Fichamento do texto A Chegada das Massas – José Ortega y Gasset

Por: Natália Alves

O texto de Macdonald (Uma Teoria da Cultura de Massa) retrata os problemas que a cultura de massa trouxe e continua trazendo para a cultura entendida como de excelência. Já no texto de Ortega y Gasset (A Chegada das Massas) é retratado os malefícios das massas.

Todos os dois são pessimistas quanto à cultura ligada às massas. Tanto para um quanto para outro as massas não têm conteúdo cultural e são homogeneizadas. A democracia, tratada nos dois textos, é apontada como um dos problemas que gerou a ascendência das massas, citada no texto de Ortega como “hiperdemocracia”. Nenhum dos dois autores vêem a cultura de massa de forma positiva e benéfica para a população, para eles esta cultura

ascendente é uma deformação das formas de expressão artística.

“Dessa maneira, o que era simples quantidade – a multidão – converteu-se em determinação qualitativa: tornou-se a qualidade social comum, o homem não diferenciado de outros homens, mas repetindo em si mesmo um tipo genérico”. Neste trecho o autor deixa claro que as massas são iguais em todos os aspectos sem ter singularidade de indivíduo e sem ter a distinção de valores. O que se pode concluir que, para ele a minoria, citada no texto, é dotada de valores e de alta cultura, conseqüentemente, é mais evoluída culturalmente e intelectualmente.

O autor acredita que os ideais e a cultura das massas são sem

conteúdo e totalmente vulgares. Para ele, as massas não aceitam o diferente, impõem seus ideais e suas vontades de forma deliberada e excludente e são uma ameaça aos indivíduos qualificados que pensam e que produzem a verdadeira arte ou a verdadeira cultura, ou seja, as minorias. “Hoje estamos assistindo aos triunfos de uma hiperdemocracia, em que as massas agem diretamente, fora da lei, impondo as suas aspirações e desejos por meio da pressão material.” “A massa esmaga com o seu peso tudo o que é diferente, tudo o que é excelente, individual, qualificado e seleto. Quem não for como toda a gente, não pensar como toda a gente,

corre o risco de ser eliminado.”

PONTO DE VISTA (PESSOAL)

Segundo o texto, as massas se constituem na reunião de homens comuns, ou seja, sem qualificações especiais ou específicas. O homem comum das massas não atribui valor a si mesmo e pertence a um grupo totalmente homogeneizado, ou seja, todos têm as mesmas aspirações e vontades e excluem tudo o que é diferente.

Não participo desta opinião, pois acredito que as pessoas que compõem as massas têm características, aspirações e desejos distintos, apesar deles muitas vezes coincidirem. Não se pode concluir que todos os indivíduos que compõem a massa participam dos mesmos ideais e muito menos ver todos de uma forma única sem distinção. Também acredito que, ao contrário do que diz o texto, são as minorias que impõem conceitos às massas, por exemplo, os artistas das novelas que induzem, muitas vezes sem intenção, as massas a usarem o mesmo estilo de roupa que eles usam e a tentar ter o tipo de vida que eles têm.

La estrategia, creía Ortega, había dado sus frutos y, a la altura de ese año, era posible dar el salto, era pensable "comenzar a hablar de filosofía filosóficamente". Con prudencia, eso sí. "Una larga experiencia de cátedra, tribuna e imprenta me ha proporcionado una opinión bastante desfavorable sobre la capacidad filosófica de nuestros pueblos en la época presente". Para que pueda vivir, la filosofía -y aquí podría sustituirse por la historia o cualquier otra de las ciencias sociales y humanas- precisa de "vivir respirando un aire que se llama rigor mental, precisión, abstracción...".

Hace tiempo, más de tres cuartos de siglo, que alguien osó hacer un balance y una propuesta de esta naturaleza. Posiblemente estas palabras explican no sólo las características de la producción orteguiana sino las de muchos otros autores de la época. Pienso, en catalán, en la persona y la obra del Pentarca, de Eugenio d'Ors. Y, lo que resulta más preocupante, posiblemente dichas frases continúen dándonos claves para entender el proceder de críticos literarios, historiadores, filósofos, sociólogos y otras gentes de mal vivir.

