Why Is the Crowd Important in Existentialism?

Why is The Crowd Important in Existentialism?

The crowd is important in existentialism because the gives you an idea of what existentialism dislikes. In existentialism you deal with exploring the individual’s way or the individuals mind. But the crowd represents everything outside of the mind, things, or objects that can influence the mind, basically the other. The existentialist would say anything that deals with your mind or your consciousness is what is important and would take a stand against the crowd. Soren Kierkegaard is one that stands on this thought in existentialism.

Kierkegaard definition of the crowd will be the world and he feels that the world represents untruths. He illustrates that if an individual were by himself then his thoughts would be true but as soon as you put him in a crowd around noise, around other thoughts they would be persuaded to the untruth. Whenever you're in a crowd the thought is that you can learn from one another, be influenced by one another and Kierkegaard dislikes this because he wants you to be separate from one another. He wants you to be an individual, someone that's not influenced by the world but one that makes his own decisions. In Kierkegaard’s writings he makes a reference to Paul. Paul says “only one attends the goal” so it gives the idea that obtaining the goal is an individual effort. Doing this effort you shouldn't take others into account for salvation is not corporate but individual. So even in salvation the goal is being the individual and not the crowd.

Another view that is shared in this story is how you can reach your highest point or highest potential. It is said in order to have the highest aim it should be the “one” or the individual with the individual effort. The feeling would be if you’re trying to reach the prize by yourself then you are letting God be the helper to get you there but if you are with a crowd of people you’re trying to reach one another's earthly aim.

Kierkegaard also shares an opinion dealing with subjective and objective truth. Subjectivity is dealing with your relationship with someone, how you feel, your inner being. Objectivity looks at the outward you; you're height, weight or size. So if you were talking about God and you started describing his attributes anything dealing with the outside