Sample Kierkegaard Either/Or and The Stranger One-pager!

“One tires of living in the country, and moves to the city; one tires of one’s native land, and travels abroad; one is europamüde¨and goes to America, and so on; finally one indulges in a sentimental hope of endless journeyings from star to star. Or the movement is different but still extensive. One tires of porcelain dishes and eats on silver; one tires of silver and turns to gold; one burns half of Rome to get an idea of the burning of Troy. This method defeats itself; it is plain endlessness.”  -- Kiekegaard, Either/Or (page 25)

Kierkegaard’s speaker, “A” (the ‘Aesthete’) aims in this segment of Either/Or to describe his personal philosophy, his way of life. Throughout the segment, he argues that boredom is the root of all evil, in that it is the human condition that propels man to act, and generally to act destructively.  He blames social and political evils on boredom, but at the same differentiates boredom from what he considers to be essential good: idleness.  In the above passage, he describes the way in which people tend to stave off boredom, which is to constantly change one’s interests. The only problem is, this does not solve the problems of boredom ultimately – eventually, one runs out of things to change to, and the boredom is just being ‘run away from,’ rather than habitually treated – thus, the ‘crop rotation’ method only works when one perpetuates a perspective change rather than a full object-of-interest change.

Meursault, in Camus’ The Stranger, seems to have mastered the perspective change. Or, maybe not.  Meursault seems to be very good at the emotional detachment aspect of boredom.  In order to be bored, really, one must be conscious of it, which is clear in Kierkegaard’s section as well – conscious awareness is what might make idleness (a ‘virtue’) into boredom (a ‘vice’). Meursault does not really change object-interests, as evidenced by his routine of going to the same restaurant, talking to the same people, living in the same room with the same objects, etc. He goes with the flow of his life, without making any conscious change outside of effect of environment. Expression of boredom would mean a conscious desire to make a change – Meursault does not desire a change, at least, not a physical one.  In fact, he is not aware that he can continue his same path – doing those same routines, or at least in the end, the prison routine – day in and day out happily until he makes a conscious thought-change, the perspective change ‘A’ really advocates.  This conscious perspective change, for Meursault (and really, for ‘A’ as well) is what allows us to do the every day cycle (which we all do) without feeling meaningless, repetitive, and pointless.  We continue to find interest through our own conscious will to find interest, which does not need an object.