Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 10:02 pm
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 2:39 pm
Yet here is an important consideration. According to José Ortega y Gasset what has most marked our time (the last 150 years) has been the rise of the Mass Man. Technology, medicine, liberal politics and education have brought this Man into existence.
Prior to that this Man did not have existence.
This view is so simplistic it's worthless! The so-called Mass Man has always existed wherever there is conformity to a society. When you see all the stalls in the Colosseum occupied watching executions, gladiators mutilate or kill each other and the mass killing of animals as entertainment, there you have a perfect example of Mass Man from 2000 years ago.
Perhaps you are unaware of what Ortega y Gasset means when he refer to a mass man of the (recent) present. I can say with a high degree of certainly that I do not think the general analysis of O y G in
Revolt of the Masses is shallow or dismissible. It is a very careful analysis. And quite worthy.
The sort of citizen brought into this world in the 19th century (largely) is a
creation of evolution in politics, in social models, economics, and much else. Prior to that, the bulk of people lived those short lives of desperation and pain. Modernity created new models and new possibilities.
He writes about this at length in his book.
Additionally, he
makes reference to Roman society as a comparison point, but he is not writing about ancient Rome, nor the urban center of Rome, he is writing about Europe in the recent present. And in Europe the rise of new classes occurred far more recently.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Apr 24, 2023 2:39 pmAs Mass Man comes onto the scene, he determines the scene. Society and culture are now molded to his purposes, needs, wants & desires. He sees this as inevitable, necessary, good and proper. His values and ideals dominate. Nothing like this has ever happened and this is one reason why “modernity” is so extraordinary. But also fragile.
Dubious asks: In nations like China, is it the "Mass Man" or the CCP that determines the scene?
The question has been raised before: Do you ever analyze or only accept what you read?
The Mass Man phenomena has always been with us in one form or another. Every one of them considered themselves as inevitable, necessary, good and proper. The main difference is the Masses are far greater now than they ever were before. In 1800, it's estimated there were 1 billion people on the planet. In 1950 there were 2.5 billion. To claim that Mass Man did exist prior to 150 years ago is to default to a complete misconception or outright lie!
It is you who needs to consider the model you are applying. Civil society, as we understand it, is a European category
largely. Not to mean completely, but largely.
Of course,
jerk, I analyze what I read. It is you who seem to have a bug up your asshole and it is getting bothersome.
You are taking
mass man out of the sense that Ortega y Gasset defines it and to mean general man not of the elite classes. In O y G's analysis, Mass Man is a social and political force having risen in power in the last roughly 200 years. His view, which I do accept, is that the man has arisen for the political, social and economic changes that occurred specifically in Europe.
It is also a model (for human and mass possibility) that is now being extended to the entire planet, given the influence of Europe.
