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Jose Ortega Y Gassett, The Revolt Of The Masses
CHAPTER IX: THE PRIMITIVE AND THE TECHNICAL
Page 4
This essay is an attempt to prepare the answer to that question. The meaning is that the type of man dominant to-day is a primitive one, a Naturmensch rising up in the midst of a civilised world. The world is a civilised one, its inhabitant is not: he does not see the civilisation of the world around him, but he uses it as if it were a natural force. The new man wants his motor-car, and enjoys it, but he believes that it is the spontaneous fruit of an Edenic tree. In the depths of his soul he is unaware of the artificial, almost incredible, character of civilisation, and does not extend his enthusiasm for the instruments to the principles which make them possible. When some pages back, by a transposition of the words of Rathenau, I said that we are witnessing the "vertical invasion of the barbarians" it might be thought (it generally is) that it was only a matter of a "phrase." It is now clear that the expression may enshrine a truth or an error, but that it is the very opposite of a "phrase," namely: a formal definition which sums up a whole complicated analysis. The actual mass-man is, in fact, a primitive who has slipped through the wings on to the age-old stage of civilisation. There is continual talk to-day of the fabulous progress of technical knowledge; but I see no signs in this talk, even amongst the best, of a sufficiently dramatic realisation of its future. Spengler himself, so subtle and profound- though so subject to mania- appears to me in this matter far too optimistic. For he believes that "culture" is to be succeeded by an era of "civilisation," by which word he understands more especially technical efficiency. The idea that Spengler has of "culture" and of history in general is so remote from that underlying this essay, that it is not easy, even for the purpose of correction, to comment here upon his conclusions. It is only by taking great leaps and neglecting exact details, in order to bring both view-points under a common denominator, that it is possible to indicate the difference between us, Spengler believes that "technicism" can go on living when interest in the principles underlying culture are dead. I cannot bring myself to believe any such thing. Technicism and science are consubstantial, and science no longer exists when it ceases to interest for itself alone, and it cannot so interest unless men continue to feel enthusiasm for the general principles of culture. If this fervour is deadened- as appears to be happening- technicism can only survive for a time, for the duration of the inertia of the cultural impulse which started it. We live with our technical requirements, but not by them. These give neither nourishment nor breath to themselves, they are not causae sui, but a useful, practical precipitate of superfluous, unpractical activities.[3]
[3]Hence to my mind, a definition of North America by its "technicism" tells us nothing. One of the things that most seriously confuse the European mind is the man of puerile judgments that one hears pronounced on North America even by the most cultured persons. This is one particular case of the disproportion which I indicate later on as existing between the complexity of present-day problems and the capacity of present-day minds.