I've made quite a few posts about Kierkegaard and his philosophy, but I wanted to focus a little more about some of his themes because I think it describes perfectly our current society, how the elites make use of ressentiment to stop people from taking action and its political theory.

According to Kierkegaard, there are many differences between a passionate and a reflective age. A passionate age is a time in which people work together towards a common goal and the media reflects the true passions of the people in it. In a reflective age, the identity groups have a totalitarian control over society. Passionate people are stopped from taking action by the use of ridicule in order to mantain the idea of superiority the group has. They are helped in this aspect by the media that keeps its attention distracted. People are lost in a world of fantasies, endless reflection and lies. Nothing ever happens. Nothing will ever be. Envy keeps everyone together.

Kierkegaard dislikes how reflective society has become because it keeps people away from geniune experiences. What gives worth to a life is something only the individual himself can decide and he says that society has completely forgotten what the true meaning of individuality is. The only escape from the pressure of society according to Kierkegaard is inward, through spirituality.

It is commonly believed that change in society can only come from the group as a whole, but the truth is that society has come to depend on the idea of the hero, the person of excellence for salvation.