Written in 1929, says that the European nations are no longer assumed to be the leaders of the World, causing angst for their societies, “He has found out that he is ‘less’ than he was before, for previously [he] believed... that he was the universe. This is, to my mind, the true source of that feeling of decadence...” This led to nationalism amongst “the masses,” entirely social perceptions and constructs of their place in the World. Population in Europe swelled in the late 1800s, unlike never before, expanding about 3X (180->460mil 1800->1914) due to industrialization; this led to more scarcity, and man’s trying to find a place to fit in. At the same time, man’s knowledge of how small he is has greatly increased, with technology bringing knowledge of the other parts of the world, what goes on there, the vast number of humanity, the history of the World, etc. “...the number of occupations in primitive life can almost be counted on the fingers of one hand—shepherd, hunter, warrior, seer.” Specialization of profession led to people withdrawing from culture, from being a “Renaissance man,” thus there was a new lack of deference for the educated "superior” minorities, those who think and those who dare to imagine what could be. Furthermore, the specialist, say, a scientist, is in fact very learned at his specialization; he mistakes this expertise as being expert at all things, the political, what have you, when in fact he is not considerate, aware, or expert at such situations, “we shall have to say that he is a learned ignoramus, which is a very serious matter, as it implies that he is a person who is not ignorant, not in the fashion of the ignorant man, but with all the petulance of one who is learned in his own special line.” “For there is no doubt that the most radical division that is possible to make of humanity is that which splits it into two classes of creatures: those who make great demands on themselves, piling up difficulties and duties; and those who demand nothing special of themselves, but for whom to live is to be every moment what they already are, without imposing on themselves any waves... The division of society into masses and select minorities is, then, not a division into social classes, but into classes of men...” The way the mass man assets his political will is through violence; the author foresaw Nazi Germany, as well as predicted the necessity for a project with joined Europe together in hegemony, the EU. “To-day we are witnessing the triumphs of a hyperdemocracy in which the mass acts directly, outside the law, imposing its aspirations and its desires by means of material pressure.” “The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select. Anybody who is not like everybody, who does not think like everybody, runs the risk of being eliminated.” Of science, subjectivity, significance, and the mass, “Einstein’s physics arose through attention to minute differences which previously were despised and disregarded as seeming of no importance. The atom, yesterday the final limit of the world, turns out to-day to have swollen to such an extent that it becomes a planetary system.” “...we live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance... [the World] simply drifts.” “The mass-man is he whose life lacks any purpose, and simply goes drifting along. Consequently, though his possibilities and his powers be enormous, he constructs nothing. And it is this type of man who decides in our time.” The “mass man” takes the state, and the need to defend and maintain liberal democracy, for granted. He wants all of the rights and none of the obligations. The mass man is, in a phrase, a spoiled child. “This leads us to note down in our psychological chart of the mass-man of to-day two fundamental traits: the free expansion of his vital desires, and therefore, of his personality; and his radical ingratitude towards all that has made possible the ease of his existence.” “[The masses] are only concerned with their own well-being, and at the same time they remain alien to the cause of that well-being... In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the mob goes in search of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries. This may serve as a symbol of the attitude adopted... towards the civilization by which [the masses] are supported.” “Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude. Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental. Hence he does not look upon the necessity of serving as an oppression. When, by chance, such necessity is lacking, he grows restless and invents some new standard, more difficult, more exigent, with which to coerce himself. This is a life lived as a discipline—the noble life. Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us—by obligations, not by rights.” “In this way the noble life stands opposed to the common or inert life, which reclines statically upon itself, condemned to perpetual immobility, unless an external force compels it to come out of itself.” This echoes Peterson’s difference between the average person and the “hero.” One ought not to use this burden as a means for moral superiority, as is so often done in politics. “As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men—and of women—are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion... the few individuals we have come across who are capable of a spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated...” The mass-man, “accepts the stock of commonplaces, prejudices, fag-ends of ideas or simply empty words which chance has piled up within his mind, and with a boldness only explicable by his ingenuousness, is prepared to impose them everywhere.” The mass man does not think, but he thinks himself worthy of imposing his will everywhere. “He wishes to have opinions, but is unwilling to accept the conditions and presuppositions that underlie all opinion. Hence his ideas are in effect nothing more than appetites in words...”, wants as opinions. “...the highest form of intercommunion is the dialogue in which the reasons for our ideas are discussed. But the mass-man would feel himself lost if he accepted discussion, and instinctively repudiates the obligation of accepting that supreme authority lying outside himself... all the normal processes are suppressed in order to arrive directly at the imposition of what is desired... direct action.” Thus, like J.S. Mill, thinks that people can be subjected to standards (and to gain understanding) through dialogue; but, the masses do not want to understand. “That state of ‘not listening,’ of not submitting to higher courts of appeal... reaches