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» Ortega y Gasset: a man of the masses.
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The essence of the culture-centric (Ortegian) approach to mass phenomena
The Spanish philosopher X. Ortega y Gasset was, if not the creator, then the brightest exponent of a theoretical approach to social phenomena different from that of G. Tarde, G. Le Bon and their followers, which can be designated as ethical-aesthetic or cultural-centric . This approach has played the role of an activator approach since the 30s of the 20th century, and its formation was associated both with a certain reaction to the deployment of processes of comprehensive massization in a developed industrial society, and with the further development of a number of ideas of Confucius, Plato, F. Nietzsche and other thinkers.
The essence of the culture-centric approach is to consider certain social and anthropological phenomena from the standpoint of the full functioning of the cultural phenomenon. This approach is based on the following provisions: 1) recognition of the decisive role of culture in the process of social reproduction; 2) stratification of the main human types in the cultural-creative section, that is, from the point of view of their role in the processes of production, preservation and transmission of culture.
According to Ortega y Gasset, when the “dynamic balance” between the masses and the elite is disrupted, when the mass overthrows the elite and begins to dictate its “conditions of the game,” there is a threat of degradation of all “superstructural” spheres: politics, science, art, etc. Such “ the vertical invasion of barbarism” (W. Rathenau and X. Ortega y Gasset) threatens civilization, if not with death, then with degeneration. A danger of this kind arises, according to the Spanish philosopher, at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries with the entry into the arena of history of a relatively new type of person. It was him, the “man of the masses,” that X. Ortega y Gasset made the main “character” of the brilliantly formulated philosophical essay “The Revolt of the Masses” (1930). The introduction of this concept opens up space for understanding the problems of “element of mass”, “latent (potential) mass”, and also largely creates the basis for the formation of a new, non-traditional approach to the study of social and mass phenomena.
With Ortega we are talking about a certain type of person, and not about a social class. He makes a special reservation that the division of society into the masses and the selected minority is a division not into social classes, but into types of people; this is not at all a hierarchical distinction between “higher” and “lower”: in each class one can find both “the masses” and a true “chosen minority.” The mass type, the “rabble”, pseudo-intellectuals now predominate even in traditionally elite groups, and vice versa, among the workers who were previously considered the typical “mass”, characters of exceptional qualities are often found (127, No. 3, pp. 121-122).
Belonging to the mass- the sign is purely psychological; it is not at all necessary that the subject physically belong to it. The mass is a multitude of people without special merits; its element is the average, ordinary person. But it is not only the lack of talent that makes a person a “man of the masses”: a modest person, aware of his mediocrity, will never feel like a member of the masses and should not be classified as one of them. A man of the masses is one “who does not feel any special gift in himself..., feels that he is “exactly like everyone else” and, moreover, is not at all upset by this, on the contrary, he is happy to feel like everyone else "(127, pp. 120-121). His necessary features are self-sufficiency, complacency: unlike a person of the elite, who places strict demands on himself, he is always satisfied with himself, “moreover, admired,” knows no doubts, and with enviable calm “abides in stupidity” (ibid., p. 143). The one who spiritually belongs to the masses is the one who, in every question, is content with a ready-made thought already sitting in his head. He is not given the ability to design and plan, he has limited creative capabilities, there is no true culture, in resolving disputes he ignores the basic principles of reason, and does not strive to adhere to the truth. The complexity, versatility, drama of existence are either inaccessible or frighten him; the ideas that he accepts have the goal of once and for all separating himself from the complexities of the surrounding world with ready-made explanations and fantasies that give the illusion of clarity and logic. The mass man is little concerned that ideas may be incorrect, because these are just trenches where he escapes life, or scarecrows to drive it away (ibid., No. 3, pp. 139-140). People of the elite are people of the “great path”, who came into this world to create, to create, those who are demanding of themselves, take on “labor and duty”, and the man of the masses is the one who lives “without effort, without trying to correct himself.” and improve those who go with the flow” (“small path”) (ibid., No. 3, p. 121).
So, the leading signs of the “man of the elite” are competence, high professional and cultural potential, self-improvement, creativity, “service” as a conscious choice, and the “man of the masses” is theoretical “hardiness”, the illusion of self-sufficiency, lack of incentive for self-development, complacent “stay " in stupidity, "lust." The first professes the values of creativity and knowledge as serving national, universal human tasks, while the second is committed to the values of consumption and, in general, does not go beyond the prospect of its own one-dimensional existence. Civilization interests him not in itself, but only as a means of satisfying his growing desires.
In the 20th century, this kind of mass sharply intensified; without previously pretending to be a theorist, social leader, “the mass man” is now carrying out a genuine expansion in the spheres of politics and culture that require special qualities: “... there is no issue of social life in which he would not interfere, imposing his opinions - he, blind and deaf,” “. .. it is characteristic of our days that vulgar, philistine souls, conscious of their mediocrity, boldly declare their right to vulgarity” (ibid., No. 3, pp. 139-140). F. Nietzsche also noted something similar, pointing out that the “mass man” has forgotten how to be modest and inflates his needs to the size of cosmic and metaphysical values, and thereby all life is vulgarized (120, p. 46). The mass crushes everything that is different, personal, and chosen. Both the state machine and the cultural-ideological sphere find themselves in its power: the mass man triumphs everywhere, and only trends imbued with his spirit and sustained in his primitive style can have visible success (127, No. 3, p. 121).
The modern personification, the apotheosis of the “man of the masses” is the so-called “specialist”, a person who perfectly knows any one science, his own tiny corner of the Universe, but is absolutely limited in everything that goes beyond its limits. In politics, in art, in social life, in other sciences he adheres to primitive views, but expounds and defends them with the authority and self-confidence of an expert, without accepting the objections of competent people - “ half-educated ambition"(ibid., no. 3, pp. 121-122).
Ortega y Gasset considers the main reasons for the abrupt changes in the behavior of the masses to be the destruction of traditional forms of pre-industrial life, the “growth of vitality” of modern society, manifested through the interaction of three factors: experimental science, industrialization (he unites them under the name “technology”) and liberal democracy . The achievements of “technology” have led to an increase in the capabilities of both society and individual person- expansion of his ideas about the world, an abrupt rise in the standard of living of all segments of the population, leveling of conditions. Economic security is accompanied by “physical benefits,” comfort, and public order.
All this is accompanied by a sharp increase in the population of Europe (from 180 to 460 million people between 1800 and 1914); a whole human stream fell, in the words of the Spanish philosopher, onto the field of history, “flooding it.” The important thing here is that society did not have enough time or energy to sufficiently introduce this “stream” to traditional culture: schools only managed to teach external forms, techniques modern life, taught to use modern apparatus and instruments, but did not give an idea of the great historical tasks and responsibilities, inherited complex, traditional problems, of the spirit (ibid., No. 4, pp. 135-136).
Ortega y Gasset writes: “We live in an era of general leveling: there is an equalization of wealth, rights, cultures, classes, genders” (ibid., p. 136). Already from the end of the 18th century the process is underway equalization of rights, elimination of hereditary, class-class privileges. Gradually, the sovereignty of any individual, “man as such,” emerged from the stage of an abstract ideal and took root in the consciousness of ordinary people. And here a metamorphosis occurred: the magical shine of the ideal, which became reality, dimmed. Formal equality of rights and opportunities, not supported by the growth of actual (that is, moral, cultural) equality, self-improvement, and a correct understanding of the relationship between social rights and responsibilities, did not lead to real growth, but only to an increase in ambition, the claims of the “mass person.” This ambition is strengthened by growing half-education, the illusion of knowledge, and the “barbarism of specialization.” So, external restrictions in almost all areas of life for the “majority” were lifted. But, as P.P. correctly notes. Gaidenko, “...the removal of external restrictions turns into complete arbitrariness of individual desires, if a person does not know the internal limitations, does not know how and does not want to “shorten himself” (25, p. 165). This is precisely the “man of the masses” of the new model, whom the new opportunities have not improved, but have turned into the likeness of a spoiled child, full of lusts and inattentive, ungrateful to the source of their satisfaction.
