Passages below are from The Coming Anarchy: Shattering the Dreams of the Post Cold War (2000) by Robert D. Kaplan
There are times when whatever “our most recent unpleasantness” happens to be it naturally calls up to the mind certain writings that might prove of some assistance in understanding our current conditions. Currently the works of Robert D. Kaplan, Ortega y Gasset (The Revolt of The Masses, 1929), and Gaetano Mosca’s (The Ruling Class, 1895) are being brought forward in / to my consciousness.
From (pp. 173) “The mass man loves gags,” writes Saul Bellow in his introduction to the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset’s 1929 work The Revolt of the Masses. “He is a spoilt child, demanding amusement, given to tantrums. … His only commandment is Thou shalt expect convenience.” Ortega y Gasset’s “mass man” is the self-satisfied specialist in a postindustrial society who know expertly his own corner of the universe but is ignorant of the rest: a “learned ignoramus.” The mass man writes Ortega y Gasset is obviously interested in automobiles, anesthetics, and all manner of sundries. And these things confirm his profound lack of interest in civilization itself. For all these things are merely products of civilization, and the passion he displays for them makes more crudely obvious his insensibility to the principles which made them possible." Ortega y Gasset also says that a “world overabundant in possibilities” for the mass man "automatically produces grave deformities, vicious forms of human existence. … Dictated by convenience and gratification, the mass man realizes no limits to his pleasures. And “barbarism,” Ortega y Gasset reminds us, “is the absence of norms and of any possible appeal based on them.”
From later in the same chapter The Dangers of Peace (pp. 175) … Contrary to what some may think, existentailism is more than a European intellectual affectation. It addresses the search for meaning in existence at a time when no such search appears necessary, because existence has never been threatened in anyone’s living memory.
On a Semeiotic note – We would do well to remember that Sign Creation is Cultural Creation.
If there is not time to read Kaplan’s entire book I would hope that one would at least take time to read Chapter IX The Dangers of Peace.