Kierkegaard's controversy with the Corsair

 Kierkegaard's controversy with the Corsair

[La controversia de Kierkegaard con el Corsario]

Martina Pavlikova

DOI: 10.18355/XL.2021.14.03.20

Abstract
This article aims to elucidate Kierkegaard’s thinking on the press and propagating falsehood. It starts from the story of the origin of the polemic with the satirical magazine The Corsair. It then moves to discuss his ensued confrontation with the written press on the conception of truth and falsehood. To that end, it reflects on the assumptions involved and indicates the implications that can be deduced, both for Kierkegaard's time and concerning the relevance or actuality of the mass media. Its concluding thoughts include Mynster as an apologist for Goldschmidt, Kierkegaard as a prophet forewarning about today’s globalized problem of the social media manipulating of public opinion, and that journalistic communication with the concrete individual lacks a conception of life compared to indirect communication of power, knowing power, which like ethico-religious truths, has to be subjectively appropriated and actualized as part of one's life conception.

Key words: journalism, communication, truth, individual, crowd, lie

Pages: 222-229

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