The Revolt of the Masses

by José Ortega y Gasset

All our communal life is coming under this regime in which appeal to "indirect" authority is suppressed. In social relations "good manners" no longer prevail. Literature as "direct action" appears in the form of insult. The restrictions of sexual relations are reduced. Restrictions, standards, courtesy, indirect methods, justice, reason! Why were all these invented, why all these complications created? They are all summed up in the word civilization, which, through the underlying notion of civis, the citizen, reveals its real origin. By means of all these there is an attempt to make possible the city, the community, common life. Hence, if we look into all these elements of civilization just enumerated, we shall find the same common basis. All, in fact, presuppose the radical progressive desire on the part of each individual to take others into consideration. Civilization is before all, the will to live in common.