A provocateur hopes to shock and provoke what Thoreau called the “sleepwalkers” into waking up. Thoreau’s unconscious neighbors in Concord, Massachusetts were typical of people around the world, including those in Denmark. “Early in Life, the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was bestowed the nickname gaflen, or ‘fork,’ for his talent of detecting weaknesses in others—and his taste for prodding at it.”[i]
Like Kierkegaard, we intend a bit of “prodding” of our fellow citizens in these essays. Perhaps a bit of “shock” will help them wake up.
Even the most insightful philosophers tend to be mesmerized by their own impressive intellects but that doesn’t excuse them from drawing conclusions fraught with error. So let us begin by prodding a prodder. “Faith sees best in the dark,”[ii] says Kierkegaard. No! Not true.
Those who live in the “light” of Truth have no need for faith–they transcend fear. Fear drives the need for faith which is itself a distraction that the faithful use to escape taking responsibility for their own behavior.
Kierkegaard believed that solace was found in prayer. But the American philosopher Emerson had deeper insights. “Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view … it is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action.”[iii]
To his credit, though, Kierkegaard realized that the abstract thinking typical of the philosopher’s intellect was more of a barrier than an entree into profound insights. “We must work out who we are, and how to live, right in the middle of life itself, with an open future ahead of us.”[iv]
In short we must make our entire lives a meditation on the nature of Reality (Oneness). Provocateurs can help us with that. “Geniuses are like thunderstorms, they go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air.”[v]
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Supplemental Reading: Prayer, The ABC’s of Simple Reality, Vol 2
#20 Provocateur
[i] Sehgal, Parul. “A Short Life Packed With Existential Questions.” The New York Times. April 29, 2020, p. C4.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Emerson, Ralph Waldo. The Portable Emerson. New York: Viking, 1946, p. 157.
[iv] Sehgal, op. cit.
[v] Ibid.
