The Smartest Book About Our Digital Age Was Published in 1929 - The Daily Beast:
I haven't read Ortega, although I'm vaguely familiar with some of his thinking ... there are ALWAYS more books that need to be read!
Just from going and perusing the very short review of "The Revolt of the Masses" on Wiki, it appears that The Daily Beast may have discovered "Transcendence / Aristocracy / Conservatism" without even realizing it! As is always the case with all our puny human minds, we find an "interesting tidbit", and we shove it into our own puny worldview.
Part of why they don't realize what they are reading is because the column is pretty clear that they don't really want to say what "elite" is ... today it is just a bunch of technocrats, politicians and entertainers that have no more connection to the long arc of human culture than the most plebeian man in the street in the 1800's (and often much less)!
In the last 30 years of at least doing SOME level of reading to understand how stupid I really am about the structure of the Western Civilization that begat the computers where I made my living, the internet where I do my reading/writing and all the nice power devices with which I travel around and enjoy myself.
Lo, the Beast has discovered that "rule by mob" is likely not benevolent because they have to idea of "up and down" in culture ... as in God, The Aristocracy, The Government, The Guilds, The local churches, etc
If there is no "Up" in a culture, if the masses are everything and in power, then the goal becomes leveling, and the "level" tends to be LOW. Science, Technology and Politics are MECHANISM! As anyone who reads this Blog is well aware, there is NO meaning in mechanism! It is MEANS, not ENDS!
Perhaps it is a good sign that folks like the Beast are slowly coming to at least dimly see the danger in the tools talking over the shed ...
'via Blog this'
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