Por cierto, mientras recordaba la cita de Ortega me he topado con las reflexiones sobre el amateurismo sobrevenido, en tiempos de blogosfera, en el campo de la crítica de libros. Debidas en origen a Germán Gullón, desde El Cultural, y recogidas, como suele ser habitual, en los archivos de Justo Serna. Solapen las palabras de Ortega, las de Gullón y las de Serna. El problema sigue siendo el de la exigencia y el de la profesionalidad en el ejercicio de saberes, conocimientos y ciencias -en palabras de Ortega. Un problema global pero que aquí tiene, también, algo de circunstancia española.

Cf. Francisco Romero, "Ortega y la circunstancia española", en Ortega y Gasset y el problema de la jefatura espiritual, Buenos Aires, Losada, 1960.

A un personatge com Sartori, que ha exercit el seu mestratge, la seva docència, i per tant la seva influència doctoral, en les universitats de Florència, Harvard, Yale i Standfort, resulta difícil de veure’l com un nou vingut, però si que manté aquella frescor en el seu llenguatge, aquella criticitat pròpia de qui ha vist, de qui veu el procés evolutiu del tradicionalment consolidat  model italià, del ressorgiment de postulats que haurien estat difícils de sostenir a partir de la reconstrucció italiana i europea, però que ara, fruit essencialment de la aculturització de bona part de la classe política, com de l’esgotament, en part, de la pròpia societat italiana la que ell coneix sobremanera, resulta per exemple normal de retrobar imatges del “duce” en els llocs de souvenirs, no pas amagades, sinó ben visibles, sense vergonya, el que fa, doncs, inevitable que el professor hagi de reflexionar a un nivell de proximitat sobre el que hauria de ser consubstancial a l’existència del model liberal democràtic que ens hem donat.

Potser perquè ja ens ho havia dit quan es pregunta el que és de fet la democràcia i ell es respon que “...la storia è il mito di Sisifo, ogni generazione ricomincia daccapo. Nessuno di noi nasce civilizzato: il nostro certificato di nascita porta l'anno zero. La nostra età storica, la nostra maturità di uomini del proprio tempo, deve essere sempre riconquistata, la si deve sempre ricuperare: e ogni volta il tragitto si allunga, ogni volta c'è da risalire un poco di più....”, per això ens fa aquesta magistral aportació, vitalíssima, extremadament actual, de candent i rabiosa actualitat, un missatge amb tota seguretat dirigit també a les noves formules creades a partir de l’omissió ideològica, conscient o inconscientment, en lo políticament correcte o en la òptica ideològica on s’abandona, de fet,  la metafísica o la filosofia com a valors substantius del mètode democràtic, per a sucumbir, com ens diu Sartorien el que ja Gaetano Mosca[4] teoritzava a principis del segle XX i que Robert Michels[5] ratifica a partir de la seva experiència alemana: “...quanto più un’ organizzazione diventa organizzata, di altretanto diventa sempre meno democratica. L’organizzazione snatura la democrazia e la transforma in un sistema oligarchico...” .

La democràcia, però, és un exercici d’absoluta generositat; aquesta és la conclusió de Sartori, un vehicle per al que ens han calgut quasi dos mil anys, però fins is tot en això ens convida a reflexionar sobre ell quan ens diu: “distinguere tra la macchina e i macchinisti”, on els conductors son els ciutadans en un model, el millor que mai ha estat inventat per a permetre l’home de ser lliure i mai sotmès a la voluntat arbitrària i tirànica dels altres homes. Ens recorda també, però, com ho deia bé Ortega y Gasset[6] com “...l’uomo massa...è un bambino viziato e ingrato che riceve in eredità benefici che non merita e che, di conseguenza, non apprezza”, però espera que siguin les noves generacions aquelles que desmenteixin aquest aforema.

