St. Olaf professor Gordon Marino has a post that was published on the NY Times Happy Days blog on Wednesday that’s currently the #1 emailed articled on the entire NYT site. It’s called Kierkegaard on the Couch (Marino is also curator of the Hong/Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf.)
These days, confide to someone that you are in despair and he or she will likely suggest that you seek out professional help for your depression. While despair used to be classified as one of the seven deadly sins, it has now been medicalized and folded into the concept of clinical depression.
In America, there is endless talk of the importance of having a dream — that is, a dreamed-up self that you will to become: a millionaire, a surgeon, or maybe the next Dylan or George Clooney. But master of suspicion that Kierkegaard was, he goes on to note that while the man who has failed to become Caesar would have been in seventh heaven if he had realized his dream, that state would have been just as despairing in another way — because in that giddy self-satisfied condition, he would never have come to grasp his true self.
…
The spirit is one thing, the psyche another: The blues one thing, despair another. How might Kierkegaard have parsed the distinction for the Doubting Thomas who will only believe what he can glean on an M.R.I.?
john george
Griff Wigley
Patrick Enders
Kiffi Summa
David Ludescher
Paul Zorn
Anthony Pierre
Norm Vig
Tracy Davis
Ray Cox
Holly Cairns
Stephanie Henriksen
Jane Moline
Alec Irwin
Jane McWilliams
Obie Holmen
Kathie Galotti
Randy Jennings
Tom Swift
Mike Zenner
William Siemers
Bright Spencer
Ross Currier
victor summa
Brendon Etter
Curt Benson
Hayes Scriven
Kathleen Jasnoch
David Henson
Sandy Vesledahl
Susan Hvistendahl
David Roberts
Jerry Bilek
Jessica Paxton
John S. Thomas
Margit Johnson
Mary Rossing
Nathan White
Robbie Wigley
Sean Fox
Sean Hayford O'Leary
A.RIpka
Amy Hollerung
Angela Lauterbach
Ann Occhiato
Betsey Buckheit
Bob Gilbertson
Bruce Wiskus
Charlene Hamblin
Diane Roth
Elizabeth Schott
Jeff Gunn
Jimmy Montalvo
Jon Denison
Kathleen Vondrasek
linda seebach
Maren Swanson
Margaret Colangelo
Mary Schier
Melody Ng
Mike Bollinger
Peter Millin
Peter Seebach
Phil Poyner
Robert Stevenson
Ryan Heinritz
tom
Travis Nettum
Vicki Dennis
I can’t believe I missed this. I get alerts every time he posts on the huffington post.
I guess this isnt the huffington post, its the nyt.
Ah, the heck with all that…
…Gordon is also a baseball fanatic.
A NYT commenter, Kim V., wrote:
That’s true for me as well, but it’s way too tough for mere mortals like me to discern that from Kierkegaard’s writing.
I really don’t see any difference between sensible psychological self-help and spiritual growth. Maybe that’s because I’m atheist who thinks the principles of cognitive psychotherapy can be boiled down to a ‘learn to want what you have’ approach to life that works well for average screwed-up people like me.
And while I’m at it, are there any Northfield-area ministers who, from their pulpits, tear apart New Age law of attraction gurus like James Arther Ray and Christian prosperity Gospel gurus like Mac Hammon?