We might want to take notes and have him repeat or explain himself.
"When age fell upon the world, and wonder went out of the minds of men. When grey cities reared to smoky skies tall towers grim and ugly, in whose shadow none might dream of the sun or of spring’s flowering meads. When learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty, and poets sang no more save of twisted phantoms seen with bleared and inward-looking eyes. When these things had come to pass, and childish hopes had gone away forever, there was a man who travelled out of life on a quest into the spaces whither the world’s dreams had fled." - Azothoth, H.P. Lovecraft
"Passion is a double-edged blade, be careful with what you crave", or rather mindful of it. Loved the video, especially cause I can't find it in myself to 'commit' to long texts (even though i fully love words, ideas and discovering different ways of thought). Thank you for your "biased" presentations, they really help!
I once saw a TV biography of Kierkegaard that mentioned his opinion that modern communications would drive people mad. Something would happen at place A. It would immediately be reported in place B. People at B would react, perhaps angrily, and their reaction would be reported back at place A. The people of A would react to the reaction, even more angrily, and that reaction would be reported at B, ad infinitum. K imagined this with just the telegraph - with social media, it has come to full fruition. I would much appreciate a reference to whare Kierkegaard said this.
i’ve thought about this a lot without reading what that guy said our society fights passion and instead convinces it’s people to stay focusing on the wrong solutions so that those with the power and knowledge of what’s really happening can stay protected by the system
The section on leveling, I found particularly interesting. When I was working in Japan, I found this heaviness of conforming to the wish of the group, gradually your thoughts and purpose become those of the group, it seems to be even embedded in the language. I would find myself questioning before I said something, "Is this appropriate," or "should I say this?" whereas in English I would say whatever I thought without this filter. I would watch the procession of people walking to work from a tall building and wonder if any individual matters at all. The problem of hikikomori in Japan might be two groups, those that are rejected by the group and feel that they/their opinions don't matter, and those that reject the group and disagree with the ideas of the group and actively choose to disengage.
*Finally:* a modern take on this, to rival those of Sadler or Eternalised. It must be synchronicity that I looked up this essay once again but one month after you've reviewed it.
This channel along with Wisdom Warriors gives me a glimmer of hope for the future of Western civilisation. It’s often the worst of times that gives rise to philosophers and critical thinkers.
Exceptional performance and very helpful. Enviable scholarship vigorously presented and explained in an accessible and engaging style. I hope to do something similar but every time I get excited about reporting my latest insights I discover someone like you who does it so much better and about subjects I know not nearly enough. It is like an amateur guitarist hearing Jimi Hendrix for the first time
Wow. Just wow. I never engaged with Kierkegaard because he promotes religious faith as a solution and I feel strongly - you might even say passionately - about that being dangerous. But this essay just echoes so much of what I've been struggling with - how to be a (reasonably) autonomous individual in the modern age of crowds and identity groups, the need to keep your own counsel as an individual, and the need for a commitment to truth (even and especially where it appears to clash with faith or justice), against that overwhelming pressure of the public or any group that might wield collective power if need be. I have to read that essay for myself. Many thanks of pointing me to it.
Everytime I see Infotainment like this, I wonder about the disconnect, that people always complain about analyizing and similar stuff in school. "I'll never use this." When you actually could read and understand these books yourself If you would not disregard the tools school actually can give you
if I may elucidate the problem, people misunderstand the points of all parts of it: First people believe that a school is to provide an education and an education a job. Most people sincerely do not have the idea of school for the refinement of character. They are completely correct, when under this supposition, that this supposition is utterly encourgaged by schools from the beginning of the process to it's end (where there is always underlying question of 'what do you want to be after this'). Second the books which are often taught publicly (or by government, if you're English) are either not actually useful at all, or taught by English teachers who purposefully provide useless understandings of the work that they are meant to be teaching (likely by curriculum I admit, -edit_ and to void potential counterargument, the actual meaning can be denigrated by the presnce and imposition of a teacher, that a misconception taught is a greater problem than a naivety, seems to me more appropriate _edit-). That these create the misconception and discontent in it.
@@TheJoshestWhite Well, as an example we read Kant in school. But almost everyone complained about it being useless. Since they will never talk about it after school and would never read it on their own. So why bother to learn reading texts like these in a way to break it down and get the main ideas and discuss them. So they disregard this skill. But when Somebody actually uses it, they are impressed. Like an anology would be, why bother learning to ride a bike, I will Always use a Car anyway. Then someone tells them they went on vacation with a bike and they will compliment them and would say "wow I would love to be able to do that myself, it seems so healthy and fun at the same time" Basically people hate school and think it is stupid. But when people apply skills from school, they are impressed.
