[Western] Ortega y Gasset: The Revolt of the Masses —☆

[西]Ortega y Gasset: “The Revolt of the Masses,” translated by Liu Xunlian and Tong Dezhi, Jilin People’s Publishing House, October 2004, 16 yuan——☆

I read this book on the train while I was going home; thanks to a delay, I happened to finish it in one sitting. But the excerpts below were not entered into the computer until the last day before I returned to Beijing, which shows how completely I wasted my time at home.

This is a wonderful book, so much so that I wanted to classify it as a “★” recommendation. After much hesitation, I lowered it by one grade, because I felt that the book’s mode of expression seemed a bit too vehement; a more temperate-seeming elitist position can be gleaned from The Whereabouts of the Intellectuals, which I recommended before. And given that my excerpts below are already long enough, I felt that friends who are interested would be perfectly well served by reading the portions I have excerpted.

I do not agree with all of the author’s views, especially since my way of expressing them would certainly differ from his, but he is certainly someone I am willing to defend.

Preface to the Chinese translation, page3 The Revolt of the Masses is Ortega’s most famous work. It was greeted with waves of praise upon publication; The Atlantic Monthly even published an article saying that the book stood to the20th century as The Social Contract stood to the18th century, and Capital to the19th century.

Page3 For better or worse, the public life of contemporary Europe brings to the fore one extremely important fact: the masses are beginning to occupy the highest social power. In terms of what the word “masses” means, the masses should neither be able nor be entitled to grasp their own personal lives, much less govern society as a whole. Therefore, this entirely new phenomenon actually means that Europe is facing a huge crisis, one that will lead to slaughter, national decline, and even civilizational decay. Such crises are by no means rare in history; their outlines, characteristics, and consequences have long been known. We may call this phenomenon “the revolt of the masses.”

Page5 The members of the masses all around us did not fall from the sky; roughly the same number of people already existed fifteen years ago. In fact, after the First World War their number ought to have decreased. Right here we encounter the first extremely important modern factor: the individuals who make up the masses already existed before, but they did not exist as a “mass”; they were scattered in small groups in all corners of the world, or else lived in isolation; their ways of life differed, they were cut off from one another, and had no dealings with one another until death; …

Page6 Society is always a dynamic equilibrium composed of two parts of people—an elite minority and the masses. The elite minority refers to those individuals or groups endowed with special qualifications, while the masses refer to the aggregate of individuals without special self-restraint. Therefore, the masses cannot be understood simply, or mainly, as the “working class”; the masses are ordinary people. From this point of view, a purely quantitative concept—the majority, the crowd—turns into a qualitative determination: it is used to refer to a general social attribute, one that is no different from that of other people, and yet in which a common type is reproduced.

Page7 As a psychological phenomenon, the mass phenomenon need not wait until individuals appear in a crowd before it can be defined. Facing a single person, we can already judge whether he is a “mass man.” A mass man is a person who never evaluates himself according to any special standard—good or bad, for the moment we may leave that aside. He merely stresses that he is “exactly like everyone else.” Apart from this ridiculous claim, he feels no trouble at all; on the contrary, he takes comfort in his resemblance to others and is quite pleased with himself. A truly humble person, by contrast, would try to assess his own particular value, endeavor to discover whatever talent he may possess, or any special excellence in any respect—though he may ultimately discover that he has no extraordinary endowment and is merely of average ability. Yet he will never think of himself as a mass man.

Page6 Whenever people speak of the “elite minority,” ill-intentioned people usually distort the meaning of this designation and turn a blind eye to the following fact: the elite minority does not refer to those who think themselves superior to others. It refers instead to those who place higher demands on themselves, even when these demands are impossible for them to fulfill. Human beings can undoubtedly be divided in the most basic way into two types: one type places strict demands on itself and assigns itself great responsibilities and missions; the other lets itself go—especially with regard to itself. To the latter type, life always appears to be in a fixed state; there is no need to make any effort to improve it—they are like buoys drifting in a current, wavering, taking things as they come.

Page9 The meaning of democracy and law—life together under law—is the same. Yet today we are witnessing the victory of a “super-democracy” in which the masses ignore all law, act directly, and use material force to impose their desires and preferences on society. Some people think that the masses have grown tired of politics and have handed over the running of politics to professionals; to explain the present new situation in this way is undoubtedly a mistake. The real situation is exactly the opposite.

Page10 The typical feature of our age is that mediocre minds, though knowing themselves to be mediocre, nevertheless demand with perfect confidence the right to mediocrity and impose it on everything within their reach.

