every opportunity of enjoyment. Good is whatever is beautiful, satisfying, or
pleasant. This person lives wholly in the world of the senses, and is a slave to
his own desires and moods. Everything that is boring is bad.”
“Yes thanks, I think I know that attitude.”
“The typical Romantic is thus also the typical aesthete, since there is
more to it than pure sensory enjoyment. A person who has a reflective
approach to reality—or for that matter to his art or the philosophy he or she is
engaged in—is living at the aesthetic stage. It is even possible to have an
aesthetic, or ‘reflective,’ attitude to sorrow and suffering. In which case vanity
has taken over. Ibsen’s Peer Gynt is the portrait of a typical aesthete.”
“I think I see what you mean.”
“Do you know anyone like that?”
“Not completely. But I think maybe it sounds a little like the major.”
“Maybe so, maybe so, Sophie ... Although that was another example of
his rather sickly Romantic irony. You should wash your mouth out.”
“What?”
“All right, it wasn’t your fault.”
“Keep going, then.”
“A person who lives at the aesthetic stage can easily experience angst,
or a sense of dread, and a feeling of emptiness. If this happens, there is also
hope. According to Kierkegaard, angst is almost positive. It is an expression
of the fact that the individual is in an ‘existential situation,’ and can now elect
to make the great leap to a higher stage. But it either happens or it doesn’t. It
doesn’t help to be on the verge of making the leap if you don’t do it
completely. It is a matter of ‘either/or.’ But nobody can do it for you. It is your
own choice.”
“It’s a little like deciding to quit drinking or doing drugs.”
“Yes, it could be like that. Kierkegaard’s description of this ‘category of
decision’ can be somewhat reminiscent of Socrates’ view that all true insight
comes from within. The choice that leads a person to leap from an aesthetic
approach to an ethical or religious approach must come from within. Ibsen
depicts this in Peer Gynt. Another masterly description of how existential
choice springs from inner need and despair can be found in Dosfoevsfcy’s
great novel Crime and Punishment.”
“The best you can do is choose a different form of life.”
“And so perhaps you will begin to live at the ethical stage. This is
characterized by seriousness and consistency of moral choices. This
approach is not unlike Kant’s ethics of duty. You try to live by the law of
morals. Kierkegaard, like Kant, drew attention first and foremost to human
temperament. The important thing is not what you may think is precisely right
or wrong. What matters is that you choose to have an opinion at all on what is
right or wrong. The aesthete’s only concern is whether something is fun or
boring.”
“Isn’t there a risk of becoming too serious, living like that?”
“Decidedly! Kierkegaard never claimed that the ethical stage was
satisfactory. Even a dutiful person will eventually get tired of always being
dedicated and meticulous. Lots of people experience that sort of fatigue
reaction late in life. Some relapse into the reflective life of their aesthetic
stage.
“But others make a new leap to the religious stage. They take the ‘jump