Against the Masses: Varieties of Anti-Democratic Thought since the French Revolution
Joseph V. Femia
Language: English
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0198280637
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Given the assumption that democracy is a "good thing," the goal of humankind, it is easy to forget that "rule by the people" has been vehemently opposed by some of the most distinguished thinkers in the Western tradition. This book attempts to combat collective amnesia by systematically exploring and evaluating anti-democratic thought since the French Revolution.
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21–2 n. Herodotus 2 Hewitt, A. 134 n. Hirschman, A. O. 7–13, 160–1, 163, 169–70 Hobbes, T. 7, 85, 114 Holbach, P. H. T. 16 Holmes, S. 36, 37 Hugo, V. 11 Hume, D. 16, 85, 150 Huntington, S. 155 Ibsen, H. 159 Inglehart, R. 64 n. Ionescu, G. 103 jeopardy thesis: meaning of 11–12, 13, 160–1 Jung, E. 123 Kant, I. 41 Keohane, R. O. 102 Kymlicka, W. 164–5 Le Bon, G. 60–4, 67, 94, 166 Lenin, V. I. 96 Locke, J. 17–20 see also social contract theory Lovejoy, A. O. 13–14, 161 Luhmann, N. 105 Lummis, C. D. 2.
Endemic to crowds caused a loss of personal identity and a reduction of intellective functions. Le Bon makes it clear that a crowd does ‘not always involve the simultaneous presence of a number of individuals on one spot’. At certain moments, or under the influence of ‘certain violent emotions’, thousands of isolated individuals may acquire the characteristics of a psychological crowd. Indeed, ‘an entire nation’, though there may be no visible gathering of individuals, may become a crowd during.
The new barons, paying ritual obeisance to the ideal central authority, while ignoring it in practice. In the face of union power, the duly constituted political authorities have shown themselves to be ‘cowardly’, according to Pareto.47 Their plight filled him with a mixture of pity and contempt. He was fond of quoting an old Italian saying: ‘Play the sheep and you will meet the butcher.’ The butcher, in this case, might be the ‘silent majority’. Weak demagogic governments parcel out operating.
IV, sect. 3, in A Nietzsche Reader, 243. 26 Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals, second essay, sect. 24, p. 96. 27 Ibid., first essay, sect. 12, p. 44; third essay, sect. 25, p. 154; and extract from Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Pt. II, in A Nietzsche Reader, 225. 120 The Jeopardy Thesis aristocratic self-sacrifice; it reduces political obligation to the rational selfinterest of the ‘maggot man’, our new lord and master. Hostile criticism of Nietzsche often focuses on his unconventional and.
Willing to defer to ‘qualified minorities’. The ‘commonplace mind’ now has the assurance ‘to proclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will’.88 Ortega is especially disturbed by the smug self-satisfaction of the ‘mass-man’. He ‘feels himself lord of his own existence’ and refuses to appeal to external authority. He makes no demands on himself, but rests content with what he is, and is delighted with himself.89 Being born into a liberal and prosperous society, he finds.