Kierkegaard never mentions slavery. Or almost never. The subject gets two pages in a corpus that spans thousands. This silence is surprising given how much Kierkegaard talks about freedom. For him, to be human is to be free; it’s to decide for oneself how to live. He even declares that the greatest thing you can do for another person is to help them become “free, independent, [their] own master.”
To add to the mystery, slavery was much in the news during Kierkegaard’s lifetime. His native country, Denmark, was among the first nations to ban the slave trade. It did so in 1803, 10 years before his birth. Yet, an illegal slave trade continued for some time, and Danish colonies had slavery until 1848. As late as 1853, the Danish parliament debated whether to compensate former slave owners. They settled on $50 a head.
Kierkegaard wouldn’t have been alone in speaking out. At the height of his career, there were well-known Danish voices on the side of abolition. Among them was his rival, N. F. S. Grundtvig, who worked with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Kierkegaard could’ve joined Grundtvig; he certainly had the means. He was fabulously wealthy and hardly short on leisure time. He wrote dozens of volumes on other ethical topics. Yet, somehow, he chose not to talk about slavery.
***
No one has done more to call attention to Kierkegaard’s silence on slavery than Nigel Hatton. But Hatton urges caution. We shouldn’t assume silence signals agreement. It’s possible Kierkegaard was against slavery but thought it would be wrong to speak about it publicly. He might’ve believed it would be better to remain silent and leave the protests to others.
How might this argument go? Well, Kierkegaard might’ve feared that words of support coming from someone like him wouldn’t go over well. The slaves wouldn’t want to hear it from a rich, free, white guy. Indeed, this is what Kierkegaard says in one of his essays on suffering. When you occupy a position of privilege, it’s misguided to talk about how much you care or how you really get it. For one thing, you probably don’t get it. As a person who’s got it good, you’re probably out of touch. In addition, your comments will come across as condescending. Your listeners will notice how fortunate you are, and this will lead them to contemplate how unfortunate they are by comparison. They’ll dwell on the fact that you’re voluntarily descending from your lofty station to deal with their lowly burdens whereas they don’t have a choice. Such thoughts will torment them. So, it’s better to keep quiet.
Silence might be defensible for another reason. Public condemnations of injustice often amount to “moral grandstanding” or “virtue signaling.” People speak out about moral issues to impress others rather than advance the cause. They’re more interested in promoting their own status than achieving the good. Kierkegaard objects to such “double-mindedness.” He says we should promote the good whether or not it’s rewarded, and we should do what’s right even if it doesn’t win others’ approval. To help keep our motivations pure, Kierkegaard sometimes recommends extreme measures, such as hiding our help. We shouldn’t let people know when we’re contributing to their cause. That way rewards and accolades will be off the table.
***
These arguments have some merit, but they won’t save Kierkegaard. Suppose he was worried that the slaves wouldn’t want to hear it from someone like him. Or, suppose he was worried that public condemnation of slavery would amount to grandstanding. There’s an obvious solution: He could write under a pseudonym. He could publish his thoughts on slavery under a name other than his own. Kierkegaard did this kind of thing all the time. He wrote half his books under made-up names, often working hard to keep up the pretense.
There’s another problem too. Kierkegaard doesn’t remain quiet about his other concerns with the world. Hardly a page goes by without his griping about something. He chastises people for “forgetting what it means to exist.” He complains that his generation lacks passion, and he attacks the press for making it worse. He condemns the Danish church for watering down Christianity. He denounces the whole world because it “wants to be deceived” and is basically “drunk.” In sum, Kierkegaard’s not one to pull punches. If he has a beef, he’ll share it. So, why is slavery an exception?
In addition, Kierkegaard changes his tune about silence. Until 1846, “hidden inwardness” is his ideal. But, after a clash with the press, his enthusiasm for it wanes. By the time he writes Practice in Christianity (1850), he makes his misgivings clear. He’s worried that refusing to speak out is a way to avoid criticism. It’s the coward’s route, not the path of virtue. “If someone wants to spare himself and does not dare to witness either for the truth or against untruth—fine, I do not coerce him. But he must not have the right to turn things around so that excusing himself also becomes laudable wisdom.”
