Thought-provoking discussion about Kierkegaard on BBC Radio 4's In Our Time. Like his great hero Socrates, Kierkegaard appeared to have rejected the idea of all-encompassing systems (including, I'm guessing, all -isms, even the existentialism named after his own work); hence his antipathy towards Hegel.
Rather, he seems to have favoured the idea of continuous "becoming", seeing us as imperfect creatures involved in a continuous process of striving to do our best, but dismissing all holistic world views as arrogant and delusional.
Sounds about right..."ring the bells that still can ring, forget your perfect offering, there is a crack is everything, that's how the light gets in".
Coincidentally (or maybe not - truth can wear many faces), a recent business book argued that the "world improver impulse always fails", because human illogic, driven by "squishy emotions", will always trump reason in the final analysis.