The mass man asserts his equality (more precisely, the right granted to him) not by ascending to the heights of culture and self-improvement, but by reducing the society around him to himself. He receives all these new benefits and opportunities as a finished result, a gift, without having any idea about the process or the price. There are many new temptations around. Confidence in his right to receive, the ambition of half-education, the “self-sufficiency complex” give rise to the illusion of fantastic omnipotence in him, desires awaken him to action: to demand his share of public goods, the gifts of civilization, due by virtue of a specifically understood “equality”.
Finding “like-minded people” and realizing oneself as part of a powerful social new formation strengthens the ambitions of the “man of the masses”, and he longs to rebuild the world according to his own scenario. The main feature of this scenario: civilization is not built on, but should serve as a means, an instrument for satisfying current temptations and desires; The elite is needed only insofar as it serves this kind of functioning of civilization in the interests of the masses - according to the principle of “bread and circuses”.
Considering the socio-cultural structure of society, Ortega y Gasset actually distinguishes not two, but three of its layers: the masses, the elite and the intermediate type, conventionally “modest workers”. What distinguishes them from the masses is precisely modesty, self-criticism, great caution in reasoning and actions, unambitiousness, and non-aggression (“wise passivity”). That is, in terms of ethical and psychological makeup, this type approaches the spiritual elite. But in cultural, professional, intellectual, and aesthetic terms there is still a serious boundary between them. The consciousness of people of this type, like the “man of the masses,” functions almost exclusively on the everyday, and not on theoretical level, is just as prone to simplification and illusoryness, although it includes a critical, reasonable-conservative element. In “quiet” eras for society, the “modest worker” is its stabilizing element. He has something to lose: on his social level he is sufficiently qualified, has a certain professional pride, a stable life-sustaining income, he is not gnawed by momentary lusts and envy.
However, in critical periods of crisis, the “modest worker” is easily drawn into the general flow by the radicalism of the masses and can temporarily mix with them. The differences between a man of mass and the “average element” will also help us understand the subtle observation of N.A. Berdyaev: “...the plebeian spirit is the spirit of envy of the aristocracy and hatred of it. The simplest man of the people may not be a plebeian in this sense. And then in a man there may be traits of real aristocracy, who never envy, there may be hierarchical traits of his own breed, ordained by God” (18, p. 136).
In all eras, there is, in fact, a kind of struggle between the masses and the elite for predominant influence over this “middle element.” Now, in an era of global stress, the lag of “human qualities” from rapid changes, new demands of the time (A. Peccei), the question of social leadership, which seemed to have already been resolved by the experience of centuries in favor of the elite, has been raised again. The guidelines for the development of civilization can be deformed during such a “rearrangement”, acquiring instead a creative-progressive, instrumental-consumer character, and in the future - a philistine-stagnant character, which leads, among other things, to resource-ecological collapse.
However, according to V.F. Shapovalov, we would fall into the illusion of social titanism, demanding from the masses, from the majority of the population (including “humble workers”) to constantly be in a state of responsibility for humanity, for the country, for the universal future. An ordinary person prefers to “just live”, to realize himself in various areas of activity and leisure (173, p. 38). There is no tragedy in this as long as the measure of “mine” and “common” is observed and as long as there is a genuine spiritual elite.
The problem of the elite or aristocracy in a literal, rather than historical, class sense, is one of the most ancient. Do we feel even an iota of falsehood when reading Plato’s lines about the ideal state: “...the insignificant desires of the majority are subordinated there to the reasonable desires of the minority, that is, decent people” (129, p. 203)? N.A.’s thought is also clear and precise. Berdyaev: “Aristocracy, as the management and domination of the best, as a requirement for quality selection, remains forever and ever the highest principle of social life, the only utopia worthy of man” (18, p. 124).
The optimal development of society probably requires adherence to the following principles: 1) selection, promotion and government of the best socio-spiritual elements, the real elite; 2) the evolution (flow) of the middle and lower strata of society in the elite direction through the rise of their spiritual level. “At the same time,” according to N.A. Berdyaev, - in historical terms, it should be remembered that the masses emerge from darkness and become involved in culture through the emergence of the aristocracy and its fulfillment of its mission” (ibid., pp. 131-132).
Both Ortega y Gasset and Berdyaev call not to confuse the spiritual elite with the class, hereditary aristocracy - representatives of the historical aristocracy can stand very low in spiritually, to be real “people of the masses,” while the best representatives of the spiritual aristocracy often do not come from the aristocratic strata. A select part of the historical aristocracy, however, for a long time played the role of the spiritual elite; for example, knighthood, the best part of the Russian nobility - these spiritual types have been formed over centuries, endowed with the traits of nobility, generosity, sacrifice, and honor. But hereditary aristocracy tends to degenerate, to caste isolation, and isolation from reality. Disgusting are aristocratic arrogance, a disdainful attitude towards the common people, betrayal of the purpose of giving from one's excess, and the struggle to maintain undeserved privileges.
The spiritual elite should not be confused with the political elite, although the latter may contain spiritually significant elements. In the history of social thought, the idea of the coincidence of the spiritual, moral and ruling elite originates not only in the European region in the era of antiquity, but also in the East. It is enough to recall the ideal of the “perfect man” - the ruler of the “Junzi” Confucius, later exchanged “for small coin” by the epigones of official Confucianism (23, pp. 261-262). However, in historical practice such a coincidence has so far been the exception rather than the rule.
Moreover, one’s financial status does not determine one’s belonging to the masses or the elite, since the richest and most influential person may remain a cultural nonentity, and the bearer of an original high culture may live on the brink of poverty (173, p. 35). The spiritual aristocracy, the spiritual elite comes from any environment, is born (formed) in the order of “individual grace” (18, p. 136).
The importance of this fragile “ozone” layer can hardly be overestimated: the fate of the people and humanity depends on the presence of the spiritual elite and its qualities. Through it, spirituality and citizenship penetrate into other layers. V.F. Shapovalov points out a number of features of this layer, in addition to those already named and highlighted by X. Ortega y Gasset:
The spiritual elite is a bearer of high culture, which does not connect its existence with claims to high material rewards;
Its existence is based, first of all, on the awareness of the intrinsic value of culture, which is a “reward in itself”;
There is not and should not be idolatry in it - neither before the authorities, nor before the people. Only such an elite can count on an appropriate public assessment, free from suspicions of greed and, thanks to this, is able to really have an impact, including a moral one, on the life of society (173, pp. 35-38).
An important feature of spiritual aristocracy is that it acts as a carrier and conductor of not only national, but also universal social and historical experience. Knowledge of the past, a sense of oneself in historical time give it stability, serve as a source of its spiritual strength in the most difficult times, in crises and turning points, unbalancing the “middle element” (“modest workers”) and provoking the growth of extremism of the “man of the masses.”
The spiritual elite should take the place of a social leader or social arbiter, giving an expert assessment of the decisions of the authorities and the phenomena of public life. At the same time, if Plato’s dream of direct control of the state by “philosophers” does not become a reality, distancing and autonomy of the spiritual elite from power is necessary.
Unfortunately, our century has turned out to be cruel to the spiritual aristocracy. This was manifested in frenzied suicidal extermination and in the displacement of the elite by the revolutionary “autocratic people”, despot dictators, and in attempts to create an alternative “servant elite”. The spiritual elite turns out to be a superfluous element in mass society, the mass culture of the West; Intellectuals can physically preserve themselves only by “embedding” into a certain purely pragmatic “Procrustean bed”, acting as an appendage of the “consumer society”.
So, in accordance with what was said earlier, from the position of representatives of the culture-centric approach, the masses can be considered as a qualitatively lower layer of society, whose life potentials and needs practically do not go beyond the framework of “pure being”, simple and expanded consumption. And if we theoretically assume and model the dominance of this element in the regulatory (politics, public relations) and spiritual spheres, in the sphere of mass communications, then it is reasonable to assume the resulting reduction and emasculation of the content of the activities of these spheres and public relations.
Alas, practice seems to be developing in the direction described above. The measure of evaluation of cultural works is increasingly their popularity and commercial success; there is a hypertrophy of the entertainment function of art in relation to the developmental one.
