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Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER XI: THE SELF-SATISFIED AGE
Page 3
So much merely to counteract our ingenuous tendency to believe that a superabundance of resources favours existence. Quite the contrary. A world superabundant[1] in possibilities automatically produces deformities, vicious types of human life, which may be brought under the general class, the "heir-man," of which the "aristocrat" is only one particular case, the spoiled child another, and the mass-man of our time, more fully, more radically, a third. (It would, moreover, be possible to make more detailed use of this last allusion to the "aristocrat," by showing how many of his characteristic traits, in all times and among all peoples, germinate in the mass-man. For example: his propensity to make out of games and sports the central occupation of his life; the cult of the body- hygienic regime and attention to dress; lack of romance in his dealings with woman; his amusing himself with the "intellectual," while at bottom despising him and at times ordering his flunkeys or his bravoes to chastise him; his preference for living under an absolute authority rather than under a regime of free-discussion,[2] etc.)
[1]The increase, and even the abundance, of resources are not to be confused with the excess. In the XIXth Century the facifities of life increase, and this produces the amazing growth-quantitative and qualitative-of life that I have noted above. But a moment has come when the civilised world, in relation to the capacity of the average man, has taken on an appearance of superabundance, of excess of riches, of superfluity. A single example of this: the security seemingly offered by progress (i.e. the ever-growing increase of vital advantages) demoralised the average man, inspiring him with a confidence which is false, vicious, and atrophying.
[2]In this, as in other matters, the English aristocracy seems to be an exception to what we have said. But though the case is an admirable one, it would suffice to indicate in outline the history of England in order to show that this exception proves the rule. Contrary to what is usually said, the English nobility has been the least "superabundant" of Europe, and has lived in more constant danger than any other. And because it has always lived in danger, it has succeeded in winning respect for itself- which implies that it has ceaselessly remained in the breach. The fundamental fact is forgotten that England was until well on into the XVIIIth Century the poorest country in Western Europe. It was this fact that saved the nobility. Not being abundant in resources, it had very early to enter into commercial and industrial occupation- 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 privileges. See Olbricht, Klima and Entwicklung, 1923.