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Friday, April 28, 2006
Stages On Life’s Way
"I hope that someone will soon write a fully documented history of the Corsair affair."
- W. H. Auden, 1968
So opens v. 13 of Kierkegaard’s collected writings
For the sake of a break from the stuff we have been serving up, a breath of fresh air from the past.
The Corsair, no. 280, January 30, 1846, col. 9-11:
Now there’s the devil to pay - two crazy Michael Leonard Nathansons have announced themselves.
Saturday there was a knock on at the door, and in came a man with two witnesses. Sweat stood in great drops on his brow; he was pale, and in an abusive voice he said:
"May I have the latest number of The Corsair?"
The paper was brought, he took it, opened it up, closed it again, looked around, and shouted: "This is scurvy! Such an attack on me now when I have no publication!"
"With whom do I have the honor of speaking?" asked the editor.
The stranger looked up and said: "My name is Nathanson, horse dealer Nathanson; you know me, all right."
"Ah, so it is you!"
He stared into space for a moment and then began again: "I have been to the Berlingske Nathanson with an article against you, but he said he could not accept it because then people would think that he himself was the Crazy Nathanson."
"But you do have your Corvet, after all."
"It has been discontinued," shouted the man. "I am defenseless; I have no publication."
"So that is why you write in Faerdrelandet?"
"Then I went to Faerdrelandet," he went on, staring again, "but they threw me out without reading my article."
"What kind of article is it?"
"I will read it aloud to you! It is in poetry (reads):
‘Is it not patently clear
That Goldschmidt is a man of fear.
For as long as I piloted my corvette
He certainly had a hard time of it.I now declare The Corsair to be a scoundrel. Will the honored public excuse me if I do not put it in poetry. With regard to my complaint against Dr. Christensen, I shall shortly have the honor.
- Michael Leonard Nathanson’"
EDITOR: This will be printed in The Corsair.
STRANGER: (happily). Really? Can I depend on it?
EDITOR: Definitely.
STRANGER: Then wait a minute; let me delete "scoundrel."
EDITOR: No, it must remain as it is.
STRANGER. Well, let it stay. It also was villanous to accuse me of having written Stages on Life’s Way.
EDITOR. What? Didn’t you write Stages on Life’s Way? Are you not Frater Taciturnus?
STRANGER. Not any more than Gustav Michelsen, who took my mares!
EDITOR. Well, well, so you are not the horse dealer Nathanson, either ...
STRANGER. What’s that? Am I not the Crazy Nathanson? Do you deny that? Are you mad?
EDITOR. Crazy Nathanson is Frater Taciturnus, who writes against us in Faerdrelandet because he has lost his Corvet. It doesn’t help to talk.
STRANGER. By the Almighty God in Heaven, I am Crazy Nathanson! Here are two witnesses! Witnesses, speak up!
BOTH WITNESSES: He is Crazy Nathanson!
EDITOR. This is scurvy! So there is someone else going around the city passing himself off as you ...
STRANGER. God have mercy! And my wife! .... And my horses! .... I must catch the man!
And out the door goes Crazy Nathanson.
At this moment he probably has got hold of the other Crazy Nathanson.
Heaven knows how it will all end. (pp. 128-130)
Sometimes blogging is regarded as inheriting the atmosphere and energy of the 18th Century coffee house. There is something to be said for that genealogy. But there are other models. (As Space Ghost puts it: “Oh! So there are two Confusatrons!") On the other hand, the sheer ease of blogging may be regarded as solving some of these venue problems.
I have often felt that Goldschmidt, the editor of The Corsair, is too readily cast as the villain of the piece. Because, after all, we love and admire Kierkegaard. And so we should. Still, he had his faults. At any rate, at the moment, I am feeling like Goldschmidt, who eventually has occasion to pen the phrase "in order to be done with witticism and to learn something." That is what I need to do, with regard to all this Theory stuff that has swirled round and round and round again. I am going to finish some things still percolating along, and I am in the process of collecting the Theory’s Empire posts, among others, into a book. But no more blogging about it for me, thank you much. For now.
I actually feel that I have learned a great deal from the various blog discussions of theory that have gone on in the last year, and before then. My thoughts have gotten much clearer for the sustained opposition. At least that’s how it feels. And my arguments are better than they used to be. Additionally, I feel I have practically acquired a second Ph.D. in the Higher Passive-Aggressions. Likewise, I could write a small treatise in proper techniques for Misunderstandsmanship (chapter in the overarching Book of Lifemanship.) But I’ve stopped learning things. I feel I know all the twists and turns the discussion will take by heart, and have lost the capacity to impart new twists. I need to learn something.
So I’m rereading all about the Corsair Affair. And I plan to commence some serial reflections on Nietzsche on Eternal Recurrence. (How else to get out of my rut?) Won’t that be nice?
The Corsair Affair is fascinating and really unique. (I see that now a volume of scholarly commentary on it exists.) And, indeed, this is one of the genuine satisfactions of considering how to edit all the Theory’s Empire posts into book form. There is quite a mix of philosophy and personality on exhibit, wouldn’t you say? A piquant rollercoaster ride of profundity and pettiness, as it were. Which really gets at the essence of what this sort of dispute is all about. It all reminds me of certain vivid images from Concluding Unscientific Postcript, which are in turn borrowings from Plato.
But here is a different bit from Kierkegaard, relating to the affair:
As I say, the only thing that really pains me is that anyone can think of linking my ceasing to be an author with this latest nonsense. It was a joy to keep on working in obedience to my idea in this way without entering into personal relations with anyone, not bothering with any worldly concerns, just serving the idea. And I was so happy that the end should be like the beginning, that I knew how to stop and give up that kind of activity completely. I have altogether succeeded. Yet perhaps it would have been detrimental if people had really understood this—so let them delude themselves into thinking that I could let some petty consideration decide it.
Or not.
On to Eternal Recurrence!
Comments
Someone should do a brief and handy executive summary of the theory threads, after the style of the Women in Blogging Reader. We could have one from each perspective.