Shrewd, sly, foxy

To make discoveries even with regard to evil, with regard to sin and the multitude of sins, to be the shrewd, sly, foxy, perhaps more or less corrupt observer who can really make discoveries – this is highly regarded in the world. Even a youth upon first stepping out into life is very eager to divulge how he knows and has discovered evil (because he is reluctant to have the world call him a simpleton). Even a woman in her earliest youth is very eager to divulge; she is vain about being a judge of human nature, naturally with regard to evil (because she is reluctant to have the world call her a silly little goose or a small-town beauty). Yes, it is incredible how the world has changed compared with ancient times; then there were only a few who knew themselves, and now everyone is a judge of human nature. And this is the remarkable thing: if someone has discovered how fundamentally good-natured almost every human being is, he would hardly dare to acknowledge his discovery, and he would fear becoming ludicrous, perhaps even fear that humanity would feel insulted by it. If, however, someone pretends that he had discovered how fundamentally shabby every human being is, how envious, how selfish, how faithless, and what abomination can lie hidden in the purest, that is, in the one regarded by simpletons and silly geese and small-town beauties as the purest – that person conceitedly knows that he is welcome, that it is the yield of his observing, his knowledge, his story that the world longs to hear. Thus sin and evil have one power more over people than we ordinarily think of: that it is so stupid to be good, so shallow to believe in the good, so small-townish to betray ignorance or that one is an uninitiated person – uninitiated into the innermost secrets of sin. Here we see quite clearly how evil and sin in large part consist in a conceited comparison-relationship to the world, to other people. We can be very sure that the same people who, just because in their vanity they fear the world’s judgment, in their association with others seek to be attractive and entertaining by divulging a special acquaintance with evil – we can be very sure that the same people have an entirely different view when they are alone, in their heart of hearts, where they do not need to be ashamed of the good. But in public, in company, when there are many or at least several together, and hence comparison, the comparison-relationship, is a member of the party, something vanity cannot possibly be unaware of – there the one tempts the other to divulge what he has discovered.

Yet even completely worldly-minded people sometimes make an exception and judge a bit more leniently of this: to discover nothing. Suppose two sly fellows had something to decide together and they did not wish to have witnesses, but it could not be otherwise; they had to come to a decision in a room where a third was present – and this third, as they knew, was very much in love, happy in the first days of being in love – is it not true that one of the sly persons would say to the other, “Well, he can just as well be present; he will discover nothing.” They would say it with a smile and with this smile honor their own sagacity. Yet they would still have a kind of respect for the one in love, who discovers nothing.

And now the one who loves! Whether he is laughed at, whether he is mocked, whether he is pitied, and no matter what the world says about him, it is certain that with regard to the multitude of sins he discovers nothing, not even that laughter, that mockery, that pity; he discovers nothing, and he sees only very little. He discovers nothing. We do of course distinguish between discovering that is the conscious and deliberate effort to find and seeing or hearing that can occur against one’s will. He discovers nothing. Yet whether he is laughed at or is not laughed at, whether he is mocked or is not mocked, deep down inside we have a respect for him because he, resting in and absorbed in his love, discovers nothing.

The one who loves discovers nothing; therefore he hides the multitude of sins that could be found through discovery. The life of the one who loves expresses the apostolic injunction to be a child in evil. What the world actually admires as sagacity is knowledge of evil – whereas wisdom is knowledge of the good. The one who loves does not have and does not want to have knowledge of evil; in this regard he is and remains, he wants to be and wants to remain, a child. Put a child in a den of thieves (but the child must not remain there so long that it is corrupted itself); that is, let it remain there only for a very brief time. Then let it come home and tell everything it has experienced. You will note that the child, who is a good observer and has an excellent memory (as does every child), will tell everything in the greatest detail, yet in such a way that in a certain sense the most important is omitted. Therefore someone who does not know that the child has been among thieves would least suspect it on the basis of the child’s story. What is it, then, that the child leaves out, what is it that the child has not discovered? It is the evil. Yet the child’s story about what it has seen and heard is entirely accurate. What, then, does the child lack? What is it that so often makes a child’s story the most profound mockery of the adults? It is knowledge of evil, that the child lacks knowledge of evil, that the child does not even feel inclined to want to be knowledgeable about evil. In this the one who loves is like the child.

— Kierkegaard, Works of Love (tr. Hong & Hong)