Any concept that attracted comment from Kant, Goethe, and other giants accomplished enough to be identifiable by one name must be complex, profound, and worthy of attention even in a sweltering August… “Very few people,” writes the witty Norwegian philosopher Lars Svendsen, “have any well-thought-out concept of boredom.” That hasn’t stopped folks from trying to capture it in a phrase or tossed-off digression.
Kierkegaard declared it “the root of all evil,” following on church fathers who condemned its forerunner, the sin of acedia. Svendsen, a professor at the University of Bergen, cleverly updates that, noting that boredom has been accused of causing such modern ills as “drug abuse, alcohol abuse, smoking, eating disorders, promiscuity, vandalism…”
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