Philosophy Q&A

The individuals who constitute the present mass already existed before, although not as “the masses”: in previous generations, “each group, even each individual, occupied a space, each his own space…in the fields, in a village, a town, or even in some quarter of a big city.” Now, however, they appear suddenly as a mass “in the places most in demand,” that is, “the places previously reserved for small groups, for select minorities.” Thus whereas in past ages the mass went unnoticed, now they “have installed themselves in the preferred places of society.”

Framing it in sociological terms, Ortega argues that society has always been “a dynamic unity” comprised of two elements: masses and minorities. Let us begin by discussing the former: “they are,” he remarks, “made up of persons not especially qualified.” The mass-man is the “average man,” or more exactly anyone who does not measure himself “by any particular criterion,” and who is thus content to be “‘just like everybody else.’” He is not in the least perturbed by his mediocre condition, but rather is “smugly at ease” with it.

The “select individual,” by contrast, is the one “who demands more from himself than do others, even when these demands are unattainable.” According to Ortega, whose opposition to democratic egalitarianism was greatly influenced by Nietzsche, humanity is composed of 1) “those who demand much of themselves and assign themselves great tasks and duties,” and 2) “those who demand nothing in particular of themselves, for whom living is to be at all times what they already are, without any effort at perfection—buoys floating on the waves.” 

Ortega is at pains to emphasize that the division of society he sketches is not a division “into social classes, but into two kinds of men.” “Strictly speaking,” he clarifies, “there are ‘masses’ and minorities at all levels of society—within every social class.” Thus it is not unusual  to find among the working class “outstandingly disciplined minds and souls,” although the inverse trend has become even more common: mass and popular vulgarity have insinuated themselves into the traditionally selective groups. “Even in intellectual life,” Ortega laments, “which by its very essence assumes and requires certain qualifications, we see the progressive triumph of pseudo-intellectuals…” Consider the following:

Then there are activities in society which by their very nature call for qualifications: activities and functions of the most diverse order which are special and cannot be carried out without special talent. Thus: artistic and aesthetic enterprises; the functioning of government; political judgment on public matters. Previously these special activities were in the hands of qualified minorities, or those alleged to be qualified. The masses did not try or aspire to intervene: they reckoned that if they did, they must acquire those special graces, and must cease being part of the mass. They knew their role well enough in a dynamic and functioning social order.

Thus, with the advent of the “crowd phenomenon,” the many rich, rarified, and complex dimensions of political and cultural life—areas which were once the exclusive preserve of select minorities—have been usurped by the mass-man. Ortega refers to this condition as “hyperdemocracy,” a kind of majority tyranny in which the mass imposes “its own desires and tastes by material pressure.” He notes in addition that “the average reader” no longer reads in order to learn anything, but rather “in order to pronounce judgment on whether the writer’s ideas coincide with the pedestrian and commonplace notions the reader already carries in his head.” (This, by the way, is an apt description of the complacent prisoners of Plato’s cave allegory, who violently resist any attempts by the philosopher to enlighten them.)

We are left, finally, with a coarsened society which takes everything noble and praiseworthy out of human beings, turning them into vulgar little herd animals. “The mass,” Ortega concludes, “crushes everything different, everything outstanding, excellent, individual, select, and choice.”