Pero ahora es primavera, domina el imperio de lo azul y el viento entre fragancias trae promesas de salud. ¿Por qué no intentar de nuevo la empresa que una vez falló? La idea de una organización regional de España es, a mi juicio, más honda y más fértil de lo que suelen creer lo mismo sus enemigos que sus partidarios. Yo insisto todavía en advertir que todavía no se la ha mirado cara a cara. Hasta hora sus epifanías han servido más bien para desvirtuarla. Alguna región ibérica la ha proclamado con un gesto particularista, siendo así que el regionalismo, más que ninguna otra idea, postula una integración nacional sobre la cual, como sobre un fondo, dibujan las regiones su perfil diferente. Comparada con él la misma idea centralista contiene un grave resto de particularismo que suele ser el del centro contra la periferia territorial o, cuando menos, el particularismo del todo abstracto. Nación contra sus partes concretas.

Qué lejos está este párrafo de cualquier querencia jacobina. Por el contrario, qué cerca se halla de las manifestaciones más genuinas de lo que fue -o debiera haber sido- el liberalismo español. Su propuesta, queda claro, no por atenta a la complejidad, es menos española, menos patriótica. En realidad lo es más, mucho más, tanto más como el propio párrafo final de la nota orteguiana tiene a bien indicar.

Adviértase que decir, sin más, todo, es correr el riesgo de olvidar la muchedumbre y variedad que lo integra, como al decir galanamente el mundo no solemos tener en la mente las cosas todas grandes y pequeñas que lo componen. Cuántas veces la noble urgencia de gritar “¡España!” nos llevó a vaciar el vocablo de su riqueza interior y a no tener en la mente al pronunciarlo otra cosa que la fachada del Ministerio de la Gobernación.

Estas y otras reflexiones acertadísimas se recogerán en el volumen octavo de la nueva edición de las Obras completas del filósofo que están llevando a cabo la Fundación José Ortega y Gasset y la editorial Taurus. Mientras tanto, si quieren disponer de él, se encuentra en El Imparcial. Léanlo. En tiempos de tensiones centrífugas desbocadas y de querencias uniformizadoras, de flujos y reflujos que desorientan y agreden a las sentimentalidades y las razones de los vecinos del inmueble que compartimos -¡de España, vaya!-, no está de más recurrir al magisterio de los clásicos, a las razones de siempre. El tiempo no pasa en vano. El presente no puede reeditar, en los mismos términos, lo que ya es historia. Pero siempre se puede confiar que vuelva la primavera. No la estacional, sino la otra.

I bring this up now, I think, because of something going on in my own life right now. My grandmother went back into the hospital the other day with her cancer, and they say she won't be coming out of there; hospice was sent. I was down to see her a few months ago, maybe two, and I found her to be very alive and interesting, but since I've heard that right after I left she began to lose her energy and very quickly fell to where she is now.

My father is flying out as soon as he can. My family was down there just a week ago to see her.

I don't know how I feel about it. These things don't seem to hit me the same as they do most people; death has always been something I'm comfortable with, but I've never had someone who I was very close with die—only acquaintances.

While spending time with my grandmother we discussed philosophies and medicine, and I feel she helped remove some of my parochial attitude. I am beginning to see all forms of medicine, such as: pills and treatments, much less valuable then other types, such as: therapy and homeopathic medicines. At least homeopathic and therapy you can have this faith in yourself, your own personal ideas. I feel homeopathic is very honest, I mean, it's not telling you it'll do everything you want it to do. And therapy is all about feeling yourself up and adventuring through your self. But pills and treatments keep saying what they'll do, and who the hell are they to know? The hardly know anything. These months spent in philosophy books and literature has shown me a lot about knowledge. Descartes helps to say a lot. I may not respect entirely when he begins to make proof of God's existence, because I disagree with his views, and don't seem them as having valid supporting proof. But his ideas on knowledge, such as: flawed perception and knowing—I find much validity in.

Doctors can tell us what medicine will do, and say it'll work, but it seems every year this pendulum of a field seems to just swing to the opposite. Every time a new idea appears in the science world it's great for you, then a few months, years even, later they tell us that it's terrible for us.

Jose Ortega y Gasset I believe had enough proof in his writing, Revolt of the Masses, to convince me that over the years the situations just get more complicated, and this is the reasoning behind why we should study history. It may not repeat, but at least we'll have a simpler idea we can attempt to work off of for our solutions later.

