1 The Impact of José Ortega y Gasset`s La rebelión de las masas on

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The Impact of José Ortega y Gasset’s
La rebelión de las masas
on European Integration
Marina Post
Faculty Advisor: Professor R. Lane Kauffmann
Submitted for consideration as an honor’s thesis in the Department of Hispanic Studies.
14 November 2006
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Abstract
José Ortega y Gasset’s most famous work, The Revolt of the Masses, represents
his most significant argument for European integration. This thesis attempts to
characterize the impact of Revolt on the political unification of Europe. Although Revolt
was widely read in many countries, several factors impeded the reception of the work as
an impetus for European supranational unity. These factors, among many others,
included controversy in Spain over the alleged elitism of Revolt and French dislike for
Ortega’s ties with German philosophy. However, the work undeniably motivated
intellectuals Manuel García Morente and Raymond Aron in their own efforts toward
European integration. Moreover, Ortega’s works were popular with the general public in
Germany, enabling Ortega to continue his efforts there towards European unity after
World War II. It will be argued that Revolt did have an impact on European integration,
but not to the extent that it merits.
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Table of Contents
I. Introduction
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II. Ortega’s career as a European thinker
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III. The Revolt of the Masses: Summary and main issues
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IV. Ortega’s Revolt in the context of other calls for European unity
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V. The reception of Revolt
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VI. Conclusions
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VII. Epilogue
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Notes
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Bibliography
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Acknowledgements
I am very grateful to my mentor at Rice University, Professor Kauffmann, for his
valuable and generous help and advice. I am also thankful to the Focus Europe Program
at Rice University, especially the directors, Professors Christian Emden and Sarah
Westphal, and to Gary Wihl, Dean of Humanities, for giving me the opportunity and
financial support to carry out this research. This work was first submitted to the Focus
Europe program on 28 August 2006. During the 2006 fall semester, it was revised and
expanded under Professor Kauffmann’s supervision for submission as an honor’s thesis
to the Department of Hispanic Studies. I thank the directors, faculty, and staff of the
Fundación Ortega y Gasset in Madrid for their generosity in permitting me to use the
Foundation’s valuable resources, the most complete collection in the world for Orteguian
research. I especially thank Professors Javier Zamora Bonilla and José Lasaga Medina
for sharing their expertise so generously, and I thank Brenda Shannon and Asen Uña for
their kind assistance at the Foundation.
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I. Introduction
José Ortega y Gasset’s most famous work, La rebelión de las masas (The Revolt
of the Masses) (1929-1930), has as its main objective a call for European integration.1
My essay will attempt to characterize the impact of this work on the movement towards
European unity. Ortega had been an advocate for the Europeanization of Spain long
before the publication of Revolt. However, in 1930, a few years before the work was
published in book form, he began to suggest that the rest of Europe suffered social and
political illnesses along with Spain. Nowhere in all of Ortega’s works is the crisis of
Europe outlined more clearly than in Revolt. According to Ortega, this crisis is
characterized by the masses dominating society. As a consequence, society is left
without a goal toward which to work. Ortega calls for the nations of Europe to unify
politically, creating the “Estados Unidos de Europa” (“United States of Europe”; 107), a
supranation with complete sovereignty over its states (OC IV 242).2 Among its many
qualities, the European ideal outlined in Revolt contains the unique proposition that only
a united Europe, and no other nation, can be the leading power in the world. This call to
European unity in Revolt fit in well with the Pan-European movement in the 1920s and
the 1930s. From 1930-1955, Ortega was able to continue his own efforts towards
European integration using the European ideal outlined in Revolt. Ortega’s international
fame gained from the work was also instrumental in his subsequent efforts towards
European unity. A few Europeanists, such as Manuel García Morente and Raymond
Aron, have acknowledged the merits of Revolt and its influence on their own
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contributions towards European integration. Diverse factors have significantly impeded
reception of the work and thus action in response to its call for European unity. Although
Revolt had some influence on European integration, it has not had the full impact that it
merits.
II. Ortega’s career as a European thinker
Ortega had earned prestige as a contributor to the idea of Europe before
publishing Revolt. Interestingly, his European ideal evolved significantly prior to
Revolt’s publication. In his earlier years, along with the Spanish Generation of ’98,
particularly his arch-antagonist Miguel de Unamuno, Ortega recognized the necessity of
regenerating Spain in response to its cultural decline and loss of world power. This
decline had culminated in Spain’s loss of Cuba, the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico in
the 1898 Spanish-American War. Following his intermittent philosophical studies at the
University of Leipzig and Marburg from 1905-1911, Ortega became a proponent for the
Europeanization of Spain (Abellán, Transiciones 39-41). From 1907-1914, Ortega
defended the idea of Europe as the solution for the demoralization of Spain.