In the final years of Kierkegaard’s life, the notion of being a “truth-witness” takes center stage. He demands honesty from everyone, especially those in power. They need to tell it like it is, even if nobody wants to hear it. In a series of newspaper articles from 1854–1855, he calls out two public figures by name, J. P. Mynster and Hans Lassen Martensen. They’re too chicken to say what they know is right. Yet, the sword cuts both ways. If Kierkegaard rejects slavery, being a truth-witness requires him to say something. Silence makes him a coward—no better than Mynster and Martensen.
***
Of course, Kierkegaard does say something about slavery. There’s one short passage on the topic in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847). Therein, Kierkegaard admits the brutality of slavery—but urges the slaves to be meek. Curiously, he observes that the Danish word for “meek” contains the word for “courage.” Thus, Hatton suggests Kierkegaard might be engaged in double-speak. His writings might contain the kind of indirect communication we find in 19th-century African-American literature on slavery. Take Frederick Douglass’s 1853 novella, The Heroic Slave. Douglass describes the main character as meek and cowardly. But it’s precisely this meek and cowardly slave who leads the rebellion at the end of the story.
Kierkegaard is no stranger to double-speak; his writings overflow with it. So, Hatton’s interpretation isn’t out of the question. But I do not see it. Kierkegaard never implies the “meek” slaves should rebel, as Douglass does. Quite the opposite. He says, “[A] slave … is not concerned about freedom and only if it is offered chooses to be free.” Plus, the courage he ascribes to meek slaves is the “gentle courage that carries the heavy burden lightly.” And “carrying the heavy burden lightly” amounts to believing it’s beneficial and not complaining about it. Accordingly, Kierkegaard tells the slaves not to “bite at the chain” or “scorn the chain.” Nor are they to “groan under the chain.” Instead, the meek slave is to “conceal his master’s wrong” so that it “looks as if the slave had a very good life with the master, and so he has—with the aid of meekness.” These don’t sound like the words of an abolitionist. They sound like the words of someone who’s indifferent to slavery.
***
There’s a long tradition of reading Kierkegaard as indifferent to worldly suffering. It has its roots in the “ethical callousness” objection developed by Theodore Adorno and Martin Buber. On Buber’s interpretation, all that matters for Kierkegaard is the individual’s relationship with God. The problem is that this hyper-focus on God results in indifference to the rest of the world. The fate of real people, including whether they suffer, becomes irrelevant to Kierkegaard. For Adorno, Kierkegaard’s error is that he only cares about matters of the heart. He’s only interested in people’s inner thoughts and attitudes. Everything else is irrelevant—including people’s worldly circumstances, such as whether they’re poor or in chains.
It’s easy to see how Adorno and Buber arrive at their conclusions. Consider these passages from Works of Love (1847):
[I]f the lowly and the powerless merely long enviously enough for the advantages denied them in earthly life instead of humbly longing for the blessed equality of the essentially Christian, this, too, damages their souls.
[T]he person who loves the neighbor is at peace. He is at peace by being content with the dissimilarity of earthly life allotted to him, be it that of distinction or of lowliness.
Christianity’s divine meaning is to say in confidence to every human being, “Do not busy yourself with changing the shape of the world or your situation, as if you (to stay with the example), instead of being a poor char-woman, perhaps could manage to be called ‘Madame’.”
In the name of Christianity, fatuous people have fatuously been busy about making it obvious in a worldly way that the woman should be established in equal rights with the man—Christianity has never required or desired this. … Christianity does not want to make changes in externals.
[T]he world does not understand eternity. Temporality has a temporal and hence a bustling conception of the need. … “The poor one, the wretched one could in fact die—therefor the most important thing is that help be given.” No, answers eternity. … “Provide money for us, provide hospitals for us, that is the most important!” No, says eternity, the most important is mercifulness. From the point of view of eternity, that someone dies is no misfortune, but that mercifulness is not practiced certainly is.
Many commentators have sought to explain away these texts. They’ve argued that Kierkegaard doesn’t preach ethical callousness. Despite appearances, he doesn’t think we should be indifferent to worldly suffering. But, to me, these passages are too overwhelming. They say: Be content with your lot; don’t try to change your situation; Christianity doesn’t want equal rights; it doesn’t matter if someone dies.
