3. Self-Cultivation and Its Discontents

Kierkegaard’s stance towards self-cultivation is ambivalent. Like authenticity, he adopts it as a general ideal, but distinguishes between its more or less appropriate forms, and warns against its popular and superficial incarnations.

Let us first look at the classical notion of Bildung, which was developed predominantly by German thinkers from Herder to Goethe, Schiller and Humboldt, and which provides the background for Kierkegaard’s thinking about self-cultivation. While it came in different versions, a number of fundamental tenets can be discerned. Bildung is characterized by the following features:The philosophy of Bildung has been contrasted with the Anglo-Saxon tradition of curriculum. This is hardly a fair or adequate as a description of the actual educational practices in different parts of the world. Arguably Anglo-Saxon liberal arts education comes closer to the ideal of Bildung than what is taught in many continental European institutions. Yet it does serve to highlight two different ways of conceptualizing education: A curriculum is a sum or an aggregate of experiences and abilities. It is usually expressed in a description of a body of subjects that must be learned. While it may be more than just a syllabus—it is now widely understood as comprising of a whole course of study, and thus taken to include a description of a certain progression and an ordering of educational means and goals (see Wiles 2008, 2), it still differs from the idea of Bildung in its attempt to ‘compartmentalize’ different aspects of the learning process. Moreover, while contemporary curriculum-based thinking does emphasize the procedural aspects and interactional nature of learning, it still conceives of learning as something that is provided by the school or teacher according to a certain preconceived plan, and which the student is assumed to take up in a certain preconceived manner.

By contrast, the notion of Bildung emphasizes the independent activity of the student. It also emphasizes the importance of informal—i.e. ‘extramural’—learning. Since it aims at developing the human personality in general, what is learned—the content—must clearly contribute to, and be selected with an eye to, this development. And it must be learned in such a way that its potential for developing the human personality is duly realized; that is, it must be framed and perceived so as to make its overall significance salient. Accordingly, later work in the Bildung-pedagogical tradition has emphasized that learning content should be exemplary and serve to make a wider field of human affairs accessible to the student (see for example Klafki 2000).

Bildung is thus opposed to the mere amassment of facts, not just for its own sake, but also for the sake of providing the learner with a store of knowledge of which she can draw if need be. The latter is sometimes referred to ‘general Bildung’, and the idea of acquiring a broad repertoire of knowledge is often associated with, or seen as the essence of Bildung. Humboldt himself was not averse to this aspect of Bildung, which has affinities to the contemporary ideas of a foundation of skills and knowledge necessary for one to function as a citizen:

There are simply certain items of knowledge (Kenntniss) … that must be general (allgemein), and even more so a certain formation of attitudes and character, which no one should lack. Someone is obviously only then a good craftsman, merchant, soldier or businessman, if he in himself and independently of his profession is a good, decent and according to his social class (Stand) enlightened human being and citizen (von Humboldt 1964, 218).

This is, however, different from the core notion of Bildung, which centres on personal development and thus requires that the learning process not just equips the learner with new items of knowledge, but also contributes to forming her personality. Humboldt was also concerned with the latter, as he tooks the formation of one’s character to be even more important than the possession of knowledge. But he obviously describes this formation as a matter of learning to behave appropriately. We may see in this an early sign of the tendency to play down, at least in practice and when applied to people in general, the creative and emancipatory aspect of Bildung, and viewing it merely as consisting in the acquisition of a certain set of cultural norms.

A particularly straightforward description of Kierkegaard’s pedagogical ideals can be found in an early journal entry from the year 1838. It is notably not least because Kierkegaard here explicitly says that his view applies to general educational concerns (and not just to the teaching of existential and religious matters) and even to ordinary school lessons:

All ordinary concern for children outside the proper lesson hours, but also within these as far as possible, should be Socratic. One must awaken an appetite in them to ask questions instead of waving aside a sensible question. … What matters is to bring the poetic to bear on their lives in every way, to exert a magical influence; when least expected suddenly to let in a glimpse and then have it vanish again; the poetic is not something to allocate certain hours and days to (JP 74; SKS 17, 124).

Kierkegaard here advocates a narrative approach typical of the Bildung-movement; storytelling is seen as integral to the formation of the children’s personality. He also puts a typical emphasis on the experiential aspect of learning, describing what seems to be embryonic ‘transformative’ experiences; children should be exposed to images and ideas they may not yet be able to grasp as such, but which might nevertheless make a mark on their personality in the long run.

