Kierkegaard and Nietzsche on Individuality Research Paper (Essay Sample)

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Kierkegaard and Nietzsche on Individuality
Existentialism is a philosophical branch centered on analyzing the existence of human beings in the world. A common concept associated with existentialism is that the existence of people comes first followed by a lifetime spent by an individual on working to change their nature or essence. Existentialism relies on the belief that humans are in continuous search for whom and what they are throughout their life. This is the essence of individualism. This process is augmented by the decisions they make based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook on life. However, societal rules and norms that rely on a crowd or herd mentality strain this process. The purpose of this paper is to provide a comparison between the philosophical theories of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche with particular regard to their interpretation of individuality.
Existentialism encompasses themes such as irrationality, existences, the crowd, situatedness, freedom, anxiety, and authenticity. It also encompasses concepts such as free will, human nature, personal responsibility and discipline, the futility of worldly desires and the society as it is unnatural. A consequence of the unnaturalness of the society is that its traditional religious and secular rules are rendered arbitrary. The key philosophers on existentialism include Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. Both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard stressed the importance of individuality in their philosophies. However, there might be certain differences and similarities in their philosophies of individuality.
Soren Kierkegaard on Individuality
Soren Kierkegaard is considered one of the first existentialist philosophers. His philosophy regarding individuality was based on the concept of individuals versus the crowd. He believed that people’s incapacity to quietly contemplate resulted in a separation from their true self and instead led to the adoption, through passive absorption, of the ideas of others. Similarly, he lamented the tendency of individuals to take up the values of the more dominant members of the crowd rather than each having a quiet commune by themselves. Consequently, he found that unhappiness was inevitable. It is, therefore, fair to say that Kierkegaard’s concept of individuality was pinned on the premise that individuality is gained by neglecting the crowd’s thought and action processes and concentrating on personal quiet commune moments in seclusion to obtain individual values.
Kierkegaard also argued that most people find it very difficult to live as individuals and thus prefer to conform with the crowd. However, there are two views of life regarding the crowd. One view conceives that wherever the crowd is, there is the truth while the other view conceives the opposite, that is, wherever the crowd is, there is an untruth. Considering the latter concept, it is logical to state that “even if every individual, each for himself in private, were to be in possession of the truth, yet in case they were all to get together in a crowd, a crowd to which any decisive significance is attributed, a voting, noisy, audible crowd, untruth would at once be in evidence” (Solomon, P. 32). This is demonstrative of the loss of individuality when the crowd is involved seeing as it pushes people into abandoning their real truths to conform to its idea of the truth.
Besides the crowd conformity, Kierkegaard also described individuality in terms of Christian concepts. He claimed that religious affirmations cease to exist and instead become more of a social adherence in the face of pressure from societal forces. The consequence is moral degradation of individuals. Kierkegaard believed in the objective truth of Christian theism over subjective truth. Solomon posits, “What would be the use of discovering so-called objective truth, of mastering all the systems of philosophy and of being able to discuss them all and reveal the inconsistencies within each; what good would it do me to be able to develop a theory of the state and synthesize all details into one whole, and so to create a world I did not live in, but only held up for others to see” (Solomon, P.7). Similarly, Kierkegaard emphasized the power of subjective truth in transforming an individual through devotion to a single commitment. This commitment to a subjective truth, therefore, is the solution for the restoration of human salvation. That means restoring the self-fulfillment of individuals through absolute faith in conviction.
Friedrich Nietzsche on Individuality
Nietzsche is often regarded as a very individualistic thinker. His concern has mainly been with the well-being of a few chosen individuals with little interest towards the crowd. That is because he regards the herd or the crowd as either a hindrance or help to the exceptionally gifted people and their self-cultivation projects. According to Nietzsche’s philosophical beliefs on the herd, “Values can be defended only insofar as they maximize one’s power” (Solomon, P. 65). This assertion reiterates how the crowd can either support or disregard the values of the few based on how well they enable people to maximize their spiritual power. In this way, Nietzsche is correct to concern himself with the few because their values and projects control the crowd.
Just like Kierkegaard, Nietzsche also had opinions about Christianity. He asserted the need for the end of the Christian doctrine, and in its place individuals would create their values. That is because Nietzsche believed that the Christian doctrine inhibited people from being responsive and concerned with their mortal existence by exuding a negative conception of...