I feel that I, personally and impersonally (referring to all of us), are guilty of making these advances which are just making the times more complicated. Where are the solutions? Are things ever solved? Sometimes everything looks like a knot and every time we try to untangle it we just add another kink and just complicate the problem.

I don't trust medicine, and I don't plan to ever. I'd rather die a death, than face an end which I sit all day drugged out of my mind feeling nothing. I see Ivan as having his life pre-cancer not truly being a life. He doesn't begin to experience anything until he is dying, but when aren't we dying? We're all just a number of heart beats that's not pre-determined quickly passing.

I don't know where this post was trying to go, or what it was trying to say. But looking at my books last night I saw Ivan Ilych and have had him on the mind.

Here is the story

Michael

It's reasonable to suppose that a prompt report comes out of a moving encounter.  In that respect, I make a poor journalist.  But it also takes some time to make sense of what has moved the participant in an encounter.  

You & Me, Sometimes... is an exhibition obscuring the distinction between a private cabinet of curiosity and a curatorial project.  Sandra Antelo-Suarez, founder and editor of TRANS>, assembled an abundance of work and events from over twenty artists in the relatively small confines of a 1.5 floor gallery space.  In this collapse of idiosyncrasy and publicity was a play of discourse neither self-addressed nor intended towards an expectant public.  The press release was a friendly, colloquial, and outgoing letter from Antelo-Suarez to herself ("Sandy") full of desire and warmth.  It's a modified soliloquy ask its addressee to partake in her intense interest in the intersections of the social, political, and aesthetic.  The brief visits to the gallery bookending my short trip to New York City were among the most memorable and stimulating surprises.  You and Me, Sometimes... offered an opportunity to happen upon some new works and re-visit some familiar acquaintances in a renewed light. 

While there was more work than could be really taken in a short hour in the gallery, repeated visits were rewarded with events, stagings, and performances.  Among the work that I was able to take in , highlights included a mix of old and new.  Six of Francisco de Goya's Caprichos lined the foyer's main wall, including El sueno de la razon produce monstruos.  Arguably, these little pieces were the signs that informed the driving sensibility of You & Me, Sometimes..., where art lingers beside and cuts across quotidian existence.   (Could it be possible that these little pieces influenced the work of a certain Mexican printmaker born twenty-four years after Goya's death?  Art historians, please let me know.) Paul Ramirez-Jonas's work dealt with the potentialities of communication amid the apparatus that purports to aid us in communicating.  (Hopefully, a quick piece on some of his pieces at the show will come in a later post.)  Various works by Alexander Calder in the show jump between formalist and political, such as Three Segments and and his ads protesting the Vietnam War and the abuses of power perpetrated by the Nixon administration. These currents cross in the model of Mercury Fountain on display aside the Caprichos.  Minerva Cuevas contributed her unflinching critiques of concentrated corporate wealth and colonialist power through her multi-media works, including a staging of the Mejor Vida Corporation's Donald McRonald intervention outside the Union Square McDonald's on April 25.  Finally, Fresa Salvaje brought together selected sounds of forgotten latin music that became recognizable upon hearing, courtesy of Aldo Sanchez (aka DJ Papichulo) and Dulce Pinzón.  When not doing their selecting and spinning, Sanchez is an independent curator, and Pinzón is a photographer recognized for her outstanding 2006 photographs, Los Superheroes.  

Both the general form the show took and the variety of works and artists on display illuminate questions about the act of selecting pieces for display and their organization under the designation 'taste'.   A couple of weeks ago, a short discussion concerning the connections between taste, knowledge, and experience prompted speculation the definition of the term 'taste'.  Carolina pointed out "a possible relation between sabor (taste, flavor) and saber (knowledge). ¿A qué sabe? What does it taste like? Tasting as a form of knowledge."  The connection is quite palpable in Spanish, but not so in English.  One does not say in English that a lemon knows sour.  (Jose Iraola's Simultaneous Translation on display vaguely illustrates the phenomenon of how translation can turn into a game of telephone.)