Page14 My view is somewhat extreme, because although I have never said that human society ought to be aristocratic, I have in fact gone further. I used to think, and still think now—and my conviction in holding this view grows stronger by the day—that whether people like it or not, human society is by its very nature aristocratic; one might even say this: only when it is aristocratic does it truly become a society;

Page18 In order to understand my view better, readers may consider the question of the consciousness that all are equal before the law. In Europe, only outstanding and eminent groups would feel themselves to be their own masters and believe that, before the law, they were equal to anyone else; in America, this has always been taken for granted.

Page52 The observations above leave us with a deep impression of two basic traits in the psychological image of the mass man: on the one hand, the free expansion of the desire to live, that is, the expansion of individual freedom; on the other hand, he feels not the slightest gratitude toward the benefactors who make his life leisurely and comfortable. These two traits are precisely the psychological symptoms we see in spoiled children; in fact, to take this psychological state as a key for examining the soul of the contemporary mass man is extremely appropriate. In both ideal and practical terms, the newly transformed plebeian masses have benefited from a generous and magnanimous ancient tradition, yet they have been spoiled by the world around them. To be spoiled means that the world places no restriction on his capricious demands, but satisfies them as far as possible; and leaves him with the impression that he can do as he pleases, with no constraints, knowing nothing of obligation. Children growing up under such a political system have never experienced limits; because all external pressure and all restrictions have been removed, no possible conflict remains, ………… Only when someone stronger than he forces him to relinquish some of his desires and to practice self-limitation and self-restraint will he curb his arrogant sense that he alone matters and that the whole world belongs to him; only then will he learn a basic norm: “This is a limit; here I can do nothing. There lies the domain of someone better than I am. Clearly, there are two kinds of people in this world: myself, and those who are better than I am.” In earlier times, the ordinary person absorbed this basic lesson from the world around him every day, because it was a harsh world, full of disasters, where everything stood on precarious ground, resources were scarce, and there was no fixed place to live. By contrast, the new masses find themselves confronted by all sorts of possibilities: everything is ready for me, everything lies under one’s control, and no effort is needed as before—just as the sun hangs in the sky by itself and need not be carried on our shoulders. No one thanks another person for breathing air, because it is not artificially manufactured; it belongs to things that “already exist,” that is, things we call “natural.” We have never felt air to be scarce. These spoiled masses are ignorant to such an extent that they believe material wealth and social organization are just like the air they can command at will, …

Page53 Therefore, my argument is this: the organizational perfection that the 19th century brought to certain orders of life greatly benefited the masses, but they regarded it as a natural system rather than an organizational one. Thus we can explain and define the ridiculous mental state exposed by the masses in this way: they care only about the ease and comfort of their lives, but know nothing of—and have no interest in—the reasons for it. For they cannot see through the achievements of civilization to the miracles of invention and social structure hidden behind them, miracles that require effort and far-sightedness to maintain. They think their role is limited to unhesitatingly seizing the fruits of civilization, as if this were their natural right. In the past, when food shortages led to unrest, rioting crowds would usually smash bakeries and search everywhere for bread. This may be taken as a symbol of public behavior; today, the attitude the masses adopt toward the civilization that has nourished them is similar to this, only on a larger and more complex scale.

Page58 Let us recall the contrast between elites and ordinary people drawn at the beginning of this article: the former are strict with themselves, while the latter are lax and slothful with themselves, content merely with what they are now, even a bit pleased with themselves. What can free itself from the constraints of conventional opinion is the outstanding and extraordinary person, not the mediocre person who in substance lives in a state of servitude. For the elite minority, unless it can devote itself to a cause of transcendence, life has absolutely no meaning. Therefore, it does not regard the necessity it serves as oppression. On the contrary, when this necessity disappears because of some accidental circumstance, it instead becomes anxious and uneasy, and strives to seek new, more exacting standards to impose on itself. This is a life that takes existence as discipline; it is also the noble life. The standard by which nobility is defined is the demands we place on ourselves, that is, duty, not rights. Noblesse oblige[nobility entails responsibility], “To do as one pleases is the way of the common man; the noble man seeks order and law” (Goethe). Aristocratic privilege is not a grace or protection bestowed on the basis of birth, but a spoils of victory; that is to say, the maintenance of privilege should in principle be premised on this point: the privileged must be able to reconquer them—whenever necessary, whenever anyone challenges their privileges, they must do so. Therefore, private rights or privileges are not passive possessions or mere objects of enjoyment; on the contrary, they represent standards attainable only through personal effort. By contrast, common rights—such as “the rights of man and of the citizen”—are negative ownership, rights of beneficiary enjoyment and advantage taken as a matter of course; they are the generous gifts prepared by fate for each and every person; as long as one still has breath, as long as one has not gone mad, anyone can obtain them without any effort at all.

