The Revolt of the Masses

I recently read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Ortega y Gasset's book is delightful on its own, but the contrast with Haidt's book really brings out its excellence. Of course Ortega y Gasset is as profound as Haidt is shallow, but it goes much further. A cornerstone of Ortega y Gasset's book is the notion of civilization, in contrast with natural man. Civilized man conceives the project of living with strangers in order to pursue some greater mission. Haidt's book is essential an apology for natural man. Haidt views civilization as a fraud. Here, Ortega y Gasset is an eloquent champion of civilization.

Along the way there are just wonderful insights. An authentic person will face the chaos and uncertainty of life, while an show more unauthentic person will paper over all that with platitudes.

Here around 1930, Ortega y Gasset is proposing the European Union as the proper next step in the European project. The struggles between the European nations were part of the process of negotiation, accommodation, etc. It's looking like nowadays the big conflict brewing might be the USA versus China. Certainly since 1930, China has continued to wrestle with Western ways, adopting and integrating and transforming. Are Europe and the USA incorporating Chinese values and practices? I don't have the perspective to be able to see any answer. Hmmm, how much is the current Trump mania a produce of the red scare of the 1950s, driven by Madame Chiang Kai-shek. Well then too, look at the influence of the newspaper The Epoch Times, controlled by the Falun Gong cult out of China.

Anyway, Revolt of the Masses is a jewel! show less

L’uomo nuovo descritto nel 1930 da Ortega Y Gasset da ha la presunzione di sentirsi “come tutto il mondo”, senza darsene pensiero. La mancanza di responsabilità è la sua natura; la barbarie la condotta tramite cui attua la “ribellione” che dà titolo il libro:

«Interverrà dovunque, imponendo la sua volgare opinione, senza miraggi, senza contemplazioni, senza tramiti né riserve, vale a dire, secondo un regime di “azione diretta”».

L’uomo-massa è un “saggio ignorante”, forte delle sue conoscenze parcellizzate ma del tutto all’oscuro dei saperi che la sua specializzazione non esplora, verso i quali si pone tuttavia con la petulanza di chi sa di sapere.

In my reading of The Revolt of the Masses I would emphasize Ortega y Gasset's discussion of the new world (circa 1930) as one of "practically limitless possibilities".(p 61) This is a view that he contrasts with the past where the masses felt themselves limited, and rightly so. If anything, eighty years after the first publication of this book there are even larger groups of people that have the possibility of fewer limits on the progress of their lives. However he does not see any guarantee that progress will be the result and later in his book he discusses the danger of the modern state as a limiting factor. Even in western democracies we have seen the power of the state grow over the past eighty years since Ortega y Gasset's show more observations. I wonder if the nobility within mankind will be able to continue to move forward and not be limited by the masses of average men. show less

Surprisingly, and causing disappointment among ideologues of political parties, OyG does not spend much time analyzing "liberal" and "conservative" conflicts, but perceives a rising lay and expert divide. In fact, this 1929 work flatly states that the masses hate experts.

OyG predicts what we see now in the world -- opera companies going bankrupt but pop stars who cannot compose (can you even say Bieber with a straight face) making millions (Beiber made $80 million in 2013). Consumers look at Yelp reviews rather than journalist specialists or experts. Popular Science turned off "comments" because they added so little to the science.

This short book contains many speculations and there is repetition of the points he is making -- perhaps to show more make certain of the "historicity" he teaches. But I find that OyG addresses issues that still resonate today. For example, the rise of consumerism; the possibility for barbarism to flourish among the wealthy or in tandem with technology; specialization which favors science over the humanities; “the loss of prestige of legislative assemblies.” Disrespect for academic achievement.

OyG looks at and describes dysfunctional society, not from Left and Right, or even rich and poor, but from the perspective of the uninformed social "mass" and the informed scientific elite. A kind of ‘up’ versus ‘down’, individual reasoning vs herd instinct. show less

I first heard about and read Ortega in a college Existentialism class and I quickly found out that while he didn't possess the household name power of Kierkegaard or Sartre, he did some quality work, is highly respected among philosophical circles leaning in that position, and for some reason has never really gotten the recognition some of his peers did. Nonetheless, I think this is one of his best works and encourage you to pick this up if such an area interests you...

La obra más difundida y famosa de Ortega y Gasset.
José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid, 1883-1955), doctor en Filosofía y Letras, amplió estudios en las Universidades de Leipzig, Berlín y Marburgo, consiguiendo a los veintisiete años la cátedra de Metafísica de la Universidad Central. En 1923 fundaRevista de Occidente, una de las publicaciones culturales de mayor prestigio internacional. LA REBELIÓN DE LAS MASAS, publicado por primera vez en 1930, es la obra más difundida y famosa de Ortega. Como nos explica Julián Marías en su Introducción, el libro va pareciendo más verdadero, más fiel a la realidad a medida que pasa el tiempo. La razón de su renovada actualidad confirma el carácter filosófico de esa obra frente el show more significado político que con frecuencia se le ha atribuido erróneamente. «Pienso que toda vida–dice Ortega- ... se compone de puros instantes, cada uno de los cuales está relativamente indeterminado respecto al anterior, de suerte que en él la realidad vacila..., y no sabe bien si decidirse por una u otra entre varias posibilidades. Este titubeo metafísico proporciona a todo lo vital esa inconfundible cualidad de vibración y estremecimiento». show less

"As regards to dictatorships, we have seen only too well how they flatter the mass-man, by trampling on everything that appeared to be above the common level."

Although penned in the early XXth century, very appropriate to those with an open mind on what is happening politically today.