The youthful, somewhat immature character of Kierkegaard’s thinking at this stage can be seen from the fact that much of this sounds like rather mainstream liberal or reform pedagogy. It certainly was not mainstream in the 1830s; it is remarkable to what extent Kierkegaard anticipated pedagogical ideas that first became influential during the first part of the twentieth century, due not least to the influence of John Dewey, and that he did so in a spontaneous journal entry. But his ideas are not exactly original, as similar notions of education based on conversation and learning through internal motivation had been developed earlier by e.g. Basedow and Pestalozzi. Kierkegaard also tends to romanticize. The idea of an understanding, respectful attitude on part of the teacher that will guarantee ‘he is never inconvenienced by the children, never pestered by them’ is an idealized notion that seems typical of intellectuals who have not themselves been put to the task of dealing with unruly children.

Still, the passage is highly instructive. Kierkegaard goes on to describe the ‘storyteller’, or what seems to be his then ideal notion of a teacher (or rather a kind of complementary mentor who takes care of the more poetic aspects of education):

… He knows what they have to do at school, he doesn’t go over their lessons with them but quietly asks what they are reading, acquainting himself with it not to test them … not to give them the opportunity to be brilliant in company, but … to relate in an individual way precisely with what they are otherwise engaged in, though always en passant, so that the child’s soul is electrified by it and he feels the omnipresence of something poetic … In this way a constant mental mobility is nurtured in the child, a permanent attentiveness to what the child hears and sees, an attentiveness one must otherwise elicit by external means … (JP 75; SKS 17, 125).

Several elements of a refined notion of Bildung can be discerned here. The aim is to nurture a ‘constant mental mobility’ and to sharpen the child’s sensibility, ensuring that what the child senses is turned into real experience (there are signs here that Kierkegaard was, at this time, attracted to an idea of self-cultivation closer to that which he would later associate with the aesthetic character, for whom mental mobility or ‘gymnastics’ are of particular importance). There is also the idea of ‘nudging’ or the invisible hand of the teacher, who is expected to draw implicit connections to other familiar topics, leaving children to discover these connections for themselves. Later in the same entry, Kierkegaard makes an attack on what he considers a misguided attempt at supplying children with so-called useful knowledge. He surmises that it will breed complacency and is likely to have no deeper or lasting effect:

Out of this [approach] a purely atomistic knowledge developed which gave no credence to any deeper relation to the children and their existence, which was not appropriated in any way in their souls, thus depriving them of any possible standard and allowing them to assume that they were great naturalists and linguists […] It is not of such atomistic knowledge that it is true that what one learns in youth one does not forget in age (JP 79; SKS 17, 131).

What distinguishes the alternative approach favoured by Kierkegaard—the path of self-cultivation, or what Kierkegaard here calls ‘moral education’—is that it provides the children with a standard from which they can assess the level and actual usefulness of their knowledge. It imposes a direction and coherence on what is learned and secures that it is not easily forgotten.

The closest one finds to a classical or ‘mainstream’ notion of Bildung in Kierkegaard’s work is the description of ethical character—Judge Vilhelm—in the second part of Either-Or. The judge explicitly advocates a process of Bildung as the fundamental means for overcoming despair and achieving authenticity. While the direct Danish equivalent of Bildung, ‘dannelse’, is rarely used by the judge, he speaks, in the very title of his letter to his younger friend, the aesthete, of ‘personlighedens udarbejdelse’, that is, the ‘working out’, ‘construction’ or ‘formation’ of one’s personality. But the aesthetic character is in fact also committed to a version of the ideal of self-cultivation. It is typical for Kierkegaard’s thinking that the same general ideas are exemplified by different existential stages, only with differing accentuations and justifications. This goes for the ideal of self-cultivation as well as for the ideal of authenticity.