This speculation on the relation between knowledge and experience quickly led down a rehashing of Kantian contradictions without resolution that were just unproductive.  But some further thinking and a serendipitous reading of The Origin of Philosophy by that philosophical Goya, José Ortega y Gasset, offered a possible clue.  In a discussion of the thinker as a social figure, he takes an effortless etymological detour into the common Indo-European root of the terms of wisdom, knowledge and savoring (tasting) that have left their traces in ourmodern languages.  His discussion suggests is that taste is less about a possessed knowledge, but an exposure to openness "...always referring, however, to a non-theoretical, still non-existent type of knowledge." (116)   From this suggestion we can imply that taste is the possibility that artistic production can convey both the knowledge of producing beautiful sense experiences and sense experiences whose beauty make knowing more knowable.  And it's that very simple possibility that resides throughout You & Me, Sometimes...: that contact with the very edge of another's sensibility can yield knowledge about the world we inhabit and the way we approach it.

How can I not end a post without a video?  It'd be cruel of me to not do so.  It's the least I can do to reward your having made it from one end of the post to the other without clicking out. Here's some priceless footage of Camilo Sesto meeting his promotional obligations for a then freshly-cut record, Solo un Hombre.  Check out Fresa Salvaje.  You & Me, Sometimes... ends Saturday, May 3.

Occasionally, very rarely, we're able to witness a shift within: a change of attitude, an alteration in the way we view our little world, some adjustment in the body. Such moments are fleeting and, unless we're wide awake, they go unnoticed to the conscious mind.  

For some time now I've been troubled by the persistence of grief following a personal loss a full year ago. Why won't it go away, I've wondered, Why am I still in such pain? (This not withstanding my own prediction--in the essays filed under "on grieving" at the top of this page--that grieving takes as long as it takes.) Surely, a year is enough, my mind complains. As it turns out, more work's to be done, more learning to come my way.

The reason I mention all this is that while shopping for groceries yesterday, I was drawn to the colours of the flower shop. In particular, I noticed the roses, orange-and-red tinged roses, much like the ones I used to give to my beloved. Immediately I noticed a shift in mood towards sadness and loss ... except that this time I grabbed the reins before slipping into self-pity. Instead, I reached for the finest-looking bunch ... and bought it for myself. This was the first time I've ever bought roses for myself. And still I think of her, with affection--grief and love coexisting.

"To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand." --José Ortega y Gasset.

.

“Always we hope someone else has the answer.

Some other place will be better,

it will all turn out.

This is it.

No one else has the answer.

No other place will be better,

and it has already turned out.”

-Lao-tzu

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“Because I know that time is always time

And place is always and only place

And what is actual is actual only for one time

And only for one place

 I rejoice that things are as they are…”

-T.S. Eliot

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“We cannot put off living until we are ready. 

The most salient characteristic of life is its urgency, 

‘here and now’ without any possible postponement. 

Life is fired at us point-blank.” 

-Jose Ortega y Gasset

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Siempre es más fácil dejar de hacer que hacer.

Archivado en: Cita del Día, José Ortega y Gasset

“Rancor é uma evidente manifestação de sentimento de inferioridade.“

José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)

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• Vidas: Vinicius de Moraes

• Vagas & Estágios: Direito - Advogado - nº 00038

• Coluna do Amboni: Dia Internacional da Animação | Florianópolis

Fábulas de Velázquez
Mitología e Historia Sagrada en el Siglo de Oro

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado

20 novembre 2007 - 24 febbraio 2008

«Quando si parla di Velázquez si dice sempre che dipingeva l'aria, l'ambiente, eccetera. Io non credo a nulla di tutto questo e non mi sono mai accorto che si sia chiarito ciò che si intende enunciare con siffatte espressioni. L'effetto aereo delle sue figure è dovuto semplicemente all'indecisione di profili e di superfici in cui le lascia. Ai suoi contemporanei pareva che fossero rimaste "non finite" di dipingere, e a questo appunto è dovuto il fatto che Velázquez non fu popolare ai tempi suoi.

Aveva fatto la scoperta più "impopolare": che la realtà si differenzia dal mito, nell'ambito del quale non è mai del tutto "finita"».

(José Ortega y Gasset, Velázquez, 1954)