Kierkegaard & commitment

Kierkegaard argues that our primary access to reality is not through critical detachment, but in involved commitment.  How can we get meaning and commitment back into our lives once we have gotten into the passionless, reflective attitude we are now in?  If you can commit yourself unconditionally – in love for instance – then that becomes a focus for your whole sense of reality. Things stand out or recede into insignificance on the basis of that ultimate concern… when you define yourself by your dedication to that concern, your world acquires seriousness, and significance…. As our culture comes more & more to celebrate critical detachment, self-sufficiency, & rational choice, there are fewer & fewer shared commitments.  So, commitment itself beings to look like craziness…. when there are no shared examples of greatness that focus public concerns and elicit social commitment, people become spectators of fads & public lives, just for the excitement.   Dreyfus, Hubert L.  “Heidegger on the Connection between Nihilism, Art, Technology & Politics”