In politics, the problem of hyper-democracy is becoming more and more apparent. The question arises: is it possible to solve the problems of the future of the country, of humanity, by an arithmetic majority of individuals (protecting fundamental material interests is one thing, choosing a strategy for the development of society is another)? X. Ortega y Gasset writes about the displacement of representatives of qualified minorities from the sphere of politics, the promotion of a mass of similar politicians, which is very characteristic of modern political life in Russia. This kind of power, as a rule, lives by the needs of today, but not by plans for the future: its activity boils down to “somehow dodging moment-to-moment complications and conflicts: problems are not resolved, but are only postponed from day to day... even with the risk that they will accumulate and cause a formidable conflict” (127, No. 3, p. 135). Both the “man of the masses” and his power actually live according to the same principle: “After us, even a flood!”, Both are temporary workers, preparing a bleak future for new generations.
The masses often easily part with elements of freedom for the sake of benefits, real or promised in the future, in favor of the state, which serves as the basis for the establishment of statism and totalitarianism. The latter is also facilitated by the egalitarian spirit of the masses, which does not tolerate and does not understand multi-quality, diversity. The dominance of the masses, which personifies the functional-consumer side of the life of society - necessary, but not sufficient from the standpoint of the full value of man and humanity - can be exercised in different forms. No matter how paradoxical it may sound, outwardly democratic and totalitarian regimes can have identical essential content.
The elite or aristocratic principle (that is, the selection of highly moral, competent and talented people for management, the priority of the truly best sanctioned by society) is a necessary condition for sustainable development any society. But how does the democratic principle relate to it? N.A. Berdyaev considers these two principles to be opposite, metaphysically hostile and mutually exclusive, for the spirit of democracy carries the greatest danger for the aristocratic-elite principle: “Metaphysics, morality and aesthetics of quantity would like to crush and destroy every quality, everything that rises personally and collectively” (18, p. 140), his kingdom is the kingdom of the worst, not the best, and, therefore, there is a danger to progress, “the qualitative improvement of human nature” (ibid., p. 140).
Another danger of the “democratic” spirit, democracy as a form of power, is that the people’s own will is actually proclaimed as the supreme principle of the people’s life, regardless of what it is aimed at or what its content is. “The people’s will,” notes N. Berdyaev, “may want the most terrible evil, and the democratic principle cannot object to this.” There is no guarantee in this principle that its implementation “will not reduce the quality level human life and will not destroy the greatest values” (ibid., p. 160).
The reasons for the triumph of “democratic metaphysics” in the 20th century lie, according to Berdyaev, in the loss of the sources of spiritual life, the spiritual decline of humanity (the growth of democracy goes parallel to the “weathering of the soul”), the growth of skepticism and skeptical social epistemology: if there is no truth and truth, then we will to recognize for them what the majority recognizes, if they exist, but I don’t know them, again it remains to rely on the majority. “... It’s monstrous,” exclaims Berdyaev, “how people could reach such a state of consciousness that they saw in the opinion and will of the majority the source and criterion of truth and truth” (ibid., p. 169).
The theoretical foundations of “democracy” are also sociological nominalism, which considers the people and the people’s will as a kind of mechanical sum. However, from the arithmetic summation of the will of all, the general will does not emerge. The people, according to Berdyaev, are a hierarchical organism, in which each person is a different being, unique in its quality, it is not a human quantity, a human mass. Therefore, universal suffrage is an unsuitable way of expressing qualities in the life of the people. A minority or even one person can better, more precisely, according to the philosopher, express the will and spirit of the people, and the significance of great people in history is based on this (ibid., pp. 161-163).
A self-sufficient democratic principle without a combination with an elite principle in a situation of socio-cultural activation of the community of “mass people”, delegating parvenu-bureaucratic, populist elements to democratic institutions, can turn out to be deforming and destructive from the point of view of the prospects for the development of civilization.
X. Ortega y Gasset shows modern mass man as a socio-historical phenomenon, which, however, did not arise suddenly, like Athena from the head of Zeus. Changes in society - the processes of the final formation of industrial society, urbanization, democratization, secularization of consciousness and others - did not give rise to, but rather awakened, a low-prestige socio-cultural type that already existed in earlier times, but hitherto unclaimed, frighteningly active within the framework of its limited, one-dimensional life project.
The general democratization of life gives various results: on the one hand, the widespread introduction of the lower classes to the basics of culture and the growth of their education, and on the other, the “shallowing” of culture and its transformation into a standard “popular” version of it. The last of the “growing pains” of society, a temporary trend, can become the dominant development. What is happening, in fact, is the formation of a new cultural environment in which there is less and less genuine culture.
The old barriers, mechanisms for protecting elite culture (not so much class, but - in its best examples - national, universal), its impact on the lower classes were inevitably destroyed. This concerns, first of all, the closed class nature of the elite, its unlimited dominance, and the religious way of regulating the social standards of the lower classes. Nowadays, the spiritual elite has found itself defenseless against the onslaught of mass culture, that is, in the spirit of Ortega’s ideas, a culture formed on the basis of the values of the “mass man.”
In those modern societies ah, where, due to traditions and the evolutionary nature of transition processes, it was possible to find forms of combination of democratic and elitist principles, where state institutions really patronize “high culture”, we see a kind of symbiosis of two cultures, but still almost always with a predominance of “mass” culture. With a revolutionary-destructive, fleeting form of transition associated with a radical breakdown of traditions and the liquidation of the old elite, the breeding ground for the formation of a mass ersatz culture is much wider.
It should be remembered that the radical division of society into the masses and the elite is quite arbitrary. Even in a relatively pure form, these social types are extremely few in number, if not isolated. Just as in the psyche of most people we see the dichotomy of good and evil, the struggle between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, so competing value systems leave their imprints on it. It is not always the case that a person has sufficient internal maturity to make his own unambiguous choice, especially a nonconformist one. In such a situation, many “humble workers” obviously feel confused and find the criterion of truth in the opinions of the majority. The fetishization of the life success of the “man of the masses”, this new mythological hero (in Russia in the 90s he is known as the “new Russian”), the inculcation of vulgarity that is still ashamed of itself as the norm of life, can meet with silent disapproval, hidden irony from the “modest worker,” but little by little there is a shift in values, if not in the first generation, then among the descendants. The community of “people of the masses”, instilling its system of values in the converts, is expanding due to the former “humble workers” and their offspring, who are formed in a new socio-cultural environment, on new “ideals”. Thus, the masses from a second-class fragment of society rise to the majority, and then seize the “commanding heights” in society through the institutions of democracy.
Taking a break from the global scale, let's take a moment to look at the face of the Russian government of the 90s. It seems that the rare politician or government official of the “new formation” is not an open and obvious “man of the masses” or “hesitating for a short time”, rushing to realize the happy opportunity to satisfy his material desires and vanity; Immoralism and corruption became in this era, as it were, unspoken standards of activity for the managerial caste, and words about serving the Fatherland were nothing more than ritual phrases. Such a situation could be characterized as the apotheosis of the “mass man” - his ideology lives and wins at all levels of society, power is not only not opposed to mass culture, the “man of the masses”, it is the very flesh of his flesh.
Returning to the ideas of X. Ortega y Gasset, we note the most valuable from the point of view of analyzing the sociocultural changes that had emerged in Western society by the 30s of the 20th century, as well as from the point of view of formalizing the main provisions of the Ortega version of the culture-centric approach.
Ortega pointed out the danger threatening society from the dispersed moral and intellectual community of “people of the masses” that had become active at the beginning of the 20th century, and gave criteria for diagnosing this social type, which allows us to look at the problem of social and mass phenomena from a new angle.
From the standpoint of politically-oriented and socio-psychological approaches, mass consciousness is a phenomenon, a product of mass interaction: contact or indirect, spontaneous, accidental or consciously formed, especially through information policy. A social psychologist is inclined to interpret the masses as collective empathy, the politician as a total idealized opponent of power (absolute homogeneity of the masses from the point of view of management problems would be an ideal) (178, p. 13). In both the first and second cases, the researcher’s thought moves along the axis from society to the individual, the emphasis is on the impact of institutions and collective interactions on individual consciousness. Mass consciousness thought, first of all, as a product of society, loses its direct connection with the individual. A distinctive feature of the culture-centric (Ortegian) approach is the appeal to the problem of the mass in the opposite system of coordinates - the consideration of characteristic types of individual consciousness, similar in content and principles of functioning, allowing us to identify mass, elite, intermediate types of consciousness as the main ones.