Honesty demands we tell it like it is. Kierkegaard, the founder of existentialism, held racist and sexist views. He was a rich white dude who conveniently developed a philosophy according to which he didn’t have to care about the worldly suffering of people who weren’t rich, white dudes.
***
Kierkegaard’s racism isn’t the racism of Immanuel Kant. He doesn’t explicitly divide the races on the basis of biological traits and arrange them hierarchically. It’s also not the racism of Martin Heidegger. We don’t find extended diatribes against Black people in his notebooks. Kierkegaard’s racism is more implicit. But it’s not therefore less serious. Kierkegaard intentionally sets up his worldview so he doesn’t have to care about the kind of problems that disproportionately affect Black people. He can remain rich and free while they suffer in chains. Such an attitude insinuates a racial hierarchy. Saying Black problems don’t matter is saying Black people don’t matter.
Does this mean we have to “cancel” Kierkegaard? Must we stop writing about him or teaching him in our classes? No. But we have to do something. And it’d be a good start if we took the advice Charles Mills gives to Kant scholars: We must admit Kierkegaard got some things wrong. No more excusing him for ignoring slavery. In addition, we need to determine whether his worldview can be salvaged. We need to try to reconstruct a Kierkegaardian position that isn’t prejudiced against Black people and Black problems.
There’s reason to be hopeful on this front. Black authors have long found inspiration from Kierkegaard. Ralph Ellison, Cornel West, and Lewis Gordon all draw on him. Hatton’s work continues to be a shining light as well. I take this to suggest there are things worth saving in Kierkegaard. We don’t have to give up on him just yet.
Antony Aumann
Antony Aumann is an associate professor of philosophy at Northern Michigan University. He is the author of Art and Selfhood: A Kierkegaardian Account and co-editor of New Kierkegaard Research.
I’m extremely unclear on how that passage from WOL supports your thesis that “[Kierkegaard] was a rich white dude who conveniently developed a philosophy according to which he didn’t have to care about the worldly suffering of people who weren’t rich, white dudes.” That passage was about the (relative) vanity of caring about worldly suffering more than we care about the cultivation of our eternal souls. This idea applies whether or not you’re rich and white. And he didn’t “conveniently develop” this philosophy–like all other philosophers, he arrived at his conclusions through reflection, reason, and experience. The parts of these passages that are in the dock seem to not be substantively different from generic stoicism. Did Kierkegaard get some things wrong? Obviously. He was notably sexist and could well have been racist (as you point out, he talks very little about race). But are these passages evidence that he was a sexist and a racist? I don’t think so!
I get that we all want to beat the crowd when it comes to revealing dirt on our favorite thinkers, but hopefully we can do that without deeply mischaracterizing their words and ideas.
Hi Megan,
Thanks for your comments and for taking the time to read my post.
I agree that, taken by themselves, the WL passages are not decisive when it comes to the issue of SK’s racism. But when we read them in conjunction with other passages, such as those from UDVS, they become troubling. Upon reading WL, one wonders whether SK really thinks all people, even the Black slaves of the Danish West Indies, should be content with their earthly lot. UDVS seems to confirm this point. In addition, upon reading WL, one wonders whether SK really thinks Christians should not try to make changes in the external world, such as abolishing the slavery that took place in the Danish West Indies. Again, UDVS seems to confirm the point.
You suggest that WL forwards a version of stoicism. Suppose this is correct. A rich, white person urging stoicism in the context of chattel slavery is troubling to my ears. Telling slaves not to bite the chain but to learn to see it as a blessing seems like a convenient message. It is the kind of message that allows the rich, white person to maintain their position of superiority. Is it possible to be a stoic and an abolitionist? Maybe. But, given UDVS, SK does not appear to be that kind of stoic. Is it possible to be an anti-abolitionist without being a racist? Maybe. But it would be a difficult view to hold.
As I say in the post, I am not alone in interpreting SK in this way. There is a long tradition of doing so stemming from Adorno, Buber, Mackey, and others. Yes, this tradition is controversial. Yes, there have been a lot of thoughtful and insightful voices on the other side, defending SK. But I don’t think those who oppose my view would regard what I say as a deep mischaracterization.
If you are interested in a helpful overview of the debate, see Leo Stan, Kierkegaard and Otherness in Kierkegaard’s Authorship: A Heterological Examination (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2017), 147-90.
