6 - The Good of Community

Summary

Julian Young aims to establish that Nietzsche values the flourishing of the community, in opposition to the traditional view that he cares most about the individual, and in particular the exceptional individual. Young approaches this task by examining Nietzsche's books in chronological order and noting how each of them, in one manner or another, exhibits a concern with the community. Young argues that for Nietzsche the higher or exceptional individual is "valuable only as a means to the flourishing of the social organism in its totality". Much of his evidence for this claim concerns the communal roles and responsibilities that Nietzsche attributes to members of the higher types. For Nietzsche the value of the community and the individual might depend on the nature of their respective internal hierarchical structures, and notably this is not unrelated to their respective instrumental value for one another.