The Individual in the Social World

This chapter investigates the social dimension of individuality in Works of Love with a particular focus on the issue of human equality in the context of Kierkegaard’s contemporary age. The first part examines Kierkegaard’s critique in A Literary Review of the dominance of a numerical idea of equality in the modern age. This diagnosis forms the background for examining in the second part his radical ethical idea of neighbor love as the true human equality developed in Works of Love . The third part examines Kierkegaard’s criticism of the contemporary political struggle for social equality in Works of Love and in his journal observations on the communist idea of equality. I seek to bring out both strengths and weaknesses in Kierkegaard’s approach to human equality in a critical discussion of Kierkegaard’s example of a disregarded poor charwoman and his arguments against the political struggle for social equality.