IntroductionIndividuality refers to the existential philosophy and ideology that considers and emphasizes the moral worth of the individual by promoting the importance of his goals and desires. Individuality (sometimes called “individualism”) values ​​each person’s independence and autonomy. It advocates that the interests of the individual must come before those of the State or their social group. It strongly opposes external interference in an individual's interests by society at large or even established institutions like the government. On the other hand, authenticity refers to the extent to which a person is true to their own personality, spirit, and character, despite the external pressures they face. In existentialism, a person's conscious self is said to be "authentic" if it is able to accept existing in a material world and encounter forces from other factors in that world. These external pressures and influences are often seen as very different from – or in conflict with – a person's inner consciousness. In the field of existentialism, there are two renowned philosophers and scholars whose ideas and postulations we will compare and contrast in this article. : the German philosopher Martin Heidegger and the Danish theologian and philosopher SørenAabye Kierkegaard.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay While Kierkegaard places a lot of emphasis on individuality and having an inner self that directs a person's consciousness (Kierkegaard, 31), Heidegger places great emphasis on value authenticity (while also avoiding inauthenticity). These are the two positions of the two philosophers that this article will focus on, comparing their similarities and contrasting their differences to explain their ideas on existentialism. My Argument Heidegger and Kierkegaard deal almost exhaustively with the concept of individuality and authenticity. They differ on many points, but also have similar arguments on many points. According to Kierkegaard, authenticity depends heavily on discovering genuine faith and becoming true to oneself. He develops the idea that the media – much like the bourgeois Church and Christianity – are human factors that present major challenges for a person trying to live their life authentically (Kierkegaard, 33). In this regard, Kierkegaard views both the news media and the Christian Church as agents intervening in a person's life and preventing them from experiencing their true life experiences, authenticity, and even unity with God . To resolve this conflict, Kierkegaard therefore suggests that a person should take steps to choose to surrender to something whose scope is beyond comprehension. He calls it an act of faith towards religion. Even if an individual is reluctant to devote his efforts to developing his own views, he has a duty to do so if he is to discover an authentic faith that is motivated by the desire of his inner self. In his Being and Time, Martin Heidegger is primarily interested in understanding the particular brand of existence and consciousness that is unique to each person. Heidegger's philosophy is therefore interested in what it means to be human. It’s a unique human existence that he calls Dasein – a German word that is often translated into English as “being there.” As a term, Dasein was also used in the same way, although not in exactly the same way, by German philosophers who precededHeidegger. . Instead of simply considering the existence of consciousness as the primary distinguishing characteristic of the human condition, like many philosophers before Heideggerdid, he proposes our time-governed existence as human beings as the defining characteristic. By this, Heidegger wants us to understand that human consciousness is always made up of the past, the present and the future. Human beings are aware of their mortality at the end of this life and always look forward to the next stage of their lives. While Heidegger considers interhuman relationships to be a very important characteristic of the authenticity of human existence, Kierkegaard seems to place a lot of emphasis on the importance of the inner self in the consciousness of being human. For Kierkegaard, large-scale politics and the pressures of society as a whole take on a surprisingly imposing character. Such a threat targets the most fundamental goods of human existence: the authenticity and individuality of each person. On the other hand, Heidegger presents these threats in terms of four key interconnected concepts: authenticity, the “fall,” anxiety or anguish, and the “they.” Heidegger speaks of the importance of “publicness” and mass society, alluding to an ideal balance of political affairs toward which all human beings should strive (Heidegger, 135). Although Heidegger studies the nature of his philosophy of Dasein without making any ethical or normative judgment, he seems to agree with Kierkegaard on the importance of maintaining individuality (like the authenticity of the human being) at a very high level. estimated. In this regard, however, Heidegger's definition of "publicity" as mass society seems to destroy the authenticity of Dasein and is therefore an evil. Heidegger therefore considers the “authentic” to be more virtuous and ultimately more desirable in the human existential sphere than the “inauthentic”. According to Heidegger, “they” and “others” are at minimum vaguely pejorative labels of “the inauthentic” that Heidegger uses to denote the importance of societal pressures on an individual (Heidegger, 118). Heidegger also introduces the concept of “distancing,” which is Dasein’s sense of its distance from other people in the existential world (Heidegger, 125). “Distancing,” along with averageness and “levelling down,” are the existential qualities (or “ways of being”) of the “they” and, furthermore, constitute the content of “public character.” The “race to the bottom” appears to be the phenomenon of reducing all things to the average or status quo. One way of thinking about the latter term that I believe captures its essence in a way easily understood by contemporary readers is the oft-lamented "lowest common denominator" appeal of most mainstream film and television. . “Publicity proximally controls every way in which the world and Dasein are interpreted,” says Heidegger, and this “way” seems to imply a massive dumbing down of everything. In a striking statement, hammering home the magnitude of the threat that mass society poses to Dasein, Heidegger asserts that “everyone is the other and no one is himself.” Kierkegaard underlines a crucial point of the Heideggerian concept of the “they” which is lost. in translation: Kierkegaard and Heidegger both translate “das Man” as “they”, by analogy with usages such as “They always say that…”; but this implies much more “otherness” than “das Man” (Kierkegaard, 1844). The point here is that Heidegger's idea of ​​“das Man” involves an identification of oneself with “others”; “'We always say...' clearly shows that I include myself in this way of speaking. ».