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Revolution is not the uprising against pre-existing order, but the setting up of a new order contradictory to the traditional one.
For the “common” man of all periods “life” had principally meant limitation, obligation, dependence; in a word, pressure.
The world which surrounds the new man from his birth does not compel him to limit himself in any fashion, it sets up no veto in opposition to him; on the contrary, it incites his appetite, which in principle can increase indefinitely.
furthermore suggests to those who dwell in it the radical assurance that to-morrow it will be still richer, ampler, more perfect, as if it enjoyed a spontaneous, inexhaustible power of increase.
the common man, finding himself in a world so excellent, technically and socially, believes that it has been produced by nature, and never thinks of the personal efforts of highly-endowed individuals which the creation of this new world presupposed.
Still less will he admit the notion that all these facilities still require the support of certain difficult human virtues, the least failure of which would cause the rapid disappearance of the whole magnificent edifice.
the mass-man of to-day two fundamental traits: the free expansion of his vital desires, and therefore, of his personality; and his radical ingratitude towards all that has made possible the ease of his existence. These traits together make up the well-known psychology of the spoilt child.
Heir to an ample and generous past—generous both in ideals and in activities—the new commonalty has been spoiled by the world around it.
To spoil means to put no limit on caprice, to give one the impression that everything is permitted to him and that he has no obligations.
As they do not see, behind the benefits of civilisation, marvels of invention and construction which can only be maintained by great effort and foresight, they imagine that their role is limited to demanding these benefits peremptorily, as if they were natural rights.
In the disturbances caused by scarcity of food, the mob goes in search of bread, and the means it employs is generally to wreck the bakeries.
On the contrary the select man, the excellent man is urged, by interior necessity, to appeal from himself to some standard beyond himself, superior to himself, whose service he freely accepts.
Contrary to what is usually thought, it is the man of excellence, and not the common man who lives in essential servitude.
Life has no savour for him unless he makes it consist in service to something transcendental.
Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us—by obligations, not by rights.
Private rights or privileges are not, then, passive possession and mere enjoyment, but they represent the standard attained by personal effort.
an impersonal right is held, a personal one is upheld.
Noble means the “well known,” that is, known by everyone, famous, he who has made himself known by excelling the anonymous mass. It implies an unusual effort as the cause of his fame. Noble, then, is equivalent to effortful, excellent.
The original noble lays an obligation on himself, the noble heir receives the obligation with his inheritance. But
nobility is synonymous with a life of effort, ever set on excelling oneself, in passing beyond what one is to what one sets up as a duty and an obligation.
As one advances in life, one realises more and more that the majority of men—and of women—are incapable of any other effort than that strictly imposed on them as a reaction to external compulsion. And for that reason, the few individuals we have come across who are capable of a spontaneous and joyous effort stand out isolated, monumentalised, so to speak, in our experience.
These are the select men, the nobles, the only ones who are active and not merely reactive, for whom life is a perpetual striving, an incessant course of training. Training = askesis. These are the ascetics.
To compare himself would mean to go out of himself for a moment and to transfer himself to his neighbour. But the mediocre soul is incapable of transmigrations—the supreme form of sport.
the same difference that eternally exists between the fool and the man of sense. The latter is constantly catching himself within an inch of being a fool; hence he makes an effort to escape from the imminent folly, and in that effort lies his intelligence.
Why should he listen if he has within him all that is necessary? There is no reason now for listening, but rather for judging, pronouncing, deciding.
The “ideas” of the average man are not genuine ideas, nor is their possession culture.
Whoever wishes to have ideas must first prepare himself to desire truth and to accept the rules of the game imposed by it.
The traveller who arrives in a barbarous country knows that in that territory there are no ruling principles to which it is possible to appeal. Properly speaking, there are no barbarian standards. Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.
Civilisation is nothing else than the attempt to reduce force to being the ultima ratio.
We are now beginning to realise this with startling clearness, because “direct action” consists in inverting the order and proclaiming violence as prima ratio, or strictly as unica ratio.
It is the Magna Charta of barbarism.
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 civilisation, 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.
Civilisation is before all, the will to live in common.
man is uncivilised, barbarian in the degree in which he does not take others into account.
Everything is possible in history; triumphant, indefinite progress equally with periodic retrogression.
For life, individual or collective, personal or historic, is the one entity in the universe whose substance is compact of danger, of adventure. It is, in the strict sense of the word, drama.
The enthusiasm which I feel for this discipline of stripping oneself bare, of being one’s real self, the belief that it is indispensable in order to clear the way to a worthy future, leads me to claim full liberty of thought with regard to everything in the past.
Technicism and science are consubstantial, and science no longer exists when it ceases to interest for itself alone, and it cannot so interest unless men continue to feel enthusiasm for the general principles of culture.
Has any thought been given to the number of things that must remain active in men’s souls in order that there may still continue to be “men of science” in real truth?
If you want to make use of the advantages of civilisation, but are not prepared to concern yourself with the upholding of civilisation—you are done.
The principles on which the civilised world—which has to be maintained—is based, simply do not exist for the average man of to-day. He has no interest in the basic cultural values, no solidarity with them, is not prepared to place himself at their service.
Life gets gradually better, but evidently also gradually more complicated.
We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.
(1) An inborn, root-impression that life is easy, plentiful, without any grave limitations; consequently, each average man finds within himself a sensation of power and triumph which, (2) invites him to stand up for himself as he is, to look upon his moral and intellectual endowment as excellent, complete. This contentment with himself leads him to shut himself off from any external court of appeal; not to listen, not to submit his opinions to judgment, not to consider others’ existence. His intimate feeling of power urges him always to exercise predominance. He will act then as if he and his
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made us think of certain defective types of humanity, such as the spoiled child, and the primitive in revolt, that is, the barbarian. (The normal primitive, on the other hand, is the most submissive to external authority ever known, be it religion, taboo, social tradition, or customs.)
He is condemned to represent the other man, consequently to be neither that other nor himself. Inevitably his life loses all authenticity, and is transformed into pure representation or fiction of another life.
All life is the struggle, the effort to be itself.
human life has arisen and progressed only when the resources it could count on were balanced by the problems it met with.
It is not that one ought not to do just what one pleases; it is simply that one cannot do other than what each of us has to do, has to be.
destiny—what from a vital point of view one has to be or has not to be—is not discussed, it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept it, we are genuine; if not, we are the negation, the falsification of ourselves.
