European Forum ||| Blog ||| Special Homages : Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield
| |
|
|
|
|
|
Start |||
The
Philosophical Europe ||| The Political Progress ||| European Witness
European Forum ||| Blog ||| Special Homages : Meister Eckhart / David Copperfield |
|
Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER XI: THE SELF-SATISFIED AGE
Page 6
What the home is in relation to society, such on a larger scale is one nation before the assemblage of nations. One of the manifestations, at once most evident and overwhelming, of the ruling "self-satisfaction" is, as we shall see, the determination taken by some nations to "do what they jolly well please" in the consortium of nations. This, in their ingenuousness, they call "nationalism." I, who detest all false submission to internationalism, find absurd, on the other hand, this passing phase of self-conceit on the part of the least developed of the nations. Even though it be proved, with full and incontrovertible evidence, that there is falsity and fatality in all the concrete shapes under which the attempt has been made to realise the categorical imperative of political liberty, inscribed on the destiny of Europe, the final evidence that in the last century it was right in substance still holds good. This final evidence is present equally in the European Communist as in the Fascist, whatever attitudes they may adopt to convince themselves to the contrary. All "know" that beyond all the just criticisms launched against the manifestations of liberalism there remains its unassailable truth, a truth not theoretic, scientific, intellectual, but of an order radically different and more decisive, namely, a truth of destiny. Theoretic truths not only are disputable, but their whole meaning and force lie in their being disputed, they spring from discussion. They live as long as they are discussed, and they are made exclusively for discussion. But destiny- what from a vital point of view one has to be or has not to be- is not discussed, it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept it, we are genuine; if not, we are the negation, the falsification of ourselves.[3] 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.
[3]Abasement, degradation is simply the manner of life of the man who has refused to be what it is his duty to be. This, his genuine being, none the less does not die; rather is changed into an accusing shadow, a phantom which constantly makes him feel the inferiority of the life he lives compared with the one he ought to live. The debased man survives his self-inflicted death.