For an aesthetic individual, self-cultivation is very much a question of achieving complete control of one’s emotional responses. It is also, of course, a question of developing one’s personality and capacity for sensation so as to maximize enjoyment. Kierkegaard may in the end have sided with the ethical character in condemning this as an insufficient notion of the ultimate aim of life. He did, however—very much in line with the Bildung-movement—think that developing one’s capacity for enjoyment is a necessary component of becoming a cultivated self. Even Judge Vilhelm admits that a life worth living has to be aesthetically satisfying. Besides, inasmuch as the aesthetic character is concerned with self-cultivation, she recommends abandoning immediate enjoyment for a more tempered a refined one; acknowledging, much like the Ancient hedonists, that maximum pleasure requires restraint and self-control. In order to really enjoy life, and to get something from it oneself, rather than just becoming immersed in it and so loosing oneself, one’s pleasure has to be cultivated and domesticated. The aesthetic character even comes close to advocating something like the Stoics’ ideal of invulnerability through detachment. Mental flexibility and emotional control are required for one to be able to engage closely enough with life to enjoy it, but not so closely that one risks getting hurt:

Every life-situation must possess no more importance than that one can forget it whenever one wants to; each single life-situation should have enough importance, however, for one to be able at any time to remember it … One must keep reins on the enjoyment from the beginning … (E/O 234; SKS 2, 282f.).

The art of remembering and forgetting will then also prevent one’s sticking fast in some particular circumstance in life and ensure perfect suspension … (E/O 236; SKS 2, 284).

Surely this passage from Crop Rotation is—like the whole text—ironic and implicitly critical of the rules of life proposed by the aesthetic character. It highlights some of what Kierkegaard sees the discontents of the ideal of self-cultivation, a typical way in which it becomes degraded and turn into a source of inauthenticity: Self-cultivation equips a person with skills that enable her—and so tempt her—to play with her existence, as well as with the rest of the world. It celebrates mastery of life for its own sake, as if it were a kind of sports competition (the aesthete talks about the goal as ‘being in a position to play battledore and shuttlecock with the whole of existence’ (E/O 234; SKS 2, 283). It is egocentric in that it treats other people as mere means for self-development.

Yet the text is not purely critical. It does present what Kierkegaard considers a relatively superior way of securing enjoyment and enhancing its existential significance; and it does describe some general attitudes and priorities that will be part of any kind of self-cultivation, in one way or another. For example, the aesthete stresses the of refining one’s appetite and developing a flexible mindset. And he urges one to cultivate a variety of interests and thus attain richness in life, while preserving a kind of unity, focus and integrating that is needed for the richness to be appreciated as such. The aesthetic character is in basic agreement with Judge Vilhelm, and probably expresses Kierkegaard own view as well, when he argues against seeking diversity and richness in life through a constant change of outward circumstances. It is not about change and diversity in its ‘extensive’, but rather in its ‘intensive’ dimension; it is a matter of cultivating select talents and enjoyments to the highest perfection:

The method I propose consists not in changing the soil but, as in the real rotation of crops, in changing the method of cultivation and type of grain. Here, straightaway, we have the principle of limitation, which is the only saving one in the world. The more you limit yourself, the more resourceful you become (E/O 233; SKS 2, 281).

By letting the aesthete advocate a perfection of the art of forgetting and remembering, Kierkegaard could be said to highlight the importance of metacognitive and self-regulatory skills: cultivation entails an awareness of the significance of actions and events in one’s life, but also an ability to deliberately detach oneself from them or, in other words, set them in perspective. More generally, cultivation requires one to develop a capacity for emotional regulation.

It may be that the aesthete misuses his metacognitive skills to avoid confronting himself or making a genuine choice. He may also develop them in a way that renders him insensitive to e.g. the moral significance of his actions and experiences. Yet the very ability to respond flexibly and sensitively to meanings and values encountered along life’s way, and to mutually adjust one’s self-understanding, the significance attached to particular experiences and one’s needs and values, is a precondition for coping with life, regardless of one’s existential orientation. Most obviously, the emphasis on the art of limitation, and the suggestion that one should cultivate one’s talents in an intensive rather than extensive manner, seem to have general validity. Cultivation is a qualitative and concentrated affair; amassment of knowledge or cultural diversion has no place in it, but are rather factors standing in the way of genuine self-development. The aesthete does seem to advocate something like the latter (i.e. seeking diversion in a multitude of activities), but he is markedly less convincing in doing so, as it contradicts his more central observation that it is futile to seek fulfilment through a mere change of outward circumstances.

