The Revolt of the Masses Cover
Podcast Mentions

The Revolt of the Masses

José Ortega y Gasset

Social upheaval in early 20th-century Europe is the historical setting for this seminal study by the Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset. Continuously in print since 1932, Ortega's vision of Western culture as sinking to its lowest common denominator and drifting toward chaos brought its autho...

Podcasts 1
Quotes 5
Philosophize This!

The book argues that the modern world has given rise to a "mass man" - a person who is educated but lacks culture, entitled and self-satisfied in mediocrity, and unconcerned with responsibility. This mass mentality undermines society by promoting egalitarianism, flattening hierarchies, and suppressing true expertise.

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for whom to live is to be in every moment what they already are without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves

— Episode: Episode #167 ... Jose Ortega - Revolt of...

Episode: Episode #167 ... Jose Ortega - Revolt of the Masse...

The book argues that the modern world has given rise to a "mass man" - a person who is educated but lacks culture, entitled and self-satisfied in mediocrity, and unconcerned with responsibility. This mass mentality undermines society by promoting egalitarianism, flattening hierarchies, and suppressing true expertise.

"

for whom to live is to be in every moment what they already are without imposing on themselves any effort towards perfection, mere buoys that float on the waves

The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified, and select

This average person is the new barbarian, a laggard behind the contemporary civilization, archaic and primitive in contrast with his problems which are grimly, relentlessly modern. This new barbarian is above all the professional man, more learned than ever before, but at the same time more uncultured, the engineer, the physician, the lawyer, the scientist

predominance over the world

terrorism of the laboratory

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