It might sound odd, but to a philosopher boredom is not boring at
all.  Indeed, to the reflective reader
the subject of boredom reveals itself as being surprisingly fascinating.  Perhaps one might advance the hypothesis
that embarking on the adventure of gaining understanding constitutes the most
effective antidote the victim of boredom has at her disposal.  The effect of such a remedy is further
enhanced, one might suggest, when it is in some significant aspect of human
existence that new insight is acquired, even when the aspect in question is
none other than boredom.  In any event,
reading Lars Svendsen’s A Philosophy of Boredom, one becomes captivated
by the phenomenon itself and enriched with historico-cultural knowledge of both
past and contemporary views of it.

The book is divided into four parts. 
Part One is entitled ‘The Problem of Boredom’.  It sets out the problem in broad philosophical terms by offering
the main conceptual co-ordinates in relation to which the phenomenon in
question is in the author’s view best understood, i.e., ‘Boredom and
Modernity’, ‘Boredom and Meaning’, ‘Boredom, Work and Leisure’, ‘Boredom and
Death’, ‘Typologies of Boredom’, ‘Boredom and Novelty’.  The author explains the difficulties in
pinpointing such an intrinsically hazy concept.  This is borne out by some conceptual connections Svendsen
sketches between some manifestations of boredom and those of insomnia,
melancholia and depression.  These,
however, remain rather fuzzy.  Also, the
results of a ‘small, unscientific survey among colleagues, students, friends
and acquaintances’ are telling in this regard: the survey reveals that the
interviewees ‘were on the whole unable to say whether they were bored or not,
although some answered in the affirmative or the negative — and one person
even claimed that he had never been bored.'(p.13). 
The connotative fluidity of the concept and the ‘nameless, shapeless,
object-less’ nature of boredom lead the author to the adoption of a few
methodological decisions.  Namely:
rather than a systematic argument in a ‘strictly analytical dissertation’, he
presents a series of sketches in a ‘long essay’; also, given the diversity of
the phenomenon under discussion, he resorts to an interdisciplinary
approach.  Lastly, the author discards
the methodological route of taking a predetermined, a-temporal view of human
nature as point of departure for his inquiry: no such absolute theoretical
point is readily or uncontroversially available, and good theoretical and moral
reasons have been produced in our philosophico-cultural tradition has to why a
concept of  human nature valid for all
times and places would be misguided. 
Svendsen aptly refers to Nietzsche on this point, who noted that the ‘
"hereditary fault of all philosophers" is to base themselves on man
at a particular period of time and then turn this into an eternal truth.'(p.12). 
Rather, he opts for a combined approach of phenomenological tradition
and history of ideas as guiding thread towards an understanding of the
phenomenon at hand.    

            Part Two can be considered as a
short treatise in the History of Ideas. 
Svendsen strikes the reader with his familiarity with an enormous wealth
of interdisciplinary source material belonging to the Western tradition
spanning from the Middle Ages to contemporary times, i.e., historical,
literary-cultural, and philosophical. 
However, he proceeds lightly in a somewhat ironical, half-detached tone
guiding the reader along a narrative peppered with delightful quotations and
references from poetry, novels, theatre, cinema, art, etc. 

            For instance, he traces the history
of the concept ‘boredom’ back to the original concept ‘acedia’, which is mainly
to be found in Christian writers of late antiquity and the Middle Ages.  Svendsen points out the main differences
between ‘acedia’ and its modern counterpart ‘boredom’.  In particular, the former is a morally
charged concept which denotes a mood to be mainly found among a restricted
elite, while the latter describes a psychological state afflicting people en
masse.  More importantly, the moral
condemnation of the phenomenon of acedia as a grave sin is due not only to the
fact that it was considered as the breeding ground of other sins, but that it
contained a rejection of God and of divine Creation.  Svendsen appropriately quotes Dante’s verses from the Commedia
where the poet expresses his abhorrence for such a sin by reserving a
disgusting punishment for the ‘acidiosi’ in Hell: they are placed in the mire
which mirrors the bad humour they brought within themselves, when they should
have rejoiced at the glorious sun:

Fix’d in the slime they say: ‘Sad once were we

In the sweet air made gladsome by the sun,

Carrying a foul and lazy mist within:

Now in these murky settlings are we sad.

( Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy,
trans. HF Cary, London, 1914, canto VII. 
Quoted from L. Svendsen, A Philosophy of Boredom, p.51.)

