of course, this title is a famous book by Kierkegaard,
but we can relate this ''sickness'' to our own modern
day society... and not just the religious point of view,
but of all the society/states...
or have we already forgotten the Holocaust...
which is not just a ''German problem'' but a human problem...
or that the My Lai massacre happened in my lifetime....
and I suggest that part of the problem lies in our own
reaction to the modern milieu... where we dehumanize, devalue
our own citizens with lives of little value or meaning...
or as I have called it, ''The problem of our Sisyphean lives'''
I have been told, time and again, by various bosses,
that I am easily replaceable with someone who will
work cheaper than I can... with the emphasis on ''working
cheaper'' thus giving my value as money being spent on
and not what I do or who I am..... but how much I make
an hour..... and conversely on how much profits I can make in
my hours of work... our entire economic and thus political
system is based on the difference between what they pay me
and what I can create in profits... no profits, no job...
it's really that simple... and it is clear in both our individual
and cultural distain of those who don't earn a living.....
the point of existence, at least for the state/society, is
to force its citizens to work for the benefit of the state/society...
to be ''useful'' citizens... to be ''productive citizens''
and not to ''leach'' of the state/society.... and that has been drilled/
indoctrinated into our heads since childbirth... to be productive is
to be a good citizen... and productivity is to create profits...
and I now state that this drive to create productive/profitable
citizens is a sickness unto death... because it denies us as
both individuals and as citizens.... it reduces us to things and
to be reduced to a thing is no different than the Nazi's reducing Jews
to things...to be considered to be less than human is to turn us
into animals... As the Nazi's often referred to Jews as animals,
and as the current GOP/MAGA party often refers to immigrants
and minorities as animals... which devalues, dehumanizes human beings...
thus make it easy to imprison them or deny them options that citizens
should get.... and the connection between this and the "myth of
Sisyphus'' is the fact that Sisyphus is devalued, dehumanized because
his value comes from pushing that rock/boulder uphill... he has
no other value outside of that....and pushing that boulder uphill
has no value.... just as most of work we do as employees is also
meaningless with no value... if we only work to create profits,
then we personally have no value... the profits count, we don't....
Kierkgaard solution to his ''sickness into death'' was a leap of faith
into god... but that too, is a failed solution.... for who believes in god today....
those who also suffer from a ''sickness unto death''
a leap of faith is a sign of a sickness of the soul....
all of which leads us to wonder what our solutions might be to
our current sickness of the soul.... to make humans more meaningful,
to return us to having at least equality to money/profits...
the modern day solutions of ''curing'' our modern day soul sickness
lies in such ideas as bringing god back, or working harder, or even
in a better work-life equality.... we have reached a crisis and few
if any realizes this.... how to solve our soul sickness?
Kropotkin