English Texts
THE SINGLE INDIVIDUAL (Excerpt)
This text is in the public domain.
On the Dedication to "That Single Individual"
Translated by Charles K. Bellinger
My dear, accept this dedication; it is given over, as it were,blindfolded, but therefore undisturbed by any consideration, in sincerity. Who you are, Iknow not; where you are, I know not; what your name is, I know not. Yet you are my hope,my joy, my pride, and my unknown honor.
It comforts me, that the right occasion is now there for you; which I havehonestly intended during my labor and in my labor. For if it were possible that readingwhat I write became worldly custom, or even to give oneself out as having read it, in thehope of thereby winning something in the world, that then would not be the right occasion,since, on the contrary, misunderstanding would have triumphed, and it would have alsodeceived me, if I had not striven to prevent such a thing from happening.
This, in part, is a possible change in me, something I even wish for,basically a mood of soul and mind, which does not produce change by being more than changeand therefore produces nothing less than change; it is rather an admission, in part athoroughly and well thought-out view of "life," of "the truth," and of"the way."
There is a view of life which holds that where thecrowd is, the truth is also, that it is a need in truth itself, that it must have thecrowd on its side. There is another view of life; whichholds that wherever the crowd is, there is untruth, so that, for a moment to carry thematter out to its farthest conclusion, even if every individual possessed the truth inprivate, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that "the crowd" receivedany decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.
For "the crowd" is untruth. Eternally, godly, christianlywhat Paul says is valid: "only one receives the prize," [I Cor. 9:24] not by wayof comparison, for in the comparison "the others" are still present. That is tosay, everyone can be that one, with God's help - but only one receives the prize; again,that is to say, everyone should cautiously have dealings with "the others," andessentially only talk with God and with himself - for only one receives the prize; again,that is to say, the human being is in kinship with, or to be a human is to be in kinshipwith the divinity. The worldly, temporal, busy, socially-friendly person says this:"How unreasonable, that only one should receive the prize, it is far more probablethat several combined receive the prize; and if we become many, then it becomes morecertain and also easier for each individually." Certainly, it is far more probable;and it is also true in relation to all earthly and sensuous prizes; and it becomes theonly truth, if it is allowed to rule, for this point of view abolishes both God and theeternal and "the human being's" kinship with the divinity; it abolishes it orchanges it into a fable, and sets the modern (as a matter of fact, the old heathen) in itsplace, so that to be a human being is like being a specimen which belongs to a race giftedwith reason, so that the race, the species, is higher than the individual, or so thatthere are only specimens, not individuals. But the eternal, which vaults high over thetemporal, quiet as the night sky, and God in heaven, who from this exalted state of bliss,without becoming the least bit dizzy, looks out over these innumerable millions and knowseach single individual; he, the great examiner, he says: only one receives the prize; thatis to say, everyone can receive it, and everyone ought to become this by oneself, but onlyone receives the prize. Where the crowd is, therefore, or where a decisive importance isattached to the fact that there is a crowd, there no one is working, living, andstriving for the highest end, but only for this or that earthly end; since the eternal,the decisive, can only be worked for where there is one; and to become this by oneself,which all can do, is to will to allow God to help you - "the crowd" is untruth.
A crowd - not this or that, one now living or longdead, a crowd of the lowly or of nobles, of rich or poor, etc., but in its very concept - is untruth, since a crowd either renders the singleindividual wholly unrepentant and irresponsible, or weakens his responsibility by makingit a fraction of his decision. Observe, there was not a single soldier who dared lay ahand on Caius Marius; this was the truth. But given three or four women with theconsciousness or idea of being a crowd, with a certain hope in the possibility that no onecould definitely say who it was or who started it: then they had the courage for it; whatuntruth! The untruth is first that it is "the crowd," which does either whatonly the single individual in the crowd does, or in every case what each singleindividual does. For a crowd is an abstraction, which does not have hands; each singleindividual, on the other hand, normally has two hands, and when he, as a singleindividual, lays his two hands on Caius Marius, then it is the two hands of this singleindividual, not after all his neighbor's, even less - the crowd's, which has no hands. Inthe next place, the untruth is that the crowd had "the courage" for it, sincenever at any time was even the most cowardly of all single individuals so cowardly, as thecrowd always is. For every single individual who escapes into the crowd, and thus flees incowardice from being a single individual (who either had the courage to lay his hand onCaius Marius, or the courage to admit that he did not have it), contributes his share ofcowardice to "the cowardice," which is: the crowd. Take the highest, think ofChrist - and the whole human race, all human beings, which were ever born and ever will beborn; the situation is the single individual, as an individual, in solitary surroundingsalone with him; as a single individual he walks up to him and spits on him: the humanbeing has never been born and never will be, who would have the courage or the impudencefor it; this is the truth. But since they remain in a crowd, they have the courage for it- what frightening untruth.
