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Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER IV: THE INCREASE OF LIFE
Page 6
This of itself would not be a bad symptom; it would mean that we are once again forming contact with that insecurity which is essential to all forms of life, that anxiety both dolorous and delicious contained in every moment, if we know how to live it to its innermost core, right down to its palpitating vitals. Generally we refuse to feel that fearsome pulsation which makes of a moment of sincerity a tiny fleeting heart; we strain in the attempt to find security and to render ourselves insensible to the fundamental drama of our destiny, by steeping it in habits, usages, topics- in every kind of chloroform. It is an excellent thing, then, that for the first time for nearly three centuries we are surprised to find ourselves with the feeling that we do not know what is going to happen to-morrow.
Every man who adopts a serious attitude before his own existence and makes himself fully responsible for it will feel a certain kind of insecurity which urges him to keep ever on the alert. The gesture which the Roman Army Orders imposed on the sentinel of the Legion was that he should keep his finger on his lips to avoid drowsiness and to maintain his alertness. The gesture has its value, it seems to ordain an even greater silence during the silence of the night, so as to be able to catch the sound of the secret germination of the future. The security of periods of "plenitude"- such as the last century- is an optical illusion which leads to neglect of the future, all direction of which is handed over to the mechanism of the universe. Both progressive Liberalism and Marxist Socialism presume that what is desired by them as the best or possible futures will be necessarily realised, with necessity similar to that of astronomy. With consciences lulled by this idea, they have cast away the rudder of history, have ceased to keep their watch, have lost their agility and their efficiency. And so, life has escaped from their grasp, has become completely unsubmissive and to-day is floating around without any fixed course. Under his mask of generous futurism, the progressive no longer concerns himself with the future; convinced that it holds in store for him neither surprises nor secrets, nothing adventurous, nothing essentially new; assured that the world will now proceed on a straight course, neither turning aside nor dropping back, he puts away from him all anxiety about the future and takes his stand in the definite present. Can we be surprised that the world to-day seems empty of purposes, anticipations, ideals? Nobody has concerned himself with supplying them. Such has been the desertion of the directing minorities, which is always found on the reverse side of the rebellion of the masses. But it is time for us to return to the consideration of this last. After having stressed the favourable aspect presented by the triumph of the masses, it will be well to descend now by the other slope, a much more dangerous one.