Thanks for your reply. I’m still troubled, however, by what appears to me to be extreme proof-texting of WOL. Just a few pages after the section you quote (pg 74 in the Hong translation) Kierkegaard directly addresses slavery in conjunction with discussion subconscious attitudes of superiority and how this can be as harmful as overt subjugation. It just seems demonstrably false to me that K didn’t address slavery or inequality.
I agree with you that he prescribes to individual readers an attitude of contentment in all earthly conditions. But then again… so did Jesus.
I wrote a response to this and I’m not sure what happened to it so if this posts twice, forgive me!
I appreciate the reply. I’m still troubled, however, by what appears to be the pernicious proof-texting of WOL. Just a few pages after the section you quote, on page 74 of the Hong translation, K writes this:
“The times are past when only the powerful and the prominent were human beings-and the others were bond servants and slaves. This is due to Christianity, but from this it does not follow that prominence or power can no longer become a snare for a person so that he becomes enamored of this dissimilarity, damages his soul, and forgets what it is to love the neighbor. If this happens now, it certainly must happen in a more hidden and secret way, but basically it remains the same. Whether someone savoring his arrogance and his pride openly gives other people to understand that they do not exist for him and, for the nourishment of his arrogance, wants them to feel it as he demands expressions of slavish submission from them, or whether he slyly and secretly expresses that they do not exist for him simply by avoiding any contact with them (perhaps also out of fear that openness would incite people and endanger him personally)- these are basically one and the same. The inhumanity and the un-Christianness of this consists not in the way in which it is done but in independently wanting to deny kinship with all people, with unconditionally every person.”
Not only recognizing the Christian duty of abolishing slavery, but also recognizing that an attitude (conscious or subconscious) of superiority can cause the same oppressive effects in the world and degenerating effects in the human soul.
Yes, Kierkegaard did prescribe contentment and grace in the hearts of his readers, regardless of their earthly conditions. But, then again… so did Jesus.
I guess, to sum up: it doesn’t seem to me to be the case that Kierkegaard was, as your title contends, “silent on slavery”. Rather, your dispute with what he wrote appears more to be an ethical one. Kierkegaard discussed slavery and abolition and the importance of not moving about in the world as though you are better than others, but also emphasized the Gospel message of each person (slave or free, etc.) living their life as visitors in the world, meek, submissive, and enemy-loving. And how to balance those two ideas is difficult, and many may even think it’s impossible to deliver the Gospel message of meekness without committing an injustice. But that does not seem equivalent to “silence” on the issue.
Hi Megan,
Thanks for your follow-up comments. The passage from p. 74 of WL is a very important one, and I definitely should have caught it. Other people have called my attention to similar ones on pp. 69 and 80. Overlooking these was my mistake.
But I’m not sure these passages do what you need them to do. SK finishes the First Series of WL, from which these lines come, in April 1847. On July 28, 1847, the king of Denmark signs a declaration that slavery was to abolished in the Danish West Indies in 12 years time. But there was a slave rebellion in 1848, and on July 3 the Governor Peter von Scholten abolished slavery on the islands on the spot. Thus, when SK was writing WL, it is not true that “the times were past” when slavery existed under Danish rule. Kierkegaard must be thinking about something else in the passage you cite. Perhaps slavery in ancient Rome?
It is also not clear to me that SK saw there as being a Christian duty to abolish slavery. Yes, in the passage you mention, he says slavery disappeared because of Christianity’s influence. But, first, this is not true. Christianity did not end slavery in the Danish West Indies; a slave rebellion did. Nor did the status of Christianity as the Danish state religion preclude Denmark from participating in the slave trade for hundreds of years. Again, SK must be thinking about something else here, such as slavery in ancient Rome, besides Denmark’s participation in the modern slave trade.
Second, as late as journal entry from 1852, SK cites with approval the Apostle Paul’s claims that slaves should remain slaves unless their freedom is offered. (See JP #3201.) Both in this journal entry and in UDVS, he absolutely does not say that Christians ought to abolish slavery. I just do not see how you can read him as suggesting otherwise.
Hi Antony,
Thanks for the thorough response. Regarding the historic issue of slavery, after poking around on this it seems like measures began being taken to abolish slavery in 1792, that transatlantic shipping stopped by 1820, and then things slowly ended after that up until the dates you mention. So it looks to me like slavery was, at the least, very much on its way out in Denmark when K was writing, but it’s true that he may have been referring to Roman slavery or Viking slavery (and he may have thought that Christian regimes were responsible for both of those practices being abolished).