its height precisely in these partially qualified men” (the specialists). “Liberalism...is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded in this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak... it is not to be wondered at that this same humanity should soon appear anxious to get rid of it. It is a discipline too difficult and complex to take firm root on earth.” Thus, the masses do not want to have to tolerate the minorities; they want to trample them (in this case, the educated minorities). “Share our existence with the enemy! Govern with the opposition!” No, thank you, says the mass. “There are so few countries where an opposition exists. In almost all, a homogenous mass weighs down on public authority and crushes down, annihilates every opposing group.” (See theorcracies). “Civilisation is not ‘just there,’ it is not self-supporting. It is artificial and requires the artist or the artisan. If you want to make use of the advantages of civilisation, but are not prepared to concern yourself with the upholding of civilisation—you are done.” Liberalism needs to be worked at, or it can be torn down from within. “Every anti is nothing more than a simple, empty No. This would be all very nice and fine if with a good round No we could annihilate the past. But the past is of its essence a revenant. If put out, it comes back, inevitably. Hence, the only way to separate from it is not to put it out, but to accept its existence, and so to behave in regard to it as to dodge it, to avoid it.” Thus, toppling statues does not right the past; we must know the past so we can avoid those things which are bad in it. “Conservative and Radical are none the less mass, and the difference between them—which at every period has been very superficial—does not in the least prevent them both being one and the same man.” The author calls instead for rule by men who are aware of the current level, look to the past for history, and dare to escape it; those who are actually immersed, not the so-called expert Technocrats, who are scientists or economists who assume themselves the directors of the world. Of those who come from privilege, and those who do not, “The difficulties which I meet with in order to realise my existence are precisely what awaken and mobilise my activities, my capacities.” Thus, aristocracy never learns to grow themselves due to abundance, and their life atrophies; this may be true of many classes of people in society who experience certain kinds of abundance, such as those members of society on whom attention is showered. Of Spain’s decline, a footnote, “Not being abundant in resources, [England] had very early to enter into commercial and industrial occupations—considered ignoble on the Continent—that is to say, it decided very soon to lead an economic existence creative in character, and not to depend solely on its privilege.” This economic creativity lived on in the United States, which revolted against England. Modern man is wowed by existence, by all that he can have, but is “ignorant how difficult it is to invent those medicines” and other things, doesn’t realize the potential instability of the state; these “self-satisfied" men can lead to the regression of society, if no one steps up to protect from degeneration. “Destiny does not consist in what we feel we should like to do; rather is it recognised in its clear features in the consciousness that we must do what we do not feel like doing.” People either accept or reject their destiny. “The only efforts that are being made are to escape from our real destiny, to blind ourselves to its evidence, to be deaf to its deep appeal, to avoid facing up to what has to be. We are living in comic fashion, all the more comic the more apparently tragic is the mask adopted... The mass-man... prefers a fictitious existence suspended in air.” Thus, the mass-man cares about nothing, has no substance, and thoughtlessly floats along. “...man, whether he like it or no, is a being forced by his nature to seek some higher authority. If he succeeds in finding it of himself, he is a superior man; if not, he is a mass-man and must receive it from his superiors.” Thus, self-realization, vs. religion, ideology, or what have you. Says the modern state is one of the greatest things imagined by man, spearheaded by Julius Ceasar; “He sees it [the state], admires it, knows that there it is, safeguarding his existence; but he is not conscious of the fact that it is a human creation invented by certain men and upheld by certain virtues and fundamental qualities which the men of yesterday had and which may vanish into air to-morrow.” The mass-man also believes the state is his, “Suppose that in the public life of a country some difficulty, conflict, or problem presents itself, the mass-man will tend to demand that the State intervene immediately and undertake a solution directly with its immense and unassailable resources.” This points out how the state removes the need for anyone to take action; it is “the state’s job” to do so. “When the man suffers any ill-fortune or simply feels some strong appetite, its great temptation is that permanent, sure possibility of obtaining everything—without effort, struggle, doubt, or risk—merely by touching a button and setting the mighty machine [the State] in motion.” Says that rule is generally exercised by public opinion, “Never has anyone ruled on this earth by basing his rule essentially on any other thing than public opinion.” “without a spiritual power, without someone to command...chaos reigns over mankind.” Because the mass man is “people without opinions—the majority..” The majority do not know what to think, so look to the others, to the sky, to be told what to believe. People are capable of saying they do not trust the government, do not like it, do not want it, but they do not know what to put in its place (I.e. Noam Chomsky). “... they are incapable of creating others, they do not know what to do, and to pass the time they kick up their heels and stand on their heads. Such is the first consequence which follows when there ceases to be in the world anyone who rules; the rest, when they break into rebellion, are left without a task to perform, without a programme of life.” “... if in no country is it to-day clear, even theoretically, what it is that has to be done, there is no sense in accusing institutions of being inefficient.” Thus, we must know what direction the institutions ought to take, before they can be criticized. Of human nature and natural behaviors vs. learned, one must see beyond the ‘mask,’ “And the ‘gesture’ which has been learnt, accepted, has