The crowd is untruth. There is therefore no one who has more contempt forwhat it is to be a human being than those who make it their profession to lead the crowd.Let someone, some individual human being, certainly, approach such a person, what does hecare about him; that is much too small a thing; he proudly sends him away; there must beat least a hundred. And if there are thousands, then he bends before the crowd, he bowsand scrapes; what untruth! No, when there is an individual human being, then one shouldexpress the truth by respecting what it is to be a human being; and if perhaps, as onecruelly says, it was a poor, needy human being, then especially should one invite him intothe best room, and if one has several voices, he should use the kindest and friendliest;that is the truth. When on the other hand it was an assembly of thousands or more, and"the truth" became the object of balloting, then especially one shouldgodfearingly - if one prefers not to repeat in silence the Our Father: deliver us fromevil - one should godfearingly express, that a crowd, as the court of last resort,ethically and religiously, is the untruth, whereas it is eternally true, that everyone canbe the one. This is the truth.
The crowd is untruth. Therefore was Christ crucified, because he, eventhough he addressed himself to all, would not have to do with the crowd, because he wouldnot in any way let a crowd help him, because he in this respect absolutely pushed away,would not found a party, or allow balloting, but would be what he was, the truth, whichrelates itself to the single individual. And therefore everyone who in truth will serve the truth, is eo ipso in some way or other a martyr; if it were possible that ahuman being in his mother's womb could make a decision to will to serve "thetruth" in truth, so he also is eo ipso a martyr, however his martyrdom comesabout, even while in his mother's womb. For to win a crowd is not so great a trick; oneonly needs some talent, a certain dose of untruth and a little acquaintance with the humanpassions. But no witness for the truth - alas, and every human being, you and I, should beone - dares have dealings with a crowd. The witness for the truth - who naturally willhave nothing to do with politics, and to the utmost of his ability is careful not to beconfused with a politician - the godfearing work of the witness to the truth is to havedealings with all, if possible, but always individually, to talk with each privately, onthe streets and lanes - to split up the crowd, or to talk to it, not to form a crowd, butso that one or another individual might go home from the assembly and become a singleindividual. "A crowd," on the other hand, when it is treated as the court oflast resort in relation to "the truth," its judgment as the judgment, isdetested by the witness to the truth, more than a virtuous young woman detests the dancehall. And they who address the "crowd" as the court of last resort, he considersto be instruments of untruth. For to repeat: that which in politics and similar domainshas its validity, sometimes wholly, sometimes in part, becomes untruth, when it istransferred to the intellectual, spiritual, and religious domains. And at the risk of apossibly exaggerated caution, I add just this: by "truth" I always understand"eternal truth." But politics and the like has nothing to do with "eternaltruth." A politics, which in the real sense of "eternal truth" made aserious effort to bring "eternal truth" into real life, would in the same secondshow itself to be in the highest degree the most "impolitic" thing imaginable.