In this regard, taking into account a number of ideas of X. Ortega y Gasset, as well as the realities social structure and the social life of modern societies, in which the imperative of culture is increasingly making itself felt, we consider it necessary to make an analysis of sociocultural stratification, understood as an analysis of the relationship between the main types of individual culture, a mandatory element of the study of social structure. As the main typological units of this variant of dividing society in order to study the most important characteristics of its condition, we propose to use the cultural and anthropological types previously described in this work: a representative of the spiritual elite, a “modest worker,” a “man of the masses.”
The main criteria of sociocultural differentiation are ethical (value) and cognitive (presuming an orientation towards a true or illusory, “plausible” comprehension of the world, one or another version of the organization and qualities of thinking). Moreover, in each of the above types, Ortega identifies and emphasizes precisely the ethical core, a system of values that serve as a life guide. The “man of the masses” is not a puppet, not a random hostage of the crowd, of mass action, not only the approach of propaganda and advertising. Without denying the role of socio-historical factors in bringing this type to the forefront, Ortega y Gasset assigns these factors the role of a favorable background, rather than its emergence, but rather its deployment; he depicts the “mass man” in his active, expansionist impact on society, as a subject of the formation of a “mass subculture” - old as the world, and new only in the scale of its aggression, spreading in society. Ortega points to the emergence of a dangerous tendency towards the transformation of this essentially vulgar subculture into a standard, normative one.
The integration of different approaches opens up certain prospects. Based on the ideas presented here, synthesizing them with a number of provisions of G. Tarde, L. von Wiese and others, we can make the assumption that “mass man” (“people of the masses”) is a modern form of potential, latent mass and serves as the core, enzyme mass actual, active. We believe that the substantive characteristics of a given individual - a subject of mass consciousness and behavior - will remain relatively stable (with certain amendments when forms of interaction change), and the immediate task is to create an ideal model of a “man of the masses”, including typical behavior options, mechanisms of cognitive and practical activity ( the value-worldview side has already been quite fully described by X. Ortega y Gasset).
Let’s start defining the most general concepts of “social mass” and “mass consciousness” from the standpoint of a culture-centric approach by highlighting the main features and characteristics of the mass.
Talking about social mass in general, two inherent features should be pointed out: 1) the inclusion of many individuals in its composition; 2) the relative homogeneity of the characteristics of the latter. Both signs are equally important and inseparable. The most general definition mass may sound like this: “Mass is a system consisting of many homogeneous elements” (individuals with homogeneous characteristics of consciousness and behavior). Of course, this homogeneity cannot be absolute, but it must necessarily be associated with that facet of the object that is the subject of our research. Further refinement of this definition depends on the chosen research approach. In the context of the socio-psychological approach, a mass is a set of interacting individuals with weakened personal qualities and the dominant nature of collective empathy, that is, the unity of experiences caused by the “mutual contamination” of members of the contact mass, the temporary unification of mental and activity qualities. This is where the relative homogeneity of such a mass is manifested, although it is of an unstable, temporary nature.
The Ortegian approach leads to the following understanding of the mass: it is a dispersed, spatially dispersed community of individuals with coinciding characteristics of consciousness (homogeneous value systems, types of thinking) - “people of the mass.” Under certain historical conditions (the dominance of the market, industrialism, urbanization, massification of education and spiritual life in general, combined with formal democracy), the mass becomes the dominant force that determines the direction and nature of processes in all spheres of society.
As for the definition of “mass consciousness,” we have already talked about the impossibility, in our opinion, of creating any constructive variants of it within the framework of other approaches - from the point of view of the language of science and etymology, the concept of “mass consciousness” retains its usefulness as a socio-philosophical the term is precisely within the framework of the culture-centric approach. This is precisely where we are talking about adequate forms and levels of conscious processes, including thinking and self-awareness of a certain kind of individual. In other cases, while recognizing the actually established tradition of the broad use of the term, one cannot help but see a certain convention, a misleading stretch for the researcher. So, for example, with a socio-psychological approach we deal not only (often and not so much) with conscious processes and actions, but also with the influence of the “mass unconscious”. As is known, G. Tarde and G. Le Bon avoided using the term “consciousness”, using a less specific one - “soul of the crowd”. With this approach, it seems more adequate to use the concepts of “mass psychology” and “social psyche”.
The type of values and cognitive attitudes of the “mass person” that has become widespread in society is only one of the options for defining mass consciousness on the basis of the Ortegian approach. Another can be formulated as follows: “Mass consciousness is a consciousness whose ideological, ethical core is drawn into the field of a mass stereotype, the values of the “man of the masses.” The emphasis in these definitions is on the content of consciousness of the type of person who has become mass-like in society, and this content becomes permeable to research and analysis, which is problematic when using models of “mass consciousness” formed within the framework of other approaches.
The Ortegian version of the culture-centric approach in the conditions of the current development of society can become, in our opinion, one of the most promising directions for further study of social and mass phenomena, opening the way to relatively new and heuristically useful theoretical guidelines when conducting sociological research and formulating socio-philosophical generalizations, and also to the formation of really “working” scientific concepts.
However, having a large number of advantages and the qualities of an activator approach, especially when studying modern social and mass phenomena, the culture-centric (Ortegian) approach is not self-sufficient. Its effective use is conceivable only in interaction with other approaches.
G.Yu. Chernov. Social and mass phenomena. Research approaches. - D., 2009. See also:ORTEGA Y GASSET(Ortega y Gasset) José (May 9, 1883, Madrid - October 18, 1955, Madrid) - the greatest Spanish philosopher of the 20th century. He studied at the universities of Bilbao and Madrid, and in 1904 defended his doctoral dissertation. In 1905 he left for Germany, studied in Leipzig, and then, after a short stay in Spain, in Berlin and Marburg. Study with G. Cohen And P. Natorpa had a significant influence on Ortega - the first stage of his work can be described as neo-Kantian. Upon returning to Spain, from 1908 he taught at the University of Madrid; from 1910 to 1936 he headed the department of metaphysics. He founded the magazine and publishing house Revista de Occidente, which played a significant role in the formation of several generations of Spanish intellectuals. Ortega took an active part in political life as a liberal publicist in the 1930s. was a member of the Cortes. Shortly after the outbreak of the 1936–39 civil war he left Spain; Having returned to his homeland in 1945, he remained in opposition to the Franco regime and lived in “internal emigration.” Founded the Institute in 1948 humanities, where he gives lecture courses on the philosophy of history and sociology. In the 1950s Ortegianism acted as the only secular teaching opposing scholasticism in Spanish universities and Francoism as a liberal political doctrine. Along with emigrant students ( H.Gaos , M. Zambrano, etc.), who played a significant role in the development of philosophy in Latin American countries, Ortega’s students also included leading Spanish philosophers of the 1950s–70s. ( H.Subiri , X.Marias , P.Lain Entralgo , X.L.Aranguren ).
The evolution of Ortega’s views is rightfully considered as a movement from neo-Kantianism to the “philosophy of life”, and then to existentialism. At the same time, such a schematization takes into account only external influences that affected Ortega’s terminology, while the main provisions of his philosophy are found already in “Reflections on Quijote” (Meditationes del Quijote, 1914) and have not changed significantly since then. Starting from neo-Kantianism, the “philosophy of life”, Husserl’s phenomenology, Ortega creates the doctrine of “vital reason” (see. rationalism ), reminiscent of both Heidegger’s analytics of Dasein and Husserl’s doctrine of the “life world”. The central formula of his philosophy is: “I am “I” and my circumstances.” The first “I” is the “radical reality of human life”, in which all other realities are rooted; the second “I” is consciousness, the subject of classical philosophy; “circumstances” (circunstancia) are everything that can become the subject of an act of consciousness, and not only a cognitive act, but also a volitional, emotional, etc. Circumstances are objectivity, including not only the external, but also the internal world, they are not deducible from the “I” and are not constructed by the subject; any act of consciousness is accompanied by an object, and the circumstances themselves are always already interpreted - therefore “things” are our interpretations, even “metaphors”. Being is neither matter, nor spirit, not some kind of substance, but “perspective”, “perspective”. The organizing principle of reality is point of view, and any attempt to obtain an “impersonal” picture of the world ends in failure - perspective sub specie aeterni does not exist.
