We have made ourselves into, notes José Ortega y Gasset, a broken and adrift civilization:
We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance. With more means at his disposal, more knowledge, more technique than ever, it turns out that the world today goes the same way as the worst of worlds that have been: it simply drifts. Hence the strange combination of a sense of power and a sense of insecurity with has taken up its abode in the soul of modern man. To him is happening what was said of the Regent during the minority of Louis XV: he had all the talents except the talent to make use of them.
(Quoted from pp. 47-48 of The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset. W. W. Norton, 1932.)
For a brief biography of José Ortega y Gasset, click here. For images of or relating to José Ortega y Gasset, click here.
We live at a time when man believes himself fabulously capable of creation, but he does not know what to create. Lord of all things, he is not lord of himself. He feels lost amid his own abundance. With more means at his disposal, more knowledge, more technique than ever, it turns out that the world today goes the same way as the worst of worlds that have been: it simply drifts. Hence the strange combination of a sense of power and a sense of insecurity with has taken up its abode in the soul of modern man. To him is happening what was said of the Regent during the minority of Louis XV: he had all the talents except the talent to make use of them.
(Quoted from pp. 47-48 of The Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset. W. W. Norton, 1932.)
For a brief biography of José Ortega y Gasset, click here. For images of or relating to José Ortega y Gasset, click here.
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