The Mature Human Being

On Reading John Lundstøl Again And Again

Some books are read.

Others remain within us.

They follow us quietly through life, like an undercurrent of thought we never entirely finish with. We return to them at different stages of life and discover that the text itself seems to have changed. But perhaps it is really we who have changed.

That has been my experience with Det myndige menneske (The Mature Human Being) by John Lundstøl, published in Norway in 1970.

I first read the book as a young student. At that time I read with the seriousness and restlessness of youth, with the belief that philosophy could open the world. I did not understand everything. Perhaps I still do not. But certain books continue to work within a human being long after the final page has been turned.

This book continued to work within me.

When I open it again today, many decades later, I encounter not only the text itself. I also encounter traces of the person I once was. A young man searching for a language for freedom, responsibility, and human dignity.

Perhaps that was why Lundstøl made such a deep impression on me.

He did not write about philosophy as an academic system detached from life. He wrote about the human struggle to become oneself in a world that constantly attempts to turn human beings into objects.

And perhaps that is precisely why the book still speaks.

There is a form of philosophy that slowly distances itself from life.

The concepts become increasingly advanced, the analyses increasingly precise, yet the human being gradually disappears from the text. In the end, one is left with a language that describes the world without truly touching it.

With Lundstøl, the opposite happens.

Philosophy does not begin with systems.

It begins with the human being.

With human freedom.

With human anxiety.

With human responsibility.

Perhaps this is what makes the book so different from much other philosophical literature from the same period. It does not primarily attempt to explain the human being from the outside. It attempts to understand what it means to exist as a human being.

Not theoretically.

But concretely.

I believe one of the things that affected me most deeply when I first read Lundstøl was his emphasis on action.

Not merely reflection.

Not merely understanding.

But action.

It is easy to believe that insight alone changes the world. Yet life slowly teaches us otherwise. Human beings can understand a great deal without anything truly changing.

A child living with violence does not primarily need theories about violence.

The child needs adults who act.

A human being carrying shame does not only need analyses of shame.

That person needs another human being willing to remain present in the encounter.

Perhaps this is why practical philosophy can never become mere theory.

It must always return to life as it is actually lived between human beings.

To actions.

To responsibility.

To the moment itself.

Lundstøl also writes about the moment.

Not as something romantic or sentimental, but as the place where human freedom becomes real.

Life is not lived later.

It is lived now.

In an encounter.

In a decision.

In a responsibility.

There is something serious in this thought. Modern human beings often attempt to postpone life itself. We plan, organise, and analyse in the hope of avoiding a direct encounter with existence. Yet sooner or later we find ourselves standing there, in a concrete moment where something is at stake.

At such moments, more theories are not always enough.

Then it becomes a question of who we are.

The word “mature” or “responsible” may sound somewhat old-fashioned today.

But for Lundstøl it contains something deeply human.

The mature human being is not the triumphant human being. Not the efficient human being. Not the dominant human being.

The mature human being is someone who dares to stand within one’s own life.

Someone who chooses.

Someone who acts.

Someone who takes responsibility.

This is far more difficult than we often imagine.

Human beings naturally seek security. We want to blend into the systems around us. We seek confirmation, belonging, and ready-made answers. It is easier to follow the current than to bear the responsibility of one’s own choices.

But perhaps human maturity begins precisely there.

In the quiet moment when a person can no longer hide behind roles, systems, or the crowd.

When I read Lundstøl as a young man, I probably understood primarily the political dimension of the book. Its critique of positivism. Its criticism of systems. Its faith in action and social responsibility.

Today I read the book differently.

More existentially.

More quietly.

For beneath all the philosophical reflections lies a remarkably simple question:

How shall a human being live without losing oneself?

Perhaps this is the question that still makes the book alive.

For we live in a time when more and more of human life is organised through systems, technologies, and expert knowledge. Human beings are mapped, evaluated, and categorised with a precision earlier generations could hardly have imagined.

There is much necessary knowledge in this.

But at the same time a danger arises.

That the human being is gradually reduced to function.

To diagnosis.

To role.

To user.

And in the midst of this, Lundstøl attempts to hold onto something essential:

That the human being is always more than what can be described from the outside.

A human being is not merely something to be observed.

A human being is also freedom.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the book is its critique of paternalism.

Lundstøl describes paternalism as the denial of human freedom. When one person takes control over another person’s life without recognising that person’s independence, something fundamental is violated.

I have often thought about this through many years in social work.

For help can easily become control.

Care can become management.

Expertise can become power.

Most helpers genuinely want what is best. Yet good intentions are not enough if the person before us loses his or her own voice.

Real help perhaps begins only when we dare to meet the other as a human being — not as a project.

Toward the end of the book something interesting happens.

After all the reflections on freedom, action, and responsibility, the text gradually opens itself toward the religious dimension.

Not as dogma.

But as paradox.

Lundstøl turns toward the idea of strength through weakness. Of the human being who lives for others. Not through domination, but through service.

Reading this again today affected me deeply.

For perhaps there is an insight here that modern people easily lose sight of:

That genuine human strength does not necessarily reveal itself through control.

But through the ability to bear responsibility without losing one’s humanity.

Strong enough to act.

Gentle enough to suffer with others.

Some books end with a period.

Others end with an opening.

That is how I experience The Mature Human Being.

Lundstøl offers no final solutions. Perhaps that would itself have betrayed the entire project. For the mature human being cannot be created through formulas.

It must grow through life, experience, responsibility, and action.

Perhaps that is why I still return to this book.

Not because it gives me answers.

But because it reminds me of something modern human beings easily forget:

That freedom is not primarily about the ability to choose between alternatives.

Freedom is about daring to stand within one’s own life.

To act.

To take responsibility.

To live as a human being — not merely as a function within a system.

Perhaps this was what John Lundstøl attempted to express through his vision of the mature human being.

And perhaps that is why such books still need to be read.

Slowly.