Ortega's perspectivism is complemented by the doctrine of “life” as a “radical reality” and primordial activity, as well as creative imagination and meaning generation. Ortega creates his own version of hermeneutics, which underlies his historicism . Man does not have nature, he has history. Ortega distinguishes between reflective and pre-reflective levels of life, which he calls “ideas” and “beliefs.” Human existence is initially practical, we “consider” the world before any “ideas”, we are open to it in “beliefs”. Behind every system of ideas, theory, there is a system of beliefs, self-evident “prejudices.” No methodological doubt can abolish beliefs without which man himself cannot exist. Beliefs are called into question when the very soil of life is shaken, when a person loses orientation in the world and is in existential despair. A person resorts to the help of ideas precisely in order to restore security and confidence, a harmonious balance with the world. In beliefs, a person lives “by the truth”; in doubt, he has the idea of truth as something that requires effort to achieve. The idea-truth found through such efforts of thinking eventually becomes a belief. Philosophy and science arose precisely because tradition was destroyed, previous collective beliefs collapsed - philosophy begins with a “shipwreck” and attempts to swim out of the “sea of doubts.” Philosophy has its beginning, but the end of this method of searching for truth is quite possible.
The doctrine of ideas and beliefs lies at the core of Ortega's philosophy of history. Belief systems are collective, each era is characterized by the dominance of some basic belief. The historical crisis occurs along with the collapse of such a system of coordinates. A person is left without a point of support, without firm convictions - he is lost in the world. Crisis periods are full of searches for guiding ideas: philosophical doctrines, religious heresies and sects multiply. The old culture no longer inspires confidence, it is incomprehensible to the masses - barbarians appear on the stage of history, who do not invade from the outside, but are generated by the culture itself. It has become ritualized, overly specialized, pharisaical - the gods die, and people find themselves alienated from the meanings that cultural patterns have carried for centuries. In his work “Around Galileo” (En torno a Galileo, 1933), Ortega examines in detail the “crisis of the Renaissance”, which ended with the advent of the “geometric reason” of Cartesian metaphysics and physics. A new way of thinking makes itself known in scientific treatises, and in the polemical writings of enlighteners, and in classicism, and in the parks of Versailles, and in a discipline that denies all “unreason,” and in the prudence of law-abiding bourgeois, and in revolutionary declarations of rights and freedoms. In the 19th century rational civilization wins victory after victory, but in the first third of the 20th century. The crisis covers all areas of culture - from art to politics and economics. Ortega devoted a number of works to this crisis - “The Dehumanization of Art” (La deshumanización del arte.., 1925), « Rise of the masses» etc. In his own teaching about “vital or historical reason” he saw a way to overcome the crisis that arose as a result of the collapse of “geometric reason”, i.e. classical rationalism and scientism.
Ortega wrote large number works on a variety of philosophical problems - philosophical anthropology, philosophy of technology, aesthetics, philosophy of history, history of science, etc. Of the works published posthumously, the most important was the sketch of theoretical sociology (“Man and People”), in which he developed the theory of custom as a basic element of social life. Ortega was one of the founders of the theory mass society .
Essays:
1. Obras completas, v. 1–9. Madrid, 1953–71;
2. in Russian trans.: What is philosophy? M., 1991;
3. Aesthetics. Philosophy of culture. M., 1991;
4. Selected works. M., 1997;
5. Obras Completas, v. I–XI. Madrid, 1953–1971.
Literature:
1. Zykova A.B. The doctrine of man in the philosophy of X. Ortega y Gasset. M., 1978;
2. Ferrater Mora J. Ortega y Gasset: an outline of his philosophy. L., 1956;
3. Abellan J.L. Ortega y Gasset en la fllosofia española. Madrid, ;
4. Moron A.S. El sistema de Ortega y Gasset. Madrid, ;
5. Aguado E. Ortega at Gasset. Madrid, ;
6. Rukser U. Bibliografia de Ortega. Madrid, 1971.
ORTEGA Y GASSET JOSE
Spanish philosopher and publicist, representative of the philosophy of life and philosophy of anthropology. He saw the true reality that gives meaning to human existence in history, interpreting it in the spirit of existentialism as a spiritual experience of direct experience. One of the main representatives of the concepts of “mass society” of mass culture (“Rise of the Masses”, 1920–1930) and the theory of the elite. In aesthetics he acted as a theorist of modernism (“Dehumanization of Art”, 1925).
In Spanish philosophy of the 20th century, Ortega is recognized not as “first among equals,” but as the first philosopher in the proper sense of the word. His teachings had a huge impact on the entire Spanish-speaking world. Ortega's students, both those who remained in Spain and those who emigrated to Latin American countries, developed their teachings on the basis of his philosophy. Major Spanish philosophers last decades- X. Subiri, H. L. Aranguren - also former students of Ortega. Existentialism remained one of the main trends in philosophy in all countries of post-war Europe, and in Spain its influence turned out to be so strong that almost not a single Spanish thinker of the 1940s–1980s escaped this influence, even people whose specialty was very far from philosophy .
Ortega’s philosophy of history also influenced a whole generation of Spanish historians; post-war “tremendism” in literature (its most prominent representative, J. L. Sela, recently won the Nobel Prize) is directly related to Ortega’s philosophy. In the 1940s–1950s, Ortegianism developed as the only philosophical doctrine opposed to scholasticism.
José Ortega y Gasset was born in Madrid on May 9, 1883. His family belonged to the cultural bourgeoisie during the Restoration, the reign of King Alfonso XII. Father, Jose Ortega Munilla, was a publicist, writer, and ran the literary section of the Imparcial newspaper. Mother, Dolores Gasset Chinchilla, was the daughter of the founder and owner of this liberal newspaper, a former diplomat. Considering that Ortega’s uncles, brothers, and then sons took an active part in political and cultural life countries, it is not surprising that in Spanish encyclopedic dictionary a dozen of his relatives are represented. In Spain, traditionally the first surname comes from the father, the second from the mother. Thus, the sons of the philosopher bore the surname Ortega Spottorno ( maiden name wives - Spottorno). The “and” was inserted into the surname Ortega y Gasset for euphony. In short, only by his first surname, the philosopher was first called in a narrow circle of friends, and then, already in the 1940s, he himself insisted that he be called simply Ortega.
Being born into a family where issues of literature, journalism, and politics were discussed every day, and one did not have to worry about getting a piece of bread, of course, played a role in shaping the views of the future philosopher. He himself used to say that he was born under the printing press, and communication with relatives - deputies, ministers - prepared a natural inclusion in the world of politics. Although Ortega’s parents were quite indifferent to religion, he and his brother were sent to study at a Jesuit college at the age of 8 (in Miraflores del Palo, near Malaga). Ortega did not feel any gratitude to the Jesuit fathers who taught him for six years. Subsequently, he turned to his contemporaries - “to those who had no teachers, to those who have the courage to admit that they had learned nothing in Spanish: neither art, nor intelligence, nor virtue.” According to Ortega’s recollections, ignorance in college was combined with mockery of the best minds of humanity, morality was replaced by “a set of rules or the stupidest exercises, prejudices,” art was generally ignored. In the time of Descartes and even Voltaire, Jesuit colleges were still famous for their teachers, but by end of the 19th century centuries, and even in Spain, they could no longer provide Christian education - the early loss of the Christian faith in the senior classes of college occurred without any internal conflicts- she, according to Ortega, “evaporated.”
