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Jose Ortega y Gassett, The Revolt of the Masses

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     Public life is not solely political, but equally, and even primarily, intellectual, moral, economic, religious; ... To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, special to the intellectual man. ... Everything in the world is strange and marvellous to well-open eyes. ... The mass is the average man ... man as undifferentiated from other men, but as repeating in himself a generic type ... In those groups which are characterised by not being multitude and mass, the effective coincidence of its members is based on some desire, idea, or ideal, which of itself excludes the great number ... Their coincidence with the others who form the minority is, then, secondary, posterior to their having each adopted an attitude of singularity, and is consequently, to a large extent, a coincidence in not coinciding ... Read Complete

Cf.  David Turner, Byzantium : The 'alternative' history of Europe