Kierkegaard recognizes the psychological limitations to the project of controlling one’s emotions. Emotions arise in us and are not directly subject to our voluntary control. Both the aesthetic and the ethical character report strong negative emotions that one would have expected them to be able to suppress, judging from their self-appraisal of their metacognitive skills. Kierkegaard describes how one might learn to use the emotions and domesticate them through the power of interpretation and relativizing. But he also acknowledges the power of first-order experiences (including emotions) to impact on one’s self-understanding; there are limits to how much their significance can be altered. As noted earlier, there are close parallels between Kierkegaard’s understanding of existential spheres and the notion of a paradigm as it is used in contemporary philosophy of science. In science, theoretical assumptions and reconceptualizations may serve to neutralize apparently recalcitrant experiences or ‘anomalies’—but only up to a certain point. Some novel experiences may be sufficiently vivid and spectacular to resist integration into the existing theoretical framework and instead force a change in conceptual scheme. Kierkegaard describes how structurally similar mechanisms are at work in the process of existential development.

Turning to the idea of cultivation connected with the ethical stage, one notable feature is that it is not just dynamic—as the aesthetic character has already pointed out—but dynamic in a structured and oriented way, as Judge Vilhelm describes it as the process of genuine development. He charges the aesthete with having no genuine notion of this. The aesthete does change progressively, and she may even be keen on improving herself. But her development is like that of a plant: it happens by necessity, even if it takes cultivation; the cultivation is merely aimed at bringing forth and exploiting that which is already there as a natural or cultural potential (E/O 525f.; SKS 3, 215f.). Kierkegaard explicitly describes this as the ‘mainly aesthetic cultivation typically of the present day’ (SKS 3, 216f.; left out in E/O). The activities undertaken by the aesthete, varied and energetic though they may seem, serve only to maintain a basically passive state of observing and enjoying what shows up in life (and so to be, but not to become, oneself). By contrast, genuine (ethical) self-cultivation is driven—and not just assisted—by freedom. The popular notion of self-cultivation is about using one’s freedom to exploit the available options, and so makes it dependent on them. The alternative view championed by the Judge, and no doubt by Kierkegaard himself, requires one to subdue the use of talents and options under the independent project of becoming oneself.

The process of cultivation is moreover depicted by the Judge as more fundamentally holistic. The formation of one’s personality is described as a never-ending process, ‘as much a matter of constant development as an all-at-once affair’, in which ‘each lived moment’ acquires a proper meaning through referring to a ‘total view’ (E/O 449; SKS 3, 118). The holism consists not merely in the different elements in one’s life being interrelated, but in their being all related to common view or cause—hence Kierkegaard’s existential holism is also about one’s life being  centred and directed.

According to the ethical character, self-cultivation and becoming oneself is at bottom one and the same. The fundamental dynamic aspect of ethical existence, which makes it a process of development, is the way in which the person always progresses, or at least strives, towards a more authentic relationship to herself. Hence it is not essentially about acquiring new knowledge or skills. However, as we have seen, becoming oneself consists in choosing and taking over oneself. This in turn implies a reorganization and putting to use of one’s inborn or culturally acquired dispositions and skills—and so it entails, in practice, a process of cultivation in the more mundane sense of expanding and improving one’s range of personal and social qualities. Judge Vilhelm describes his existential task as consisting in imposing on his different dispositions and affects a clear meaning and unity:

He [the ethical, cultivated person] has himself, then, as a task in a way in which the task in essentials is that of ordering, tempering, kindling, repressing – in short bringing about a proportionality in the soul, a harmony that is the fruit of the personal virtues (E/O 552f; SKS 250).

We here have an example of how the Judge’s view of self-cultivation is at least partly concordant with that of the aesthete. Both hold that cultivation consists in a tempering or repression of affective dispositions which brings them under the control of one’s personality. It differs in also emphasizing a certain ordering, and requiring the harmony between the different mental states to be conditioned by the personal virtues—that is, the Judge urges that the structuring principle of one’s activities and experiences should be ethical norms, and not just an interest in maximizing pleasure.