Higher education was not much different from secondary education. At the age of 15, Ortega entered university, studied for a year in the department of law, philosophy and literature at the Jesuit University in Bilbao, then three years in Madrid. Only ancient languages were taught tolerably well. Ortega later wrote about “solemn people repeating dead words in order to spread their own inadequacy among new generations.” The shortcomings of school and university education were made up for by independent reading: in the home library, along with Spanish classics, there were many books in French: he reads Hugo, Taine, Sainte-Beuve, Chateaubriand, Stendhal, Constant, Merimee, Renan, Barrès, Flaubert, Zola, Maupassant , the best French poets and philosophers. By his own admission, Ortega “has been saturated with French culture since childhood.” Greatest influence he was influenced by the works of French historians - Michelet, Thierry, Tocqueville and especially Renan (not so much the content of the latter's books as his style, his penchant for combining metaphysics with literature, for rhetoric). Of course, his reading circle included Greco-Latin classics, and among the Germans, Ortega, in his youth, knew very well Goethe, Heine, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, about whose philosophy he had endless debates with his friend, Ramiro de Maestu (later this talented publicist would become a prominent ideologist Spanish traditionalism and will be shot by the Republicans in 1936). Ortega would become acquainted with English literature and philosophy much later; she will not play any significant role in the development of his ideas.
With all of Ortega’s love for brilliant French literature and Impressionist painting, he very quickly developed an “immunity” to French philosophy. “We were brought up in this environment of French decadence, and therefore there was a risk of accepting as self-evident values, as normal culture, what was rather a vice, an anomaly and weakness.” The intonations here are Nietzschean; Not without the influence of Nietzsche, physiological and medical concepts are applied to cultural phenomena. However, interest in German philosophy was not limited to Nietzscheanism, which had become fashionable throughout Europe. Having defended his doctoral dissertation in 1904, “The Horrors of the Year Thousand. Criticism of a Legend,” Ortega travels to Germany in 1905.
At first, Ortega sympathized with socialism and saw in it a social force capable of carrying out the necessary reforms. In the socialism of the Second International, Ortega was attracted by the desire for social justice, a respectful attitude towards science, a fairly high culture of the leaders of the labor movement - in Pablo Iglesias he saw an example of civic virtues, the only national leader fighting not for power as such, but in the name of high social ideals. Ortega, however, did not accept Marxism, believing that the dogmatic teaching of class struggle interfered with national consolidation. He was well acquainted with the works of Lassalle and Bernstein, but his main source remained the “ethical socialism” of the neo-Kantians.
So, Ortega went to Germany in 1905, spent one semester in Leipzig, where he studied physiology and psychology, and studied three of Kant’s Critiques. He then returned briefly to Spain to secure a government scholarship for a longer stay in Germany. In 1906–1907 he studied for one semester in Berlin and for about a year in Marburg. In Berlin, Ortega mainly worked in the library, filling gaps in knowledge, 10–12 hours a day. Subsequently, having discovered the works of V. Dilthey in the late 20s, he regretted that he had missed the last lecture courses and books of this thinker, who expressed ideas in tune with Ortega. But at that time he was under the determining influence of neo-Kantianism.
At the beginning of the century, Marburg turned out to be a place of pilgrimage for European youth wishing to receive a real philosophical education.
His university years in Marburg - he was a student of Cohen and Natorp - gave him, in his own words, at least half of his aspirations and almost all of his science education, bringing him into contact with Kant's legacy. He considered Dilthey to be the outstanding German philosopher of the second half of the 19th century, and Dilthey’s idea of the connection between the concepts of “life” and “history” greatly influenced his own work. Later, Nietzsche and Bergson directed him along the path of philosophy of life, and he tried to find the fundamental basis of life in the field of biology. He opposes the claims of the natural sciences to exclusive dominance, and not only because they leave the transcendental aside. Philosophy here was devoted not only to days in university classrooms and evenings in the library, but also hours of rest - nights, when, together with N. Hartmann and H. Himseth, Ortega discussed the works of Parmenides, Leibniz, and Kant. Neo-Kantianism was an excellent school, a discipline for the mind. Subsequently, Ortega soberly assessed the limitations of the approach of his teachers: philosophy was exhausted by the theory of knowledge, the view of the history of philosophy remained narrow - in addition to Kant, Descartes, Leibniz, Plato were valuable, but they were also read through Kant’s texts. In “Prologue for the Germans,” Ortega wrote about Natorp that he put Plato on bread and water for 12–14 years, subjecting him to the most painful tortures so that Plato would eventually admit that he said exactly the same thing as Natorp.
Since 1908, Ortega has taught philosophy, and in 1910 he received the chair of metaphysics at the University of Madrid, where he lectured until 1936. The number of students and followers grew rapidly; by the early 1930s, the “Madrid School” was formed, which existed for several decades and played huge role in the development of philosophical thought in Spain and in Latin American countries (where many of Ortega’s students emigrated after the defeat of the Republic). When Ortega began his career, philosophy simply did not exist in Spanish universities.
Under these conditions, he had no time for “technical” difficulties: he was engaged in education, propagating philosophy both in small university classrooms and in a huge theater building (here he read the course “What is Philosophy?” in front of a huge crowd of public). Ortega called himself a “professor of philosophy in partibus infidehum”: he considered his task to convert these “pagans” into philosophy - newspaper articles, organization of translations, and publishing activities served this purpose.
He founded the still existing magazine and publishing house Revista de Occidente, where they began to publish in the 1920s–1930s best works foreign philosophers and scientists. It is this noble educational activity that is the cause of many difficulties in analyzing Ortega’s own concept. It is not always clear where Ortega’s commentary on the works of this or that philosopher ends and the presentation of his own ideas begins; the most important of them are first expressed in a newspaper article, in the preface, written on occasion, to the book of a little-known poet.
Many of Ortega's works are either collected together newspaper articles ("Revolt of the Masses") or recordings of a course of lectures ("Theme of Our Time", "Around Galileo", "What is Philosophy?", "Man and People"). Ortega understood perfectly well that essayism could not replace work on a systematic presentation of his teachings.
In 1932, in the preface to the collection own compositions he announced that the time had come for him to “make his second voyage” - from now on he intends to write not only brilliant essays, but also strictly logical treatises, basic research. However, he failed to write his intended treatise, “The Dawn of Vital Reason,” just as he failed to complete his most “technical” study, “Leibniz’s Idea of Principle and the Evolution of Deductive Theory.” Only a third of the way, judging by the surviving plan, was written the main work on sociology - “Man and People”. Political events interfered, interrupting work at the desk and in the university classroom.
Ortega was not a philosopher “not of this world”; two volumes of his collected works represent political journalism. Some of his articles had an unusually wide resonance: for example, articles against the military dictatorship and monarchy in 1929–1930. When the Francoist rebellion began, Ortega, despite his antipathy towards the then government, spoke out in defense of the legitimate government, but then, having seen with his own eyes the right-wing and left-wing terror in the country, he left Spain. Years of wandering begin: France, Holland, Argentina, Portugal, and finally, in 1945, Ortega returns to his homeland. What was waiting for him here?
Any civil war is terrible, the result of the Spanish one is a million killed, almost a million emigrants, hundreds of thousands imprisoned and maimed. The war also left its mark on the Ortega family - one of his sons was a Republican and emigrated, the other fought as a Falangist. Almost all the students left the country. Together with the remaining X. Marias, Ortega founded the Institute of Humanities in 1948, where he taught courses on the philosophy of history of A. Toynbee, a series of lectures “Man and People”. In Spain, he lived in “internal emigration”, without saying a single word in support of the regime, but also refraining from open criticism. Despite the fact that Ortega was not a practicing Christian throughout his adult life, before his death (October 19, 1955) he confessed and received communion.
It is difficult to say whether this was a sincere appeal to God on his deathbed, or the fulfillment of social conventions for the benefit of the family, as well as his books, which otherwise would have immediately ended up in the papal index and would have become inaccessible to the Spanish reader. An attempt was made to include his books in the papal index - immediately after his death a campaign began in official means mass media, the formulations “vulgarizer-Europeanist”, “cosmopolitan”, “corrupter of youth”, “drunken philosophy” and the like did not leave the lips of the “accusers”. Among the philosophers, the neo-Thomist Santiago Ramirez especially distinguished himself, writing five volumes in three years against Ortega and his students.
The reasons for this campaign are quite clear: in the 1950s, Ortega’s teaching enjoyed enormous prestige among reading youth, his books were almost the only source of philosophical dissent, of free thought as such. Philosophical works another major Spanish thinker, Unamuno, was included in the index; This did not happen with Ortega’s works - the “liberalization” of the Franco regime began, and after the Vatican Council the pressure from the church decreased.
