The Unrepentant Crowd: Soren Kierkegaard and Ernest Becker on the Roots of Political Violence

by Charles K. Bellinger

In the first chapter of the thesis the main thread of Ernest Becker’s psychology, as it was expounded in The Denial of Death, is presented. In the second chapter Becker’s interpretation of Soren Kierkegaard’s psychology is put forward, and Becker’s belief that his thought is in basic accord with Kierkegaard’s is noted. In the third and fourth chapters Kierkegaard’s understanding of human psychology, as it was presented in The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness Unto Death, is summarized. The fifth chapter is a critical comparison of the psychological theories of Becker and Kierkegaard, in which a negative conclusion is reached regarding Becker’s belief that his thought and Kierkegaard’s are in basic accord. The sixth chapter is a summary of Becker’s explanation of political violence, as it was presented in Escape From Evil. The seventh chapter is an explication of the understanding of political violence that I find implicit in Kierkegaard’s thought, along with a comparison of this understanding with Becker’s. Nazism and the nuclear arms race are briefly referred to as the two principal test cases for the preceding theoretical formulations.

82 pages, Paperback

Published July 21, 2016