Kierkegaard was a crucial influence on the Arcade Fire’s new record, Reflektor, bandleader Win Butler explains in Rolling Stone and other places.    

Exactly what by Søren Kierkegaard, the author of several million published words under half a dozen pseudonyms (my favorite: Johannes Climacus) as well as his own name?  

Butler singles out the 1846 essay “The Present Age”:

“… it sounds like he’s talking about modern times. He’s talking about the press and alienation, and you kind of read it and you’re like, `Dude, you have no idea how insane it’s gonna get.’ [Laughs.]

"What about Kierkegaard’s essay did you find relevant? 

"It reads like it was written here, basically. He basically compares the reflective age to a passionate age. Like, if there was a piece of gold out on thin ice, in a passionate age, if someone went to try and get the gold, everyone would cheer them on and be like, `Go for it! Yeah you can do it!’ And in a reflective age, if someone tried to walk out on the thin ice, everyone would criticize them and say, `What an idiot! I can’t believe you’re going out on the ice to try and risk something.’ So it would kind of paralyze you to even act basically, and it just kind of resonated with me — wanting to try and make something in the world instead of just talking about things.”

Butler’s not exaggerating.  Here’s a piece of the essay – which dates from 1846, remember:

“A Revolutionary Age is an age of action; the present age is an age of advertisement, or an age of publicity: nothing happens, but there is instant publicity about it. A revolt in the present age is the most unthinkable act of all; such a display of strength would confuse the calculating cleverness of the times. Nevertheless, some political virtuoso might achieve something nearly as great. He would write some manifesto or other which calls for a General Assembly in order to decide on a revolution, and he would write it so carefully that even the Censor himself would pass on it; and at the General Assembly he would manage to bring it about that the audience believed that it had actually rebelled, and then everyone would placidly go home–after they had spent a very nice evening out. " 

The band played the title track on Saturday Night Live a few weeks ago.  The official video is zany – or is it Kierkegaardian?