Every philosophical system contains, as a core, some kind of intuitive vision of the whole, from which parts are then derived; there is a hierarchy of problems - some of them are of paramount importance, others are of no interest to the philosopher. Ortega knew well modern physics and biology, wrote about philosophical problems logic and mathematics, but all these questions were of subordinate importance to him. At the center of his philosophy is a person immersed in historical formation, the “radical reality” for him is human life, and the theory of “vital reason” (rationalism) proposed by him is intended to provide guidelines to modern man, who found himself in a crisis of European culture.
In his first sociological works, The Dehumanization of Art (1925) and The Revolt of the Masses (1929), he argued that culture and civilization are intrinsically opposed to democracy. The modern age is unique in its rejection of the concept of an elite society. Instead of obediently receiving values, models and goals from the aristocracy, the “superman”, the “mass man” now allows conformity, tolerance and bad manners to be imposed on himself as leading social principles.
In “The Dehumanization of Art,” Ortega shows that modern art is anti-egalitarian, undemocratic art. He argues that the goal of such “difficult” artists as Mallarmé, Stravinsky, Picasso, Joyce, Pirandello, is to deliberately exclude the masses from cultural life, which at all times is an elite activity. The only area where Ortega's aristocratic model was revealed in concrete material was his aesthetics: The Dehumanization of Art is more a treatise on sociology than an aesthetic theory in the proper sense of the word. The concept outlined here had points of contact with the avant-garde searches of the beginning of the century and had a certain influence on the work of a number of Spanish writers and artists. It is worth saying that Ortega himself is not a big fan of avant-gardeism and was certainly not an exponent of the views of aesthetic bohemia.
In "The Revolt of the Masses" he advocates European unity in defense of a common Western culture against the barbarism of the masses. By elite he means those who have a certain "superiority" (not in money), and the "superman" is one who freely chooses his goals, while the masses passively obey the norms "set by others."
The new doctrine - Ortega later called it rationalism to emphasize the close connection between thinking and life - grew on poor soil. The book Spain Without a Spinal Column provides an analysis of the decomposition process. The separatism of the provinces of Catalonia, Vizcaya and the particularism of the classes - all this was the end of a long road to decline, on which the masses, left without leadership, triumphed. The forecast for Spain expands to a forecast for the entire European culture. Ortega admits that he agrees with Spengler, Sorokin, and Toynbee in that cultures mature and die. And together with these philosophers he applies his analysis to current situation. His socio-political study of a mass uprising caused a discussion throughout Europe, equal in importance to the controversy surrounding the “Decline of Europe”.
Ortega explores the spiritual and mental state of the man of our time - the mass man, he traces the path to his victory, the path to the increasing devastation of the content of life. However, the uprising of the masses, like all the main features of modernity, is subject to a double understanding. Modern reality has two faces: the face of victory and the face of death. The uprising of the masses may lead to a new, unforeseen order of life, but also to the greatest of catastrophes in the entire destiny of mankind, and perhaps the danger exceeds the hope. Deprived of commandments obliging us to behave in a certain way, our life is frozen in anticipation.
In his works “Modern Theme” (1923), “History as a System” (1935), he writes about the need to “subordinate the mind to life.” It is characterized by utopian rationalism - the desire to develop critical ability at the expense of the “biological” continuity of life. We must, Ortega believes, learn to reason “historically,” that is, to determine our mental activity within the boundaries created by the time and space in which we live.
“We must seek our own circumstances... within their limits and characteristics... To re-master circumstances is the real destiny of man... I am myself and my circumstances.” This statement can be considered the Spanish version of existentialism.
Somewhat overgeneralizing, he said until his last days that there is something utopian in every human endeavor. Man strives for knowledge, but he never manages to really know anything. He strives for justice and in the end he certainly commits an abomination. He thinks he loves, and must ultimately make sure that love vows remain vows. Human intentions are never realized as they are intended, the destiny of man is to be only a promise, a living utopia.
From the book What is Philosophy author Ortega y Gasset JoseJose Ortega y Gasset WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY?
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From the author's book2. G.V. Plekhanov and his philosophical works in the period 1883 - 1895. A qualitatively new period in the history of social and philosophical thought in Russia, as well as in the Russian liberation movement, began in the 80s, more precisely in 1882 - 1883. At this time, a group of prominent
Biographical milestones
Jose Ortega y Gasset(1883–1955) - Spanish philosopher, as a rationalist, combining individual ideas of neo-Kantianism, Nietzscheanism, phenomenology and existentialism. After receiving his education at the universities of Bilbao and Madrid, he defended his doctoral dissertation in 1904. At the University of Berlin he worked as a scholarship holder (1906–1907), listened to lectures by A. Riehl and G. Simmel. In 1908, in Marburg, he studied with G. Cohen and P. Natorp, who instilled in him a respect for philosophizing. He has taught at the University of Madrid since 1908 and headed the department of metaphysics (1910–1936). In 1914 he published “Reflections on Don Quixote,” where his philosophy of “vital reason” was first proposed. In 1916 he lectured in Buenos Aires. In 1923 and 1924 "The Theme of Our Time" and "Kant" are published, in which Ortega promotes "rationalism" into the sphere of Western European philosophy. However, he is best known for The Dehumanization of Art (1925), The Revolt of the Masses and The Mission of the University (both 1930). In the course of 11 lectures "What is philosophy?" in the spring of 1929 in Madrid, he once again presented the philosophy of “vital reason” as an act of synthesis of the previous development of Western European philosophy. These works provide a comprehensive analysis of the crisis of the “European spirit” that Nietzsche declared. In 1928, in Uruguay and Chile, he expounded his philosophical and social ideas. As a liberal publicist, Ortega took an active part in political life and was elected to the Cortes in the 1930s. In 1934, in Freiburg, he met with M. Heidegger, who spoke favorably of the Spanish philosopher. During the Civil War 1936–1939. Ortega y Gasset was in exile (Holland, Portugal, Argentina). After his return in 1945, he was in opposition (“internal emigration”) to the Franco regime, and subsequently his secular teaching opposed university scholasticism and the liberal political doctrine of Francoism.
In the 20th century America received a considerable number of Spaniards who were looking for recognition for their ideas and new inspiration. Not everyone managed to leave a mark on the culture of the New World, much less participate in the development of its spiritual culture. It is significant that today almost everyone recognizes the fact of deep and constant interest in the sociological concepts and philosophy of José Ortega y Gasset and, more importantly, the essential influence of his ideas on the formation of ideological orientations among the Latin American liberal-bourgeois intelligentsia, as well as on the process of formation of regional culture itself.
The growing movement towards self-determination of Latin American cultures needed an ideology, a system of concepts that would reflect the characteristics of this movement and give it theoretically verified guidelines. As it turned out, it was the philosophical ideas of the Spaniard Ortega that were more at home here than other Europeans. Latin Americans learned about him from Reflections on Don Quixote. His essay differed favorably for them from rigid rationalistic discussions of the positivist type, because it was more consistent with the peculiarities of their perception, temperament, and traditions of language and literature. What was noteworthy was the relevance and problematic nature of Ortega’s philosophical thinking, his keen observation and openness to various ideas, and his readiness to enter into dialogue. Here they treated with understanding the pragmatic component of this philosophy, constantly aimed at a breakthrough of specialized philosophical knowledge in the direction of a wide range of anthropological, cultural and political problems, at the interface of the theoretical-cognitive function of philosophy and sociology and the goal of serving practical movements with philosophy and sociology.
Finally, Latin Americans were amazed by Ortega’s philosophical culture and his theoretical outlook. Thanks to him, people in the New World become familiar with the works of major European scientists and thinkers. The history of adapting Ortega’s concepts to the process of forming the post-revolutionary ideology of the liberal and, to some extent, left-radical bourgeoisie in Mexico resulted in ignoring or critically rejecting a number of concepts that did not meet either the realities of the revolution or its expectations, while the national liberation struggle needed corresponding ideas that confirmed the goals of the national rebirth and self-identification. This explains the keen interest in Ortega's historiology, which becomes the basis for theories of the "Mexican essence" and theories of the "Latin American." Ortega's rationalism defended the universal principle of philosophizing, which can be expanded into a worldview, worldview, worldview, cognition, assessment of the world and into a method of life-creation in the world, self-knowledge and self-restraint ("salvation") of alienated being. “I am I and my circumstance; and if I do not save him, then I do not save myself” - this is his formula of philosophy. The theoretical arsenal of Ortega's philosophy was adopted and used in the developing Latin America philosophical thought in the works of popular philosophers - O. Paz, E. Uranga, L. Sea and his students (X. Gaos, M. Zambrano). They also considered themselves disciples of Ortega famous philosophers Spain 1950–1970s (X. Zubiri, X. Marnas, P. Line Entralgo, X. L. Aranguren).