Later in the same passage, Judge Vilhelm says that the task is not to mould (Danish ‘danne’, bilden or ‘cultivating’) oneself, but to exert an influence, and yet one does at the same time mould oneself (loc. cit.). This clearly brings out Kierkegaard’s ambiguity towards the ideal of Bildung. It is not about cultivation for the sake, or specific content, of cultivation; it is about cultivation as a way to concretize and actually live out the task of becoming oneself, which otherwise risks becoming a purely inward and abstract one. And it is not that one should have self-cultivation in mind as such. One should carry out one’s specific tasks wholeheartedly and immerse oneself in one’s social life. Only then can self-cultivation take place. This is a point of contemporary relevance, as there is a risk that self-cultivation becomes hypostatized and treated as an independent educational goal, or independent concern for the individual. Since self-cultivation is complex, organic process that has to be realized by a large number specific activities, each of which demand full attention and commitment, this is a serious mistake.

The judge stresses an important aspect of self-cultivation that was implied by both Schiller (2005) and von Humboldt (1969): its essential connection to personal wellbeing. The judge enjoys forming himself continuously. He enjoys taking up the tasks and challenges of life; he enjoys his own—admittedly imperfect—mastery of life. This—and only this—makes it possible for him to identify wholeheartedly with his duties and vocation, and to freely accept his life and the obligation to continuously perfection it. He is able to enjoy it thusly—and enjoy it more than anything else—because the process of Bildung exhibits all the essential characteristics of an aesthetic object, as this was standardly conceived by thinkers of classicism and romanticism: Bildung has movement, but also constancy and stability; it is a manifestation of freedom—it does not appear forced—but also of necessity, as it seems to be just the way it has to be. It does not follow any preconceived plan, but develops according to its own inner necessity; it has its ‘teleology in itself’ (SKS 259f.; EE 560f.). It moreover unites the universal and the individual. In this way the process of self-cultivation helps to overcome the alienation that was widely experienced by intellectuals at the dawn of the modern age.

Judge Vilhelm is aware that he could be criticized for instrumentalizing even something as apparently fundamental and intrinsically valuable as the love of his wife, by viewing it as part of the process of self-cultivation. But he considers it a grave mistake to see marriage primarily as a ‘school for character’. Though it is indeed also such a school, marriage it is to be sought not for that reason, but out of love, and with an expectation that it will contribute to one’s happiness (SKS 3, 69ff.; EE 415ff.). By becoming involved in the process of self-cultivation, moreover, marriage, like other fundamentally valuable phenomena, is not reduced to a mere instrument. Quite to the contrary, it is endowed with real significance, as it becomes an integral part of one’s existence and animated by one’s desire to become oneself. In the process of self-cultivation, means and goals cannot be clearly distinguished, and the parts both derive their significance from the whole and contribute essentially to it.

Forming one’s character is thus not like sharpening a knife or tuning a car. In such cases, there is a distinct goal that can be realized in different ways, all of which are fundamentally independent of and only valuable in so far as they contribute to it. One’s personal character, by contrast, is ‘built up’ by appropriating and absolutely valuing phenomena like marriage, friendship, work, history or art.

The judge insists that everyone has a vocation, and contrasts this with the aesthetic theory of talent. Having a vocation means having, or being part of something, that is universal as opposed to merely accidental. As such, it is also more beautiful and so actually more aesthetically pleasing. Accomplishing one’s vocation, the judge says, ‘is bound up with a satisfaction of [one’s] whole personal being’ (E/O 567; SKS 3, 277).

By living ethically, one is able to actually accomplish something (E/O 568; SKS 3, 279). This should be understood not as bringing about some external end; whether this will actually happen or not is accidental, and the importance of what is attained will be merely relative, anyhow. So as long as the focus is on the outcome, the aesthetic character is justified in her indifference towards different kinds of tasks and jobs. However, the judge urges us to view accomplishment as a mode of agency, in which the agent commits herself to, and identifies with, a certain generally acknowledged task. Since the task is generally acknowledged as such, this kind of agency unites the individual not just with society, but with all of mankind, since by making her work into her vocation the agent places herself ‘on the same footing with all other men’ (E/O 567; SKS 3, 277). Responding to one’s vocation is a means for overcoming the opposition between individual and society, bringing one’s personal needs and aspirations in line with what is generally held to be good:

So the ethical proposition that everyone has a vocation implies a rational order of things in which every person, if he wants, fill his place in such a way that he expresses the universally human and the individual simultaneously (loc. cit).

