How the the philosophical novel clarifies the ideas of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, and other philosophers, and why existentialist questions are more relevant than ever, today.
The beginning of the article got me very intrigued, but I had to stop reading because I don't want any "spoilers". I will just give a few comments on the idea that society is hostile to individuals because I liked that part, and had some thoughts on that. I don't think society is hostile to individuals "as such". They like them a lot in fact. The "individualist". They like to laugh, and point at them and say "isn't he crazy? Isn't he interesting?". These people become public figures, celebrities. Socrates represents something else. He is the individual who is also concerned with, even chiefly concerned with, the collective. Socrates lived for the sake of the polity and its wellbeing. He even died only because he did not want to disobey the laws of Athens! Socrates, unlike the Presocratics, was not concerned chiefly with questions of a purely speculative nature, like what the "original element" was. Those are very "individualist" questions. A yogi living alone in the woods can contemplate this. He was concerned with the "good life", which is only the civilized life among people. So, people chiefly hated him because he was an individual who concerned himself enough with the collective to say "the way you are living is no good, we need to change the way things are done, make our city more just etc". From the point of view of the "herd" a person should either be an "individualist" who does his own thing and leaves them alone, or should conform to the herd. Socrates cared enough about others to try to point out their errors and help them improve, and this is ultimately what rubbed them the wrong way. So, in a way, he transcended "dialectically" the opposition between individual and group. Look forward to reading the rest of this when I get around to reading Musil's book
The beginning of the article got me very intrigued, but I had to stop reading because I don't want any "spoilers". I will just give a few comments on the idea that society is hostile to individuals because I liked that part, and had some thoughts on that. I don't think society is hostile to individuals "as such". They like them a lot in fact. The "individualist". They like to laugh, and point at them and say "isn't he crazy? Isn't he interesting?". These people become public figures, celebrities. Socrates represents something else. He is the individual who is also concerned with, even chiefly concerned with, the collective. Socrates lived for the sake of the polity and its wellbeing. He even died only because he did not want to disobey the laws of Athens! Socrates, unlike the Presocratics, was not concerned chiefly with questions of a purely speculative nature, like what the "original element" was. Those are very "individualist" questions. A yogi living alone in the woods can contemplate this. He was concerned with the "good life", which is only the civilized life among people. So, people chiefly hated him because he was an individual who concerned himself enough with the collective to say "the way you are living is no good, we need to change the way things are done, make our city more just etc". From the point of view of the "herd" a person should either be an "individualist" who does his own thing and leaves them alone, or should conform to the herd. Socrates cared enough about others to try to point out their errors and help them improve, and this is ultimately what rubbed them the wrong way. So, in a way, he transcended "dialectically" the opposition between individual and group. Look forward to reading the rest of this when I get around to reading Musil's book