The crowd is untruth. And I could weep, in every case I can learn to longfor the eternal, whenever I think about our age's misery, even compared with the ancientworld's greatest misery, in that the daily press and anonymity make our age even moreinsane with help from "the public," which is really an abstraction, which makesa claim to be the court of last resort in relation to "the truth"; forassemblies which make this claim surely do not take place. That an anonymous person, withhelp from the press, day in and day out can speak however he pleases (even with respect tothe intellectual, the ethical, the religious), things which he perhaps did not in theleast have the courage to say personally in a particular situation; every time he opens uphis gullet - one cannot call it a mouth - he can all at once address himself tothousands upon thousands; he can get ten thousand times ten thousand to repeat after him -and no one has to answer for it; in ancient times the relatively unrepentant crowd was thealmighty, but now there is the absolutely unrepentant thing: No One, an anonymous person:the Author, an anonymous person: the Public, sometimes even anonymous subscribers,therefore: No One. No One! God in heaven, such states even call themselves Christianstates. One cannot say that, again with the help of the press, "the truth" canovercome the lie and the error. O, you who say this, ask yourself: Do you dare to claimthat human beings, in a crowd, are just as quick to reach for truth, which is not alwayspalatable, as for untruth, which is always deliciously prepared, when in addition thismust be combined with an admission that one has let oneself be deceived! Or do you dare toclaim that "the truth" is just as quick to let itself be understood as isuntruth, which requires no previous knowledge, no schooling, no discipline, no abstinence,no self-denial, no honest self-concern, no patient labor! No, "the truth," whichdetests this untruth, the only goal of which is to desire its increase, is not so quick onits feet. Firstly, it cannot work through the fantastical, which is the untruth; itscommunicator is only a single individual. And its communication relates itself once againto the single individual; for in this view of life the single individual is precisely thetruth. The truth can neither be communicated nor be received without being as it werebefore the eyes of God, nor without God's help, nor without God being involved as themiddle term, since he is the truth. It can therefore only be communicated by and receivedby "the single individual," which, for that matter, every single human being wholives could be: this is the determination of the truth in contrast to the abstract, thefantastical, impersonal, "the crowd" - "the public," which excludesGod as the middle term (for the personal God cannot be the middle term in an impersonalrelation), and also thereby the truth, for God is the truth and its middle term.
And to honor every individual human being, unconditionally every humanbeing, that is the truth and fear of God and love of "the neighbor"; butethico-religiously viewed, to recognize "the crowd" as the court of last resortin relation to "the truth," that is to deny God and cannot possibly be to love"the neighbor." And "the neighbor" is the absolutely true expressionfor human equality; if everyone in truth loved the neighbor as himself, then would perfecthuman equality be unconditionally attained; every one who in truth loves the neighbor,expresses unconditional human equality; every one who is really aware (even if he admits,like I, that his effort is weak and imperfect) that the task is to love the neighbor, heis also aware of what human equality is. But never have I read in the Holy Scriptures thiscommand: You shall love the crowd; even less: You shall, ethico-religiously, recognize inthe crowd the court of last resort in relation to "the truth." It is clear thatto love the neighbor is self-denial, that to love the crowd or to act as if one loved it,to make it the court of last resort for "the truth," that is the way to trulygain power, the way to all sorts of temporal and worldly advantage - yet it is untruth;for the crowd is untruth.
But he who acknowledges this view, which is seldom presented (for it oftenhappens, that a man believes that the crowd is in untruth, but when it, the crowd, merelyaccepts his opinion en masse, then everything is all right), he admits to himselfthat he is the weak and powerless one; how would a single individual be able to standagainst the many, who have the power! And he could not then want to get the crowd on hisside to carry through the view that the crowd, ethico-religiously, as the court of lastresort, is untruth; that would be to mock himself. But although this view was from thefirst an admission of weakness and powerlessness, and since it seems therefore souninviting, and is therefore heard so seldom: yet it has the good feature, that it isfair, that it offends no one, not a single one, that it does not distinguish betweenpersons, not a single one. A crowd is indeed made up of single individuals; it musttherefore be in everyone's power to become what he is, a single individual; no one isprevented from being a single individual, no one, unless he prevents himself by becomingmany. To become a crowd, to gather a crowd around oneself, is on the contrary todistinguish life from life; even the most well-meaning one who talks about that, caneasily offend a single individual. But it is the crowd which has power, influence,reputation, and domination - this is the distinction of life from life, which tyrannicallyoverlooks the single individual as the weak and powerless one, in a temporal-worldly wayoverlooks the eternal truth: the single individual.
Note The reader will recall, that this (the beginning of which ismarked by the atmosphere of its moment, when I voluntarily exposed myself to the brutalityof literary vulgarity) was originally written in 1846, although later revised andconsiderably enlarged. Existence, almighty as it is, has since that time shed light on theproposition that the crowd, seen ethico-religiously as the court of last resort, isuntruth. Truly, I am well served by this; I am even helped by it to better understandmyself, since I will now be understood in a completely different way than I was at thetime, when my weak, lonely voice was heard as a ridiculous exaggeration, whereas it cannow scarcely be heard at all on account of existence's loud voice, which says the samething.