This is a highly typical example of the idea of self-cultivation as it can also be found in the works of Goethe or Hegel: It is about finding one’s place in the larger order of things and thereby becoming oneself as an individual. Yet it is also one of the passages in which Kierkegaard may not just advertise the idea of self-cultivation, but implicitly criticizes it, or at least points to its possible distortions or misapplications. Though the universally human and the individual is presented as interdependent and thus on equal footing, the description does give an impression of an act of subordination, which effectively suppresses one’s individuality. The Judge’s letter can be seen, on the whole, as depicting him as engaged in the fundamentally sound task of realizing himself by acting out a certain social role authentically, but repeatedly losing himself in the attempt. He does so either by over-identifying with the social role (i.e. giving too much weight to the social and universal aspect) or by indulging in the joy of cultivating himself (a process which Kierkegaard does hold to be pleasant, but thinks should not be engaged in mainly for the sake of the pleasure it brings).

However, whereas Biesta mainly takes the influence of humanism as a social fact, Kierkegaard also describes its peculiar lure and the subtle ways in which even individuals apparently in charge of their own life can still succumb to it: In order to become oneself, one must also enjoy (becoming) oneself; it cannot be driven by external motivation alone. But enjoying the process of becoming oneself easily leads to enjoying its means and outward expressions. It is also easily confused with the pleasure that comes from fulfilling a social norm of successful human activity. In this way it can distract from, rather than support, the central task of becoming oneself (cf. also Kierkegaard’s criticism of misguided self-realization (Sect. 2.​4 above)). In the course of the second part of Either-Or, the Judge gets more and more carried away by his own edifying and self-justificatory rhetoric. His originally sincere modesty comes to appear false. It is consistent with his general view that life must be aesthetically pleasing as well as informed by a sense of responsibility. Yet he no longer observes his principle of reining in the aesthetic tendency:

I perform my services as a judge, I am glad to have such a vocation, I believe it is in keeping with my abilities and my whole personal being. I know it makes demands of my powers. I try to mould myself more and more to it, and in doing so, I feel that I am developing myself more and more. I love my wife, am happy in my home […] My work has importance to me, and I think it also has some for others, even though that is something I cannot determine and exactly measure. I feel joy in the fact that the personal life of others has importance for me … I love my native country, I cannot imagine thriving properly in any other. I love my mother tongue which liberates my thought … Thus I love existence because it is beautiful (E/O 583f.; SKS 3, 305f.).

This is a vivid example of Kierkegaard’s use of literary means for creating internal discussion and testing his views in the very text. At least two tendencies can be discerned: A sincere ethical attitude, as the judge stands openly to his apparently humdrum existence and discloses its hidden beauty, and an implicitly aesthetic stance and a lapse into bourgeois conformity. It is possible, if not necessary for an individual to cultivate herself by appropriating some particular culture; and so there is nothing wrong as such with declaring a love for one’s native country and mother tongue. But there are conservative, and possibly even chauvinist, undertones as well, and a kind of complacency, smugness and even narrow-mindedness. The passage allows for a semantic gestalt shift, as the reader is prompted to alternate between more and less charitable interpretations. This shows both the potential and danger of self-cultivation. One might turn one’s social life into a work of art, as an authentic expression of oneself; and one might take more than sufficient pleasure from fulfilling one’s social obligations. But it is a risky enterprise, since one can just as well lose oneself to social life, or enjoy it so much that one ends up living for the pleasure alone.

It is a pervasive theme in Kierkegaard’s work that cultivation ought to differ from, but easily gets confused with, mere cultivatedness. Kierkegaard already criticized the popular notion of almen dannelse (‘universal culture’ or ‘universal cultivation’; German Allgemeinbildung) in his doctoral dissertation The Concept of Irony. He traced it back the ancient Greek Sophists, notably Protagoras, but clearly also meant his critical treatment to apply to the self-cultivation ideal of his contemporaries:

… they [the Sophists] represented the separated culture for which a need was felt by everyone for whom the fascination of immediacy had faded away. Their wisdom was “ein Fliegendes Blatt [a fly sheet], which was not kept from flapping about either by a prominent public figure or by integration into a coherent system of knowledge. … On the whole, what they wanted to impart to people was not so much an insight into the particular sciences but a universal culture … This universal culture reminds us of what is offered for sale in our time by scholarly vendors of indulgences under the name of enlightenment. … Reflection … gives people an adroitness, a competence of classifying every particular instance under certain universal instances; it places at the disposal of each individual a rosary of loci communes [general or common propositions] … The more such categories one has, the more expert one is in using them the more educated one is. […] In one sense this universal culture is very rich and in another very meager. It deceives itself and others and does not detect at all that it always uses the same magnitudes … this culture is negative, and too shrewd to be innocent … (CI 201ff.; SKS 1, 248).

