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June 30, 2009
pascal's hair-shirt
Who in modern times has been used so much by parsons and professors as Pascal? His ideas are appropriated – but Pascal’s asceticism and his hair-shirt are omitted; or else they are explained away as the hallmark of his day which no longer concerns us. Brilliant! Pascal was original in every other respect-only not in this. But was asceticism really so general in his day, or had it not been done away with long ago, so that it was for Pascal to reassert its rights in face of the whole age? Everywhere it is the same; everywhere that infamous and disgusting cannibalism whereby (just as Heliogabalus ate ostrich brains) men eat the ideas, opinions, expressions, and moods of the dead – but as for their lives and characters; no thank you, they will have none of that.
Kierkegaard
Posted by amin at June 30, 2009 10:20 AM