The accepted description of the development of Ortega’s philosophy does not affect the conceptual structure of his philosophy, first presented in “Reflections on Don Quixote” and practically unchanged in the future. His theory of "vital intelligence" is close to analytics Dasein Heidegger and Husserl’s interpretation of the “life world”. The fundamental question of philosophy, according to Ortega, is to determine the way of being: our life is the primary reality. It is necessary to substantiate adequate concepts and categories in order to adequately represent the essence of “our life.” He analyzes the key concept of rationalist philosophy – “everyone’s life”. The discovered reality is completely new, radically different from all previously presented in philosophy. It contains the newest idea of being, the beginning of a new life (lat. vita nova). But life is not just present in the world, but realizes potentials. Life is eternally tragic as we are thrown into an unforeseen world without our consent and forced to decide who to be in this life, or not to be at all. “My life” not only “turns out,” but it is self-transparent, strives to “give itself an account.” Theory in general and philosophy as its extreme form is the study of how life can lose itself, not be interested in things as vitally necessary. Life resolves itself as living in a world rich in possibilities, albeit limited by certain boundaries. This is expressed by the category “circumstance”. The concrete implementation of one's choice (fate) requires life to take into account its past and present in a comprehensive manner. Heidegger introduced, according to Ortega, a good term for denoting life as a decision: “care” (German. Sorge). The Latin root of this word means "curation", i.e. restless care. Life is always anxiety and nothing but anxiety.
So, at the center of the life mind is “I am “I” and my circumstances.” Subjectivity is correlated with objectivity. At first, the “I” represents the complete “reality of human life”, into which all the diversity of reality is embedded; then “I” is consciousness, the Cartesian subject; “circumstances” are all potentially significant acts of consciousness, including cognitive, volitional, emotional, etc. Circumstances include both the external and internal world: any act of consciousness has an object, and the conditions themselves are always already interpreted - things and processes are represented by our interpretations. In this episode, being is analyzed not as material or ideal, but as a special perspective. Such a vision of history, mediated by the method of “perspectivism,” according to Ortega, will finally support the unification of philosophy and history.
The theory of “life” as a diverse reality and eternal activity, together with perspectivism, creative imagination and meaning generation, form a modification of Ortega’s hermeneutics, which underlies his concept of history. It is not nature that characterizes a person, but history that characterizes him. By dividing the reflexive (ideas) and pre-reflective (beliefs) levels of life, Ortega shows that in his practical existence a person is consistent with the world before any “ideas”, and is deployed to the world in “beliefs”. Every theory of ideas hides a system of beliefs and obvious misconceptions. Even the Cartesian method of doubt does not cancel the belief constituted by a person. Beliefs are doubted when a person loses his life orientation: existential despair sets in. Ideas help restore the security and certainty of being. The emergence of philosophy and science is due to the destruction of the collective traditions and customary beliefs of the era - this is an attempt to deal with doubts and find new guiding ideas. The crisis of culture lies in its ritualization, alienation from its meanings. After victories in the 19th century. rational civilization in the first third of the 20th century. finds itself in a crisis, which can be overcome by the theory of “vital reason” by forming the “theme of our time” - the formation of European culture and philosophy.
Ortega y Gasset’s works “The Dehumanization of Art” (1925) and “The Revolt of the Masses” (1929–1930) are significant in that they were the first to reveal the features of “mass society”: the decline of democracy, the bureaucratization of social institutions, the reification of people’s relationships. Social relations turn a person into part of an impersonal crowd. The spiritual situation in society is increasingly subject to “vital impulses” (as in Bergson). A rational mass society leads humanity to destruction, and therefore we should return to consistent forms of relationships that correspond to “love of wisdom.” Philosophical anthropology, philosophy of technology and aesthetics, philosophy of history and sociology are the areas of philosophy in which Ortega y Gasset left a significant mark.
- Ortega y Gasset X. What is philosophy? M.: Nauka, 1991. pp. 162–163, 172, 179, 188-190
- Ortega y Gasset X. What is philosophy? P. 58.
Jose Ortega y Gasset(Spanish Jos Ortega y Gasset, May 9, 1883, Madrid - October 18, 1955) - Spanish philosopher and sociologist, son of the writer José Ortega Munilla.
Biography
He studied at the College of the Jesuit Fathers “Miraflores del Palo” (Malaga). In 1904 he graduated from the Complutense University of Madrid, defending his doctoral theses “El Milenario” (“The Millennial”). Then he spent seven years at universities in Germany, with a preference for Marburg, where Hermann Cohen shone at that time. Upon returning to Spain, he was appointed to the Complutense University of Madrid, where he taught until 1936, when the civil war began.
In 1923, Ortega founded the "Revista de Occidente" ("Western Journal"), which served the cause of the "comparison of the Pyrenees" - the Europeanization of Spain, then isolated from the modern (at that time) cultural process. A staunch republican, Ortega was the leader of the intellectual opposition during the dictatorship of General Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), supported the overthrow of King Alfonso XIII and the establishment of the Second Republic, was one of the founders of the “Republican Union of Intelligentsia” (1931), was elected civil governor of Madrid, and then deputy for the province of Leon. However, very soon Ortega began to become disillusioned with the direction he had taken. political development republics. During the debate on the draft Constitution of the Second Republic, which took place from August 27 to September 9, 1931, in his speech, noting the merits of the draft, at the same time he pointed out that it contained “time bombs,” in particular, regarding regional and religious issues. Staying in the parliamentary chair for another year, he continued to criticize the Republic, the central point of which was his famous speech “Rectificacin de la Repblica” (“Correction of the Republic”), delivered by him in December 1931.
The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936 found Ortega ill. Three days after the start of the confrontation, a detachment of armed communists came to his house and demanded that he sign a manifesto in support of the Popular Front government and condemning “ coup d'etat" Ortega refused to accept them, and during a tough conversation between them and his daughter, she managed to convince those who came that it was necessary to compose a shorter and less politicized text, which, as a result, Ortega signed along with other intellectuals (Ortega later described this episode in his article “ En cuanto al pacifismo"). That same month, Ortega left Spain and went into exile - first to Paris, then to the Netherlands, Argentina and Portugal.
In the civil war taking place in Spain, Ortega y Gasset actually did not support any of the sides, seeing both in the communists, socialists and anarchists, who gained predominance among the Republicans, and in the Falangists, who supported Franco, representatives of mass society, against which he and spoke. While in exile, he harshly criticized those Western intellectuals who came out in support of the Popular Front, believing that they did not understand either the history or the contemporary realities of Spain.
Upon his return to Madrid in 1948, together with Julián Marias, he created the Humanitarian Institute, where he taught. Until the end of his life he remained an open critic of Francoism (as well as communism).
Creativity and fame
In 1914, Ortega published his first book, “Reflections on Don Quixote” (Meditaciones del Quijote), and gave the famous lecture “Old and New Politics” (Vieja y nueva poltica), in which he outlined the position of young intellectuals of the time regarding political and moral problems in Spain. Some historians[who?] consider this address to be an essential milestone in the chain of events that led to the fall of the monarchy.
Ortega's writings, such as Reflections on Don Quixote and Spineless Spain (Espaa invertebrada, 1921), reflect the author's mentality as a Spaniard and a European. His intellectual ability and artistic talent are evident in works such as The Theme of Our Time (El tema de nuestro tiempo, 1923) and The Dehumanization of Art (La deshumanizacin del arte, 1925). In the prologue to “Reflections on Don Quixote” you can find the main ideas of Ortega’s philosophy. Here he gives the definition of a person: “I am “I” and my circumstances” (“Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia”), that is, a person cannot be considered in isolation from the circumstances of history surrounding him.