During this period, Europe meant science for Ortega. According to him, science
was a Greek contribution, including the inductive method, especially developed by
Socrates (OC I 102). Science also meant rationalism, culminating in some sects of
German philosophy (Lasaga, “Significados” 38). The Neokantian thought of Paul Natorp
and Hermann Cohen influenced Ortega during his studies in Marburg (Abellán,
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Transiciones 39). In Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations on Quixote, 1914), the
young Ortega reveals admiration for German contributions in science, stating that “la
cultura mediterránea no puede oponerse a la ciencia germánica--filosofía, mecánica,
biología” (134, “Mediterranean culture cannot equal Germanic science--philosophy,
mechanics, biology”). Influencing this early idea of Europe were certain French thinkers
of the nineteenth century, including Balzac, Taine, Renan and Comte.3 Also, the English
liberal democratic tradition influenced Ortega’s European ideal (Lasaga, “Significados”
37).
From 1923 to 1929, Ortega developed his theory that Europe was suffering from
the crisis of modernity. The Europe in crisis could not solve Spain’s problems. José
Lasaga Medina attributes this change in perspective to the influence of World War I on
Ortega. This war revealed the imperfections of Europe (“Significados” 42). Ortega’s
works España Invertebrada (Invertebrate Spain, 1921) and El tema de nuestro tiempo
(The Modern Theme, 1923) are precursors to his Revolt, containing seeds of Ortega’s
mature thought on the respective roles of masses and minorities in Western society
(Mermall 22).
Ortega’s diagnosis of and prescribed cure for Europe culminate in Revolt (19291930) (Lasaga, “Significados” 35). Revolt contains the essence of the ideas on Europe
that Ortega continued to promote in subsequent works (Lasaga, “Significados” 49).
Ortega argues in Revolt that European society is in crisis due to an imbalance in the
relations between masses and minorities. The masses take over society, failing to defer to
the superior minorities. This causes Europe to lack appropriate guidance and foresight.
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Ortega’s theory of masses and minorities in society is summarized later in this essay.
Because of the crisis of European society, Europe is said to lack a well-defined project
towards a better future. The project of a European supranation, the “United States of
Europe,” would provide the guidance that would bring Europe out of its crisis and give it
the ability to prevail in the world.
Ortega was quite active on the intellectual scene in Spain from the early 1900s to
the 1930s. In 1907, Ortega founded the journal Faro, and in 1910, he edited the new
journal Europa (Lasaga, “Significados” 38). Also in 1910 he gave a lecture in Bilbao,
“La pedagogía social como programa politico” (“Social Pedagogy as a Political
Program”), expressing the need for a transformation of Spain through social pedagogy
(Abellán, Transiciones 56). Underlying all these efforts of Ortega was the idea that
cultural enrichment could lead to political change. Ortega’s attempts to Europeanize
Spain through his involvement in the Spanish intellectual world, according to Ernst
Robert Curtius, served as a cultural awakening for Spain after a period of intellectual
stagnation. Curtius describes this cultural unproductivity before the “awakening”:
“cuando el señorío mundial de España se hundió ante la ofensiva francesa--bajo Luis
XIV--, se apagó también la fuerza creadora cultural del país. España se divorció
políticamente y espiritualmente de Europa” (“when the world leadership of Spain was
brought down under the French offensive--under Luis XIV--the creative cultural force of
the country was also extinguished. Spain separated politically and spiritually from
Europe”). This awakening of Spain from its intellectual stagnation, an awakening spearheaded by Ortega, causing Spain to become less isolated from Europe, is “uno de los
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pocos procesos satisfactorios del siglo XX, y no carece de significación” (“one of the few
satisfactory processes of the twentieth century and does not lack significance”; Curtius
7). The awakening of Spain to which Curtius refers has been called Spain’s “Edad de
Plata” (“Silver Age”) and encompasses the period 1898-1936. The term was first coined
by José-Carlos Mainer in his 1975 book Edad de plata (1902-1931): ensayo de
interpretación de un proceso cultural. The period was a time of Spanish renovation in
literature, art and science, centered in Madrid and led by Ortega (Stern 136). Ortega’s
devotion to Spain is key to understanding his Europeanism. It is for the good of Spain
that he first interests himself in Europe. Ortega’s contributions to Spain’s intellectual
atmosphere also helped Spain earn recognition as a European possibility.
Ortega was involved in Spanish politics intermittently from 1914 until 1931. In
his efforts for the salvation of Spain, he advocated political reform in addition to cultural
pedagogy (Lasaga, “Significados” 40). He outlined his program “Liga de Acción Política
Española” (“Spanish League of Political Action”) in his lecture “Vieja y nueva política”
(“Old and New Politics”) given in 1914. He founded the Liga de Acción Política
Española in 1913, and his involvement with the organization marks the beginning of his
political influence (Abellán, Transiciones 55). His political ideal was a combination of
liberalism and socialism (Lasaga, “Significados” 40). Ortega was involved in opposition
to the dictator General Primo de Rivera, organizing the Agrupación al Servicio de la
República (“Association of Service to the Republic”) with Gregorio Marañón and Pérez
de Ayala in 1930. Ortega withdrew from politics in 1932 out of frustration with the new
Republican government. After the start of the Spanish civil war in 1936, he took refuge
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in France, Holland, Argentina and Portugal. He did not return to Spain until 1946, when
he encountered an environment hostile to his thinking under the Franco regime, with
universities dominated by pro-Franco professors. He was able to co-found the Institute of
Humanities in Spain with Julián Marías in 1948, but the institute did not last very long
(Mermall 22-23). Thus, not long after the publication of Revolt in 1930, Ortega lost the
position from which he could easily use political influence in Spain to promote European
integration. However, he returned to his work of social pedagogy in his efforts towards
European integration, most notably in his lecture series “De Europa Meditatio Quaedam”
(“Meditations over Europe”) in 1949. In this series he extended the call to European
unity that he had first fully expressed in Revolt. He died in 1955, having contributed to
Spain’s Europeanization and to the movement towards European integration that led to
the Treaty of Rome in 1957.
