Chapter 9, The Present Age, A Literary Review Summary and Analysis

Just after the Postscript is published, Kierkegaard reviews a novel, today unknown, called The Two Ages. Kierkegaard mostly uses the review to discuss his own ideas about how separated antiquity and modernity are, specifically in the 19th century. In the modern age, men are equal and the public rules, but this contrasts with a society that is ruled by individuals, by those not like one another. He then divides history between antiquity which is ruled by leadership, and Christendom, which is ruled by representation, and the present, which focuses on equality.

Kierkegaard is always apolitical but an individual's value is supreme and cannot be improved or hurt by social organization. He sees the move towards equality as general progress but only because it shows how desperate the individual is...