Page59 Thus, in my eyes, aristocracy is equivalent to a life of unremitting effort, a life whose goal is to continually surpass oneself and to regard this as a duty and an obligation. Page60 From this perspective, the aristocratic life, or the noble life, forms a sharp contrast with the mediocre life or the life of indolence (ancient note: “laziness”); the latter depends on itself in a passive and inert way, is content with the status quo, and fears change,

Page64 I am very clear that many readers do not think as I do. This is only natural, and it will further confirm my view. For even if my view is eventually proven wrong, the following fact still remains. Namely, among those readers who hold differing opinions, many will not spend more than five minutes thinking about this highly complex problem; how could they possibly agree with my ideas? But if they believe that, without serious thought, they nevertheless have the right to express an opinion on this matter, then they clearly belong to the kind of absurd people I call “the rebellious masses”—which is what I mean by “closure of the mind,” a severe self-enclosure, a typical intellectual obstinacy. This kind of person finds himself in a vast treasure house of thought, delights in it, and imagines that he has already reached intellectual perfection. …

Page66 This is not to say that the mass man is a stupid person; on the contrary, today’s masses are smarter and more agile than the people of any earlier age, but this ability is of no use to him. In fact, this vague feeling that he is smarter and more agile instead makes him more closed and obstructs the practical use of that ability. Once the mass man sinks into the mire of a fixed way of thinking, he is powerless to extricate himself; clichés, prejudices, fragmentary notions, and empty words are all jumbled up in his head. He also hawks and peddles this junk everywhere, … This is precisely my summary in the first chapter of this book of the characteristics of our age: it lies not in mediocre people thinking themselves extraordinary or outstanding; rather, it lies in mediocre people not only admitting that they are mediocre, but also declaring mediocrity to be a right and demanding that this right be enforced.

Page66 Up to now, mediocrities have never believed that they have any “thought” of their own about things; they have faith, tradition, experience, maxims, and habits of the soul, but they have never presumed to hold any theoretical view about the actual or proper state of things, …

Page68 The prevalence of crude and barbaric political movements in Europe has a long history. ………… The striking feature of these new movements does not lie in their novelty as such, but in the particular form they have taken. Under syndicalism and fascism, Europe has for the first time seen a type of person who is utterly unwilling to appeal to reason or try to show that he is justified; he merely insists on carrying out his own opinion by resolution. That is what is truly new: the right not to be rational, “irrational rationality.” The new spiritual state of the masses is fully visible here: they have no capacity to govern, yet are determined to rule this society. The structure of this spiritual state is shown most clearly and most directly in their political behavior. And the key still lies in what we call the “stupidity and closure of the mind.” The mass mind is full of all manner of bizarre ideas, yet lacks the ability to theorize. It knows nothing of the rare atmosphere in which ideas can germinate and survive. They want to have their own opinions, but are unwilling to accept the premises and conditions on which all opinions rest. Therefore, their “ideas” are in fact nothing more than verbal wishes, like lyrical stanzas in a musical comedy.

Page69 The “new” development in Europe today is being “sealed off from discussion and dialogue,” a distaste for all forms of social communication and exchange, because they all imply submission to objective standards—from everyday conversation to parliamentary debate and even scientific inquiry itself, none is exempt. This shows that Europeans are abandoning a degeneration of public life built upon the foundation of culture. In order to implement directly the measures they wish to force through, they brazenly suppress every normal procedure. As we have seen earlier, the obstinacy and closure of the mind impel the masses to intervene in every aspect of public life, and at the same time this inevitably leads them to adopt a single method of intervention, namely direct action.

Page69 When the various origins of our age are pieced together, we find that the first notes of its distinctive melody were sounded by the French syndicalist uprising and the realists around1900, who were the pioneers of both the method and the name “direct action.” Human beings tend toward violence; sometimes the only consequence of violence is sheer crime—which is not the object of our concern here. But at other times, when people discover that all other normal means are insufficient to defend the legitimate rights they believe they possess or ought to possess, they also resort to violence. It may be regrettable that fate repeatedly forces human beings to use this form of violence; but we cannot deny that it also means the highest tribute to reason and justice. For this form of violence is precisely “reason enraged”; violence is in fact ultima ratio[the final reason], a phrase people very stupidly use only in an ironic sense, though it does clearly indicate obedience to reason and its norms before resorting to violence. Civilization is nothing more than an attempt to make force into the final means. But as for “direct action,” we now see with perfect clarity that it is preparing to overthrow all order and proclaim violence to be prima ratio[the primary reason], or, strictly speaking, unica ratio[the only reason]. This norm demands the abolition of all norms, the elimination of every intermediate process between our ends and their effects; this is the Great Charter of barbarism.