III. The Revolt of the Masses: Summary and main issues
Revolt became Ortega’s most famous work on an international scale, making him
today one of Spain’s best-known authors, along with Miguel de Cervantes and Federico
García Lorca. The first translations of Revolt were into German from Spanish in 1931,
and into English in 1932. Between 1962 and 1977 Revolt reached an even wider
international public. By the end of that period, for example, twenty-two editions in
German, twenty in Japanese, twelve in English (all in the United States), six in Italian and
two in Portugese had been published (Mermall 7-8).4
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The short essays of which Revolt is comprised first appeared as installments in the
Madrid periodical El Sol from October 24, 1929 to August 10, 1930. The book form of
Revolt, still separated into parts similar to the previous installments, was published
August 31, 1930. The book introduces a few differences from the original. The most
significant of these differences is that only fragments of the installments of June and July
1930, titled “César, los conservadores y el futuro” (“Caesar, the Conservatives and the
Future”), appear in the book. This omission may have been done to forestall censorship:
Ortega’s critique of the Spanish monarchy is elided from the original.5 Also, the end of
the book, “Se desemboca en la verdadera cuestión” (“We arrive at the real question”;
142), did not appear in the original version. The other differences were in the names and
locations of certain installments of the periodical version in relation to the book. Ortega
added the “Prólogo para franceses” (“Prologue for the French”) to Revolt in 1937, “En
cuanto al pacifismo” (“With Respect to Pacifism”) in 1937 and the “Epílogo para
ingleses” (“Epilogue for the English”) in 1938 (Mermall 30-32).
Reception of Revolt worldwide was focused on the first half of the work, the part
which outlines Ortega’s societal theory of the relation between masses and minorities.
The dominance of the masses in modern European society causes the crisis of modernity.
In Ortega’s view of Western society, there are two key groups: masses and minorities.
The mass-man does not appreciate past collective and individual efforts, such as
advances in technology and democracy, that give him a better quality of life than ever.
Neither does he realize that life should serve some future goal. In contrast, the minorities
serve some ideal and wish to excel. Ortega’s “minorities” are often misinterpreted as
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aristocrats who inherit their privileges (Kauffmann 620). A functioning and fruitful
society needs to be led by minorities, with the masses following the initiative of the
minorities. Bolshevism and fascism in Revolt serve as examples of movements of masses
dominating minorities, causing societal crisis (Zamora, “El mundo” 20). This theory of
an ideal society, led by elites, is often incorrectly interpreted as antidemocratic (Cascardi
338). Ortega does mention “hyperdemocracies” as mass movements, but he contrasts
such “hyperdemocracies” to a culture characterized by universal suffrage. Under
universal suffrage, the masses choose which minority agenda to support, whereas under a
“hyperdemocracy,” the masses act directly by material or economic pressures (Cascardi
362).
In Revolt, the problem of modernity is within the social structure. The dilemma
was first addressed in Hegel’s critique of modern philosophy (Cascardi 363). Modern
philosophy was defined by Hegel as the “philosophy of subjective self-consciousness,”
with roots in Descartes and its most developed expression in Kant (Cascardi 339). The
Protestant Reformation, declaring man to be a free and rational agent, and promoting the
evolution of a more powerful state, is one of the historical origins of the modern world
that Hegel outlines. Moreover, the discovery of the New World, the development of a
global marketplace, the redistribution of the European population towards urban centers,
and the European population’s expansion are also described by Hegel as developments of
the modern world. Like Hegel, Ortega notes a “rise” in the level of modern historic life,
manifested in urban activity.6 Ortega also attributes to modernity the invention of
technical science and political revolutions. Modernity’s principles of universal freedom
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and rationality have failed to establish a proper social order, according to both Hegel and
Ortega. In Revolt, the norms of the past cannot support the extreme materialism of such a
society with its higher standard of living than ever for the common man (OC IV 170).
The “revolt” of the masses involves, as Anthony Cascardi describes it, “a slackening of
authority of social norms that amounts to the suppression of social energy itself” (344).
Ortega describes the problem that the rise of the mass-man presents: “Europa se ha
quedado sin moral. No es que el hombre-masa menosprecia una anticuada en beneficio
de otra emergente, sino que el centro de su régimen vital consiste precisamente en la
aspiración a vivir sin supeditarse a moral ninguna” (OC IV 276, