This book (available for free online from that link) by Søren Kierkegaard is a short but hella punchy treatise about the political and psychogical malaise that European modernism has left us in. The passion & activity of antiquity is gone, replaced by a blandly "democratic"* equilibrium roiling about in the seas of reflective intersubjectivity - the boons of education and understanding and the free press have left us all deeply well-informed, yet the sheer glut herein has left us paralyzed when it comes to actually putting those informed understandings into action. He writes, "every one knows a great deal, we all know which way we ought to go and all the different ways we can go, but nobody is willing to move." Rebellion in such a culture is essentially unthinkable. Readers familiar with old Søren won't be surprised to hear that he concludes that the only way for individuality and society to healthily balance each other out in any meaningful sense is the rediscovery of true religion. This is by far and away the most accessible Kierkegaard text I've read to date - it's not technical philosophy and should be easily readable by anyone with an above-your-average-American vocabulary. A final thought - though written in the seemingly alien atmosphere of mid-19th-century Copenhagen, this prophetic text speaks to the cultural, political and psychological snafus of 2025's dim/bright crazy/inevitable future presents with sparklingly uncanny accuracy & profundity. And did I mention it's very short and is online for free? Go read it.
* Kierkegaard's polemic here has left me considerably more favourable in my view of C. S. Lewis's take on democratic equality, which as I've said left a lot to be desired when I read them in their own context.
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