Several strands of criticism are interwoven in this passage. There is, first, the now familiar criticism of the mere amassment of fragmented knowledge, as well as of knowledge detached from life. Yet Kierkegaard acknowledges that the Sophist were, like his contemporary advocates of Bildung, actually concerned with integrating different items of knowledge and bringing them into service of human life. Still, the kind of life envisaged is defined by universal culture, and so by a certain norm of social success and a general idea of humanity. There is, moreover an anticipation of the criticism levelled against objective knowledge in the Postscript: ‘Universal culture’ is unable to provide any secure foundation for existential decisions. Learning to master concepts and theories provides a certain assurance; and engaging in critical reflection may help to keep more fundamental doubt at a distance. The very adroitness of thinking, the cunning use of one’s intellect, may also be a source of enjoyment of and coming to terms with oneself. But deep down it is mainly negative, unable to resolve the contradictions it exposes in any satisfying manner—and so it is really ‘deceptive’.

In the Conclusion of the Postscript, this point is expressed even more strongly, now directly related to the question of religious faith:

[I]t is forgotten that as understanding and culture and refinement [dannelse, “Bildung”] increase, sustaining the passion of faith becomes more difficult. […] The refined have […] only a somewhat ironic advantage over the simple-minded …The preponderance of understanding in the refined, the objective orientation, will all the time cause resistance to becoming a Christian, and the resistance is the sin of the understanding, namely half measures [halvhed; “halfness”]. […] After all, the most simple-minded human being is able to become a Christian and continue being such; but partly because he lacks understanding on any great scale, and partly because the simple-minded person’s condition in life turns his attention outwards, he is exempted from the laboriousness with which the refined person preserves his faith … (CUP 510f.; SKS 7, 550f.).

It would be a mistake to understand this as merely the expression of a concern for the future of religion in an age of enlightenment. Kierkegaard’s point has more general significance. He notes that reflection and refinement complicate the existential task of finding meaning and direction in life. It makes it more difficult to form the kind of wholehearted commitment required for authenticity. Simple-mindedness, by contrast, protects one from being caught up in reflection. Kierkegaard here raises a worry that would become a central concern of much nineteenth-century philosophy and literature (prevalent, for example, in the work of Dostoyevsky and Nietzsche): that the growing cultural sophistication characteristic of modern society could lead to a loss of sound instinct, and, especially, a lack of resoluteness.

This does not mean that Kierkegaard defends a kind of anti-intellectualism. Nor does it render irrelevant the mastery of specific practices and contents of cultivation. Kierkegaard does think that one has an obligation to develop and put to use one’s talents and understanding. When he lets Judge Vilhelm note that by trying to ‘mould himself more and more’ to his vocation, he feels that he is developing himself more and more’, this is not meant ironically; it is an ideal of cultivation to which Kierkegaard himself subscribes. His ideal is the ‘simple-minded wise man’ (CUP 296; SKS 7, 323) (italics mine). Yet by emphasizing that it is more about trying than actually succeeding, and by stressing that simple-mindedness is not a vice, he does temper the perfectionism inherent in the notion of Bildung considerably. The central, unqualifiedly positive kind of self-cultivation is self-cultivation. It does need socially acknowledged tasks, a vocation, responsibilities, and a certain cultural context and content, as a material to work on, and a medium in which it can realize itself. But since this is more a means to than the goal of cultivation, and since it does not require any particular cultural context or content, Kierkegaard’s ideal remains quite flexible. It should thus be able to meet many of the worries pertaining to the ideal of self-cultivation in today’s highly diversified and multicultural societies. And it is considerably less elitist than most other conceptions of Bildung. That it provides few guidelines for the selection of content and specific activities may seem disappointing to educationalists. It does, however, lay down some practically relevant, albeit very general principles; and it is quite compatible with, indeed requires a search for content and activities that can foster an emotionally and cognitively flexible, but also unified and active personality.