Page70 Restraint, norms, courtesy, tact, justice, reason… why did people invent these things? What use is there in creating all these subtle and complex things? All of this can be summed up in one word: “civilization,” whose root “civis” (citizen, “citizen”) reveals its true origin: it is precisely through these things that the city, the community, and public life become possible. Therefore, if we closely examine the constitutive elements of civilization listed above, we will find that they share a common basis. After all is said and done, all these elements of civilization rest on one fundamental premise: that each person should care about others and think from others’ point of view. The first principle of civilization lies in the will to live together. An uncivilized barbarian does not think of others; barbarism is the tendency to live in isolation.

Page80 In particular, as we have seen, this indifferent attitude toward science, as though it were something to be cast aside like a used shoe, is in fact fully exposed even in the technical personnel themselves. The mental state they ordinarily display in carrying out these occupations is in essence no different from that of those who use cars or buy aspirin with complete peace of mind: they have no concern whatsoever for the future fate of science and civilization.

Page105 Therefore, one thing is certain: today’s technicians and technologists are the very archetype of the mass man. This is by no means accidental, nor can it be attributed to personal deficiencies on the part of technicians and technologists; rather, science itself, as the foundation of our civilization, automatically transforms him into a mass man, that is, a primitive man, a contemporary barbarian. This is a well-known fact, one repeatedly displayed before the world; but only by placing this fact in the context of this article can its meaning and seriousness be fully understood.

Page107 We must face up to the unexpected yet undeniable fact that the progress of experimental science has, to a large extent, owed itself to the work of people of exceptionally mediocre qualifications, people who can scarcely even be said to be mediocre. In other words, modern science—the foundation and symbol of our contemporary civilization—has provided a vast space for intellectually mediocre people to work productively. The reason this has become possible lies in mechanization, which dominates the new science and civilization and has become its symbol. Yet mechanization is both the greatest blessing and the greatest threat of the new science and civilization.

Page108 Now you simply cannot fit the specialist into either of these two categories: he does not belong among the knowledgeable, because apart from his own specialized knowledge he knows very little; on the other hand, he also does not belong among the ignorant, because he is a “scientist,” an “expert,” and he “knows” everything in his own tiny patch of territory. We have no choice but to call such a person an “ignorant man of knowledge,” which is a very serious problem, because it means that although the specialist is ignorant in the field to which he belongs, he does not appear as an ignorant person; rather, he puts on the demeanor of one who is learned in a particular line.

Page109 This is not a sensational assertion; anyone who pays attention can see that today’s “technician-scientist,” in politics, art, religion, and other general social and life issues, is utterly foolish in his views, judgments, and actions—what is there that is not foolish to the extreme?

Page110 But if the professional ignores the philosophical foundations of the scientific work he is engaged in, he will be fundamentally and completely ignorant of the historical conditions of science’s existence and continuation, that is, of how to organize society and the human mind so that they can continue to produce succeeding generations of researchers.

Page111 In any country with a well-ordered system of public affairs, the role of the masses should not be to do as they please; their mission is to remain orderly. The masses are born to be guided, influenced, represented, and organized—even, one might say, for the sake of no longer being masses, or at least with that possibility as the goal. But they do not come into the world able to do anything on their own; they need to entrust their lives to a higher authority, namely the elite minority. As for the question of who counts as an outstanding elite, one could argue endlessly, but whoever they may be, without management, humanity will lose its essence.

Page171 If a country existed only in the past and the present, then when it was attacked no one would rise up to defend it. Those who hold the opposite view are either hypocrites or madmen. Yet whether the future is real or imaginary, it remains an incontestable fact that a country’s past often reflects its appeal to the future. The future we long for is the future in which our country can continue to exist; this is the real reason we mobilize to defend the country, not blood ties, language, or a common tradition.

Page173 Spain and the nations of Central and South America share a common history, a common language, and a common race; and yet Spain did not form a nation together with these peoples—why not? As we know, it was because they lacked one crucial element: a common future. Spain did not know how to propose a collective plan for the future that could attract these peoples so close in blood. Letting a referendum decide the future also does not work in Spain, so documents and archives, common memory, ancestors, and the “fatherland” are of no use at all to them. Even where all these things are present, they can function only as consolidating forces.

2008年2月12日