Notwithstanding the
long-standing ancestry, the concept of boredom as such is typical of what
Svendsen refers to as ‘Modernity’. 
According to the author, the coming into prominence of ‘boredom’, better
still of a discourse on boredom, is tied to a conjuncture of phenomena of a
socio-historical nature.  These latter
mark the cultural and artistic movement of Romanticism giving rise to the
modern Zeitgeist.  ‘Boredom
becomes widespread’ — Svendsen explains — ‘when traditional structures of
meaning disappear.  In modernity the
subject is released from tradition and has to seek new meanings for
itself.  The modern subject does so via
transgressions of various kinds, but is left more bereft after each new
transgression.'(p.153).  The crucial elements to take into account in
understanding the phenomenon of boredom, which are intrinsically constitutive
of it, are the essentially human capacity and need for meaningful content in
one’s life and its frustration.  If human
beings were not ‘creatures of existential meaning’, they could never be bored
nor conceive of boredom.  By
‘existential meaning’ it is meant, roughly, the spiritual need for one’s life
to have a content which is capable of giving it a point, a goal or value.  ‘Boredom and lack of meaning’ — Svendsen
maintains — ‘finally almost coincide, with the modern subject believing that
this meaning can be acquired by transgressing the self, by making all other
accessible meaning one’s own.  Personal
meaning, understood as a unique meaning for me, as something that alone can
give my life meaning, turns out to be unrealizable’.(pp.153-4).   

A lengthy third part is dedicated to Heidegger’s phenomenological
investigation of boredom.  Here Svendsen
offers an accessible account of key-notions of Heideggerian existential
phenomenology.  The author’s detailed
discussion of Heidegger’s notion of ‘profound boredom’ and of its existential
significance recommends itself for its remarkable quality of combining clarity
of exposition and depth of content. 

As a foretaste of the discussion Svendsen offers of Heidegger’s
position, I begin by noting that the phenomenon of boredom is all but uniform
in the manner it pervades the relationship between the human being and her
surrounding world.   One can, for
instance, feel bored at something in particular, e.g., a lecture, a job,
etc.  This is called by Svendsen,
following Martin Doehlemann, ‘situative boredom’.  Philosophically more interesting is the phenomenon of
‘existential boredom’.  In its extreme
form, this overlaps with Heidegger’s ‘profound boredom’.  When the latter kind of boredom strikes, ‘I
am bored by boredom itself — I am completely attuned by boredom'(p.121).  
The existential significance Heidegger confers on profound boredom
consists in the invitation to focus our attention on, rather than attempting to
escape from, this all-pervasive mood, since doing so bears the possibility of a
radical change in one’s way of living, i.e., from inauthenticity to authenticity,
that is, to a way of living which is true to the ‘being’ of human reality.

Part Four offers a discussion of the ethical implications of the
phenomenon of boredom.  By this the
author does not wish to suggest that the phenomenon of boredom might be used to
ground a moral theory.   Rather, he
reads the phenomenon as a sort of what might be called ‘existential
indicator’.  Interpreted along these
lines, boredom, although not itself morally blameworthy, points to the lack of,
and hence the requirement for, a life choice purporting moral implications.

A Postscript summarizes the major points tackled in the book and the
author’s concluding remarks.  The latter
concern themselves with the theme of Part Four, namely, with the ethically
significant stance that would be appropriate to adopt in relation to the
phenomenon of boredom.

Notwithstanding the excellent qualities pointed out above, the book
might leave one with a few reservations. 

Firstly, while fully taking on board the author’s claims regarding the
nature of boredom as a ‘vague, diverse phenomenon’, still one might find that
the author’s treatment of it mirrors the nature of the phenomenon itself a bit
too closely.  In particular, one cannot
help feeling somehow lost in the midst of numerous quotations and literary
sources.  As said above, they are
delightful and intellectually enriching; however, they are not always
philosophically illuminating as to the position the author wishes to defend:
since not all of the various views of boredom presented in the book are
mutually self-consistent, it is not clear which one among them, or even instead
of them, the author wishes to support. 
There are cases where Svendsen refers sympathetically to a view while he
nonetheless voices his disagreement with that same view in other places of the
book.  The most obvious instance in this
regard is the following.  Svendsen
dedicates an entire part of the book, Part Three, to Heidegger’s analytic of
boredom; in addition, he introduces Heidegger’s treatment of the subject in
terms which, being highly favourable, might suggest his agreement with the
German philosopher’s position: ‘By far the most elaborate phenomenological
analysis of boredom is to be found in the series of lectures given by Heidegger
in 1929-30… I regard these lectures as one of Heidegger’s most impressive
philosophical achievements.  My aim in
presenting his analysis of boredom is … to use it to gain a better
understanding of how boredom expresses itself and influences experience as a
whole.'(p.107).  However, towards the end of the portion of
the book dedicated to Heidegger, Svendsen leaves the reader somewhat confused
as he writes: ‘But what is so "profound" about boredom?  Doesn’t Heidegger commit a highly questionable
sublimation of boredom? … I have come to the conclusion that the question of
Being is not a genuine question, that there is no "Being as such",
and that Heidegger’s project was therefore doomed to fail.'(p.131). 
If we consider that the ‘question of Being’ is structural to most of
what Heidegger wrote in philosophy, hence also to his phenomenology of boredom,
and Svendsen thinks such a question is empty, then we are left wondering why
Svendsen dedicates an entire part of the book to Heidegger’s philosophy; or
indeed in what sense we are to interpret Svendsen’s claim that Heidegger’s
texts will aid us to ‘gain a better understanding’ of the phenomenon under
discussion. 

