Make-up Blog: The Individual or the Crowd?

I've come across two philosophers that recognize the need of a plan for mankind and then propose their solutions or plans. The first that I came across was Immanuel Kant and the other being the great madman Nietzsche. Kant in his “Idea of a Universal History of Mankind from a Cosmopolitan Point of View” states that nature has a great pedestal in store for man, but that man should earn it in order to fully appreciate whence he reaches there. Kant then classifies all that is happening whether good or bad, as a culmination of processes that will lead man towards his pedestal; call it a kind of building up and learning from errors method. He then proposes that in order for man to reach his pedestal he must first succeed in attaining a ‘perfect civic constitution’; wherein there is justice for all. Don’t quote me on this, but I think in Kant’s opinion this could have been achieved by the ‘league of nations’. By the league of nations Kant did not mean an overarching government, but rather a union wherein the states retain their sovereignty and treat those from other states with respect.

On the other hand Nietzsche talks about how when subjectivity arises; as we see after the world war 2, that this leads to Nihilism and consequently the death of the society. For Nietzsche the ‘death of God’ meant the absence of a central moral authority due to which ultimately the society would crumble. The meaning and implication of Nietzsche’s work cannot be reproduced here. However, the interested can visit ( https://spursinn.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/nietzsche-and-nihilism/ ) for a brief and better understanding. Nietzsche’s solution was then for humanity to strive towards making the Ubermensch. Ubermensch, in essence is the last man whom would be transcendent than the rest and would provide the world with moral values.

My understanding of Nietzsche is very weak, but in my opinion the difference between his and Kant’s solution is that whereas Kant focuses on making a league or a collective organization; Nietzsche stresses the individual and believes that it would be the best solution for humanity to strive towards. That is striving towards creating the Ubermensch. I know at this point all of this is very confusing. However, the point I’m trying to make is whether the solution is in the herd or the individual. It’s kind of democracy vs Plato’s philosopher king.