@@voxsvoxs4261 English isnt my native language, so I May misunderstand your comment but by stating that the books are not usefull at all, you also do Not seem to understand my point. It is not about the actual book or poem or whatever. It is about the skill to read, analyze and discuss a book, so that you can then go on and apply that skill on anything that interests you. And then I guess you were just unlucky with your teachers, If they suck on purpose. I noticed that most people (myself included) just Always thought they are smarter then their teachers so of course my understanding of a book is great and theirs is useless.
@@Toddy15 that's fair, though I'd say again school didn't give me that skill: The curriculum schools have to teach provide a set of books to choose from and then those individual books have different themes that are also set that people have to write under for their assesment. So there is very little cultivating of independent analysis skills. For the teachers part, I thought it more that they'd apply rhetoric tricks to make weird conclusions, instead of doing actual analysis.
I am a huge advocate for subtitles, and I appreciate you including them since the RU-vid generated ones are often rather spotty. However, the highlighting of each word as it's spoken is distracting and should be reserved for karaoke.
I am literally making a game about this exact topic! I'm stuck in a shop, working every single day, seeing mostly the same bland faces with empty eyes, buying cigaretes and alcohol from the morning, till the lights are out. The game was supposed to be a shitpost born from me looking at the cameras and thinking "that's kinda like fnaf", but it evolved into a story about, at least mostly, my fear of being just a part of the homogenous monolith. In short, great video!
It's either gonna be on steam or gamejolt, not really sure yet. The working title is "dayshift at płazik". Probably gonna drop a teaser/trailer once it's nearly done!
Great discussion of the ideas, I for one revel in learning without a goal beyond changing my understanding about many things comfortable in the idea that I will never be an expert on any subject.
Truth! Still rings true nowadays, imagine how the kids born circa 2017 will be after the covid crisis they lived through in their formative social years...
@@througtonsheirs_doctorwhol5914The age of one to three aren't very memorable to most people so your niece and nephew are most likely going to be OK. Ages four through ten...check in on them periodically 😂
Another great video and interpretation of the Dane himself, I'm stupefied every time with Nietzsche and Kierkegaard parallelism. Grow your mustache again, I loved it.
How can i be like you? I am so interested in philosophy and psychology, but all i can do is just observe someone else talking about it. You, on the other hand, see it. Without you i could not. I fear the knowledge i can't have
I'm 54 and we've been on a downward trajectory since normal people got the internet. In 1993 you needed a 140 IQ to get on the internet. It dropped to 110 by 2005. The iPhone lowered it to 80 in 2007.
Another outstanding vid, been watching for I think a month now and it’s been great, usually watching while havin dinner or during que in games. Reminds me of Joe Rogan a lil bit mini learning sessions, gotta love it👌
I say this because I'd like to remember it. I leave it here on the off chance it sets off pleasant and/or useful sparks in someone else. The exponential increase in the availability of information of all kinds leads to an indecisiveness coupled with a knowledge that something -- anything must be done. These are the makings of anxiety. In the right sets of hands, this may lead to the generation of technology and techniques that ease the suffering caused by the exponential increase. The solutions are known by one or both of the following results: 1. The being in question may flit from idea to idea, never settling on anything of primary importance, but this is mapped directly onto the structure of the world and yields happiness, contentment, joy, etc. 2. Half baked ideas are taken through the laborious process needed to midwife them into the world without the need for humans to operate as amanuensis to their own creativity. Note that in both cases, faith is placed in "the future" or "the. unconscious movements of the world soul towards a greater good" or something similar.
If we join the crowd we end up unhappy by losing our individuality but f we embraced too much our own individuality we may also end up unhappy being ostracized by the rest of society. As it seems we may end up regretting both, guess we can only balance in between in somekind of acrobatic act to avoid unhapiness. A video on Debord and the society of the spectacle would be interesting. Thanks for this one! I love Kierkegaard. He lives happy with Regina in my mind.
Is beautiful to see a young person lecturing on philosophy, especially Kierkegaard. Passion is life. I'm a retired school teacher. Today my passion is still teaching, I follow it by recording every moment of my life,the life of my children and grandchildren by means of, drawing, photographs and stories. Good luck to you and God bless you.
It may be out of your usual wheelhouse, perhaps not, but I’d love to hear your take on Lao Tzu/taoism broadly and where it can fit in our modern lives. Love love love the channel man, hell of a job as always
That's why being an absurdist is relieving. A man with indiferrence to society's views and perceptions to level ourselves as worthy of little praises. Do the things he wants and being passionate about without religious political philosophical pressures feels liberating. Though we still fall to the pit of wanting of validation and acknowledgement and a true absurd hero probably doesnt exist
Kierkegaard has described our current age perfectly there, primarily because he imagined the sins of his own age being multiplied, and he was of course a genius, ahead of his time and absolutely right. He might not have imagined the technological tools we use (but I could well imagine that he might have dreamed about a "magic book"...) to multiply our comments, but he read the nature of our follies almost two centuries ago. We must commit that is the essential folly of this age of narcissism, in committing to ourselves, we fail to commit to life, which has only one question "What are you doing for others?" If you're not meeting resistance, you're going the wrong way. Most people will choose remote control over adventure. It's more dangerous than base-jumping. 💯
Wonderful essay. I, myself, am thirstily craving profound and thought-provoking stuff (like this) that isn't edited to be a chunk of pauseless information, conspicuously designed with an allotted expedient timeslot in mind. The brain does not compute at this cognitive tempo. Everybody does this but it results in foregoing your initial objective (and ironically links up with parts of Kierkegaard's philosophy). It's comparable to canned laughter; once you start noticing it, it becomes the only thing you hear.