At times the reader may feel to be approaching the place in the text
where the author’s view of boredom is finally revealed; unfortunately, this
does not occur, it would seem, until one has read the very last lines contained
in the ‘Postscript’: ‘A one-sided focusing on the absence of Meaning can
overshadow all other meaning — and then the world really looks as if it has
been reduced to rubble.  A source of
profound boredom is that we demand capital letters where we are obliged to make
do with small ones.’  One would expect
that by changing one’s desire for the ‘Meaning’ of life into less demanding
desires for everyday meanings and values, one could somehow ward off
boredom.  Also, further elaboration on
the point just made by Svendsen might be welcome, e.g., what it is meant by
lower case ‘meaning’, how it is possible to adjust one’s aspiration for the
Absolute according to the author’s suggestion to accept the finite and the
contingent, etc.  However, the reader
may be slightly disappointed at finding out that the adjustment to a more
ordinary sense of the ‘meaning of life’, whatever this might be and whatever
the manner whereby it might be achieved, is utterly inefficacious as a way of
relieving us from the afflictions of boredom: ‘Even though no Meaning is given,
there is meaning — and boredom. 
Boredom has to be accepted as an unavoidable fact, as life’s own
gravity.  This is no grand solution, for
the problem of boredom has none.'(p.154).  How is one to interpret Svendsen’s
proposal?  It seems that the desire for
‘Meaning’ rather than ‘meanings’ is not intrinsically tied nor necessarily
related to the phenomenon of boredom after all.  The author leaves the reader somewhat puzzled. 

It is surprising to find that Svendsen omits references to Jean-Paul
Sartre and Albert Camus in his book, given his extensive use of phenomenology,
existentialism and literature. 

In Sartre we find reference to ‘profound boredom’, discussing which
Svendsen spends Part Three of the book in connection with Heidegger’s
philosophy. 

Antoine Roquentin, the diarist of Sartre’s Nausea, declares: ‘I
am bored, that’s all.  From time to time
I yawn so widely that tears roll down my cheek.  It is a profound boredom, profound, the profound heart of
existence, the very matter I am made of.’ ( Jean-Paul
Sartre, Nausea, trans.Lloyd Alexander, Norfolk, Connecticut: New
Directions Books, 1959, p.26.)  Perhaps the less mystical overtones with
which Sartre treats of ‘Being’ in his texts might have led to different
conclusions from the ones Svendsen critically draws from Heidegger’s treatment
of profound boredom. 

Indeed, both Sartre’s and Camus’ positions, though different from each
other in some respects, might be closer to Svendsen’s in their positive
acknowledgment of the finitude and contingency of human existence.  Although neither of the above thinkers’
views is obviously uncontroversial nor exhaustive of the subject, they might
nevertheless theoretically flesh out Svendsen’s claim about the nature of the
relation between boredom and the question of the meaning of life that, as it
stands, remains underdeveloped. 

It would be opportune to remark on this point not simply because Sartre
and Camus had something interesting to say about boredom; after all, one must
sieve through one’s source material, and Svendsen is considerably generous with
his sources, both in number and in variety. 
Rather, the omission of the above names acquires relevance because what
Sartre and Camus wrote separately on the subject is closely linked with
what Svendsen has perceptively identified as being one central strand of the
conceptual content of ‘boredom’, namely, its internal connection with
existential meaning.  For instance, both
Sartre and Camus recognize the dissymmetry between the desire for Absolute
Meaning, which afflicts modern humanity, and the utter contingency and finitude
of whatever meaning men are capable of bringing into their lives on the
backdrop of a Universe which is totally devoid of any intrinsic value. 

In the posthumously published Cahiers pour morale,Sartre
resorts to inter-subjectivity, through co-operative action, as a way of
increasing the finite capacity for engendering existential meaning and value
human beings possess. 

Camus’ texts, on the other hand, defend the stance fully to embrace the
absurdity, contingency and finiteness of existence.  More specifically in The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus invites
us to do so in good spirits: we should picture Sisyphus happy as he ceaselessly
carries his heavy stone uphill and lets it roll downhill.  One could still object that, though happy,
nothing prevents the Absurd Man from falling prey to boredom, at least once in
a while.  This might very well be
true.  However, the existential attitude
fully to embrace the finitude of the human condition with happiness and
determination, which Camus advocates, if at all attainable, by implication
necessarily excludes, cannot logically be compatible with, the most destructive
and paralysing manifestations of boredom, that is, boredom as ‘a bestial and
indefinable affliction’, as Schopenhauer aptly described it.         

 

© 2005 Maria Antonietta Perna

 

Maria Antonietta Perna, Post-doctoral Research
Fellow, University College London; Part-time Lecturer in Political Thought,
Richmond University, London

Categories: Philosophical