The Concept Of Crowd By Soren Kierkegaard In The Song Robot By Miley Cyrus

The song Robot by Miley Cyrus has lyrics that shows how a person feels trapped by the role of society towards them. In the song she talks about how she seems to herself like a Robot to fit stereotypes and she wants to break free because she does not feel like herself. This lyric gives out a particular message about bringing out your own individuality to be who you want to be and achieve your own goals. A person must do that without anyone else’s opinion, oppression, and without society trapping you to be someone you are not. The ideas found in the song can be related to the concept of Soren Kierkegaard – the father of existentialism – “The Crowd”. Both represent the concept of having a group of people, a society, a “crowd”, that stops you from achieving your goals by conforming you to them. Also, in order for you to achieve those goals, you have to free yourself by “the crowd” and use your individuality to go on.

“The crowd” is a mental state described by Kierkegaard which is made up of single individuals, however, it strips us of our individuality, therefore he considers it untruthful. It is reduced to abstractions or stereotypes. The crowd is public opinion in the widest sense—the ideas that a given age takes for granted; the ordinary and accepted way of doing things; the complacent attitude that comes from the conformity necessary for social life—and what condemns it to “untruth” in Kierkegaard’s eyes is the way that it insinuates itself into an individual’s own sense of who she is, relieving her of the burden of being herself. This abstract generalization leads to alienation and is immoral according to Kierkegaard.

He argues that we all are on a quest to receive a prize dedicated to you only and the crowd cannot help you with this quest. Instead we must depend on our own resources rather than surrender to the crowd. We must strive to be a “single individual” who is not bound by the tyranny of the crowd and replaces it with the authentic individual. The goal is to reach the authentic life, which is a state in which one fully accepts the existential predicament; one freedom to choose their destiny, independence from the crowd, your willingness to confront uncertainties with courage and meaning.

We can start by making the connection when she sings ‘Please, set me free so I can feel’, this shows us that society keeps her confined in conformity and she wants to be set free so that she can feel like herself. This is the same concept Kierkegaard believes of striving as a “single individual”; this is the exact thing we see in the author wanting to be “set free”, she is striving to be a “single individual”. Cyrus understands that in order to be herself and to achieve her goal in life, she needs to be free. She also repeats “I’m not your robot”, here she refers to “the crowd” by telling them that she is not part of them, she is an only individual and is not controlled by them. In the lyrics is said “I can move, I can speak without somebody else operating me”; this means she is in control of herself and can use her own resources to do what she has to do. She escapes conformity and she starts embracing her individuality like Kierkegaard claims a person has to do. All these lyrics is related to his beliefs and emphasizes the fact that being generalized is immoral.

In a section of Kierkegaard’s book “The crowd is Untruth”, it is said that the “crowd” weakens the individual and makes them irresponsible. He also writes “For every individual who flees for refuge into the crowd, and so flees in cowardice from being an individual… , such a man contributes his share of cowardliness to the cowardliness which we know as the ‘crowd.’”. We see that he believes that whoever conforms to the “crowd” is a coward as he hides in it and does not have the courage to be an individual. Kierkegaard also states that in order to win the “crowd”, all that is needed is “some talent, a certain dose of falsehood, and a little acquaintance with human passions”. The will of withdrawing the “crowd” needs to be strong and not many of the people who have it, have the courage to do it; that is why the philosopher refers to them as cowards.

In another section of the book, Kierkegaard claims: “…, even if every individual possessed the truth in private, yet if they came together into a crowd (so that ‘the crowd’ received any decisive, voting, noisy, audible importance), untruth would at once be let in.” We notice how he despises the crowd as, even if an individual has some truth, it would become a falseness if it were to be conformed into the “crowd”. This is explained by the fact that whenever the “crowd” takes something, it loses individuality, therefore truth. Everything the “crowd’ has loses originality and becomes mediocre, and common to everyone’s eyes.

Everything is related to the lyrics of the song Robot by Miley Cyrus like it was already explained before; it is all based on the concept of not being conformed by society and having the courage to be different, a single individual. Your goal will never be achieved if you do not have the bravery to be different and decide to hide in the “crowd”, you will be a coward and untruthful. When you escape society you will discover your talents, you will be able to achieve your goal, and be truthful. Like the lyrics said: ‘Please, set me free so I can feel’, you have to be set free. What is different here is that in the song is the individual that wants to be set free by society, but what Kierkegaard believes is that the individual should get freed alone, using talent, courage and not be a coward.