always a double aspect, its real meaning is oblique, not direct. The man who performs an act which he has learnt—speaks a foreign word, for example—carries out beneath it an act of his own, genuine; he translates the foreign term to his own language. Hence, in order to penetrate camouflage an oblique glance is required, the glance of one who is translating a text with the dictionary by his side.” One must live with a purpose, “On the one hand, to live is something which each one does of himself and for himself. On the other hand, if that life of mine, which only concerns myself, is not directed by me towards something, it will be disjointed, lacking in tension... we are witnessing the gigantic spectacle of innumerable human lives wandering about lost in their own labyrinths, through not having anything to which to give themselves.” “Give over to itself, every life has been left empty, with nothing to do. And as it has to be filled with something, it invents frivolities for itself, gives itself to false occupations... Life is lost at finding itself all alone. Mere egoism is a labyrinth... Really to live is to be directed towards something, to progress towards a goal. The goal is not my motion, not my life, it is the something to which I put my life and which consequently is outside it, beyond it. If I decide to walk alone inside my own existence, egoistically, I make no progress. I arrive nowhere. I keep turning round and round in the one spot... Since the war the European has shut himself up within himself, has been left without projects either for himself or for others.” “... in the long run what he is ordered to do is to take his share in an enterprise, in a historic destiny. Hence there is no empire without a programme of life; more precisely, without a programme of imperial life.” Thus, purpose is needed, for people, and for nations. “When we are really going to do something and have dedicated ourselves to a purpose, we cannot be expected to be ready at hand to look after every passer-by and to lend ourselves to every chance display of altruism. One of the things that most delight travelers in Spain is that if they ask someone in the street where such a building or square is, the man asked will often turn aside from his own path and generously sacrifice himself to the stranger... I have never, when hearing or reading of this, been able to repress a suspicion: “Was my countryman, when thus questioned, really going anywhere?” Because it might very well be, in many cases, that the Spaniard is going nowhere, has no purpose or mission, but rather goes out into life to see if others’ lives can fill his own a little...” It is hard to accomplish anything if you are constantly distracted; if you are not trying to accomplish anything, distraction is not a bother. “I have nothing to do with the trees of the field, I have to do only with the man of the city.” -Socrates (of the polis). “...the history of Greece and of Rome consists of an incessant struggle between these two spaces: between the rational city and the vegetable country...”, a debate that plays out to this day. “Synoikismos Is the resolution to live together... The city is the superhouse, the supplanting of the infra-human abode or nest, the creation of an entity higher and more abstract than the oikos of the family...” The state is a product of imagination; races and tongues mix. “Take stock of those around you and you will see them wandering about lost through life, like sleep-walkers in the midst of their good or evil fortune, without the slightest suspicion of what is happening to them... they hardly reflect in any way the reality to which they appear to refer, and if you go deeper you will discover that there is not even an attempt to adjust the ideas to this reality. Quite the contrary: through these notions the individual is trying to cut off any personal vision of reality, of his very own life...” These are not people with the “really clear head,” but are people who are lost in life, who do not see clearly. “It does not worry him that his ‘ideas’ are not true, he uses them as trenches for the defence of his existence, as scarecrows to frighten away reality.” “...to live is to feel oneself lost—he who accepts it has already begun to find himself... Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look round for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. He who does not really feel himself lost, is lost without remission; that is to say, he never finds himself, never comes up against his own reality.” This is the hero, the man with the clear head, who bucks all convention, and looks within. “The health of democracies, of whatever type and range, depends on a wretched technical detail—electoral procedure.” “...what we are going to be to-morrow, joins us together in the State.” “Blood, language, and common past are static principles, fatal, rigid, inert; they are prisons. If the nation consisted in these and nothing more, it would be something lying behind us, something with which we should have no concern.” “Whether we like it or not, human life is a constant preoccupation with the future.” People are united in the state with their common interests, economic, intellectual, and moral, even if they see people as “others,” eventually forming a national unity. The state leads to homogeneity, leading to shared “mental stock”, standards, desires, assumptions, across all of, say, Europe. “Nationalism is always an effort in a direction opposite to that of the principle which creates nations. The former is exclusive in tendency, the latter inclusive... it is the opposite of a historical creation.” Nations are created in order to bind people together, to create peace. The homogeneity that results is not a cause for thinking “there is nothing left to be done, so let’s burn it all down.” “...if it decides to act the revolutionary; the apparent enthusiasm for the manual worker, for the afflicted and for social justice, serves as a mask to facilitate the refusal of all obligations, such as courtesy, truthfulness, and above all, respect or esteem for superior individuals.” Thus, the revolutionary can be revolutionary or social justicey at all costs, because they are, in the words of Sowell, the morally anointed; while Ortega Y Gasset is very elitist in his writing, there is a subjective truth in his writing, that perhaps it is sometimes better to yield to someone who may have superior knowledge on a subject (an actual expert). Despite his elitism, he makes a ringing defense for liberal democracy, and the call to live together.
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