Just found your channel. love at first sight! Differentiated views, complex ideas made simple and for me as a mint guy the perfect level of depth for a first Overview.❤
@16:08 - the dangers of "the public"... the death of individuality yeah :it segues together well, with your next point René Girard ! MEMEtics. Being part of the gen-X of the early 1980s, the episode or book of Sesame Streets about starting a collection made me literally addicted to collecting what brings me happiness as passions / hobbies go. Culture, art, geekdom... video games, choose your own adventure books, Takara Battle Beast figurines... I got back to collecting them after serlling or giving away these 3 collections in my youth... only the LONE WOLF book series and Suikoden 1 & 2 survived those purges. (ironically i discoverd also a lone takara batle beast followed me through life until my late 30s : the duck with a single arm, wearing a blue armor with a small red tag. As a canadian from Quebec this seems to have a weird symbolism :P ) I am a child of the "collector age"... retro gamer... nerd. What young people would call a "boomer", as you would deduce as you read my wall of text.
A perfect society would seek out and praise its imperfections. Likewise an imperfect society is drawn to find perfection and celebrate it accordingly. We cant win if we instist on playing the same game.
I think you could do a really cool video on cosmicism. Also, you are my biggest inspiration for getting into philosophy, and it's really helped in my life.
There are several reasons to hate the modern world tbh, but If I had to guess, I’d say from what I’ve seen I think the biggest reason we aren’t happy with it is because we have been made/conditioned to almost “give up” our spontaneous nature as humans in order to fit in society and work and do all that stuff. But we can’t really give up our nature like that, and since the environment we live in doesn’t allow for “spontaneous” or “authentic” or any of that stuff, really the only thing we do when we “give up” our nature is we hurt and betray ourselves on the individual level
The most important thing to do is be a positive force on memesis and take intellectual responsibility to think for yourself. Almost nobody can do these in modern times.
Damn, I feel called out. Gives perspective I haven't read or heard about Kierkegaards descriptions of people who only read and comment, and about aborting identity, but I even had a username I used everywhere "anonymous observer". It's so ironic that it brought so much agony to my life. Happy to realize it's not what I want anymore
I think it’s a result of living in a society that has advanced itself to the point in which most people are living in relative luxury. Conversely, if you had to live in the wilderness, and survival was a daily concern, concepts such as “the meaning of life”, and “purpose” are silly, superfluous notions. In short, these are luxury beliefs. If you want to feel like you have purpose in life, focus on building good relationships, and helping people in need.
yes, but live in a modern world where there are infinite number of ways to do that, you could argue that applying yourself in almost any job/profession can help someone, so how do you find what's good and meaningful to you and also makes you feel passionate about life?
@@littlesometin I'd argue that there is a distinction between just going to work every day, and genuinely helping someone in need. Have you ever helped someone who was desperately in need? If you have, you'll know the feeling you have from doing so. Now, compare that feeling to going to work everyday. It's not the same, correct? I believe that if you seek out the former, it will give you purpose, and everyone will benefit from it, including the person doing it. Obtaining money is a goal. Truly helping people in need is purpose.
While I appreciate many of the thoughtful contributions of the Stoic philosophers to the public discourse, I have to chuckle at their conclusions about the destructive nature of passion, given how unapologetically passionate they were about Stoicism as a way of life. It is by virtue of that collective passion that we even know their names.
I didn't underatand Kierkegaard until I found myself hanging from the side of a mountain unable to climb or descend as the weather closed in and night fell.
Sometimes, I get some idea in my head and write a small article for myself. I don't publish it or anything, I just write it. Well, this very week I was writing something I called "The Faustian Bargain of Online Communities" where I entertained the idea of toxic online communities as "demons" making bargains for our "souls"(by which I mean our sense of individual identity) in exchange for a sense of intellectual and moral superiority. I hadn't heard anything about Kierkegaard's "leveling" until now, but it did give me an interesting thought with his idea and mine. Maybe this "leveling" nowadays doesn't happen just by one "public". Maybe now, with the interconnected world, there's a big number of "publics" out there seeking to overwrite our individuality.
