PLEASE READ THIS SPLENDID QUOTE FROM JOSE ORTEGA Y GASSET IN “THE REVOLT OF THE MASSES” 1929
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324469304578145242244528334.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
JOSE ORTEGA Y GASSET WAS A SPANISH PHILOSOPHER, ESSAYIST DURING THE YEARS WHEN SPAIN VEERED FROM MONARCHY TO SOCIALISM TO CIVIL WAR TO DICTATORSHIP….. HE DIED IN 1955.
Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, “The Revolt of the Masses” (1929):
My thesis, therefore, is this: the very perfection with which the 19th century gave an organization to certain orders of existence has caused the masses benefited thereby to consider it, not as an organized, but as a natural system. Thus is explained and defined the absurd state of mind revealed by these masses; they are only concerned with their own well-being, and at the same time they remain alien to the cause of that well-being. As they do not see, behind the benefits of civilization, marvels of invention and construction which can only be maintained by great effort and foresight, they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits peremptorily, as if they were natural rights.
In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the mob goes in search of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries. This may serve as a symbol of the attitude adopted, on a greater and more complicated scale, by the masses of today towards the civilization by which they are supported.
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