“It is also not clear to me that SK saw there as being a Christian duty to abolish slavery.” I think that passage is clear about this, but that the kind of abolition K sees as being a Christian duty does not take place via political involvement, but through personal changes of heart. One may think of it as an abolition of slavery at its root–the root of souls so in despair that they can see others as being beneath them. That’s the reason for the shift in focus in WOL from talking about “worldly inequalities” to talking about slavery to talking about conditions of a human soul that allow a person to consider himself above another person.
Regarding his approving quoting of Paul, I mean… yeah, K was a fairly theologically conservative Lutheran. But he’s certainly not the first writer to see Christianity as describing the extreme danger of political involvement. I’m thinking here particularly of Tolstoy, but also Tolkien and Weil. All of these writers see in the New Testament an exhortation against any movements to make oneself more prominent in the world than they currently are (indeed, an exhortation to make oneself lesser, meeker, than one currently is), because of the purported degenerating effects on the Self. Again, I’m sure this seems morally awful to many people, but it’s not unique to K, and is fairly standard Christian theology (or at least it seems standard to me). The danger of becoming more prominent, of getting involved in politics, is not a danger because earthly life doesn’t matter–it’s a danger for K because it makes it harder to live a life of faith (in a way similar to how apologetics makes it harder to live a life of faith–it gives the individual something else to lean upon for a time). And again, this might be a moral problem, but I guess it doesn’t strike me as “silence”. I think that Christians should be far more cautious of becoming involved in politics than they currently are, so I kind of understand a Christian’s hesitancy to speak on any issues from the perspective of political action.
I just wanted to attach along this article my own reply to the comments made here. Thank you for the opportunity to have me engage Kierkegaard more seriously and deeply! I hope our possible exchange could be fruitful in the future on this subject – bless you!
Hellenism and Christianity (WordPress)
Steven Dunn
July 17, 2020
“Kierkegaard’s racism isn’t the racism of Immanuel Kant. He doesn’t explicitly divide the races on the basis of biological traits and arrange them hierarchically. It’s also not the racism of Martin Heidegger. We don’t find extended diatribes against Black people in his notebooks. Kierkegaard’s racism is more implicit. But it’s not therefore less serious.“
It’s not? The former two strike me plainly more ethically problematic than the latter. I think my feeling reflects the general opinion. If someone were merely a quietist, as you suggest of Kierkegaard, we wouldn’t say, “Well, he might as well go all out and start spreading racist propaganda online. That’s no more serious, after all.” That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t call quietism into call, but I can’t understand your assertion that there’s no ethical difference here except as a political tactic to portray everyone who’s not wholly for as equivalent to those who are wholly against.
“Honesty demands we tell it like it is. Kierkegaard, the founder of existentialism, held racist and sexist views. He was a rich white dude who conveniently developed a philosophy according to…”
Above conclusion (based on selective reading of K through WOL) is both pernicious and false, and demonstrates fundamental ignorance of Jesus’s message. Kierkegaard echoed Jesus when he downplayed material life, including its trial and tribulations as well as worldly achievements. Christian message is that earthly life as only a temporary passage. The passages in WOL should be viewed through this lens. One could interpret K’s purported indifference as “ethical callousness”, but it ignores K’s exhortations to lead an unblemished ethical life nevertheless (in Concluding Unscientific Postscript) as a prerequisite to spiritual life. K’s solution to the inequities of this world lies in embracing the Christian message: being meek and embodying Jesus’s teachings of forgiving your perpetrators while suffering (and this will preserve your soul and ensure glory in afterlife).
The danger of confusing pacifist worldview to “moral callousness” is that it leads to injustice and violence against pacifists. Gandhi was murdered because (as Nathuram Ghodse eloquently wrote in this letter before his execution) Gandhi was “morally callous” and did not condemn muslim mobs when they were raping and killing hindus (Jihad) en masse (ethnic cleansing) during partition of India in 1947 along religious lines. Gandhi’s message was something along the lines of Jesus. In a similar vain, it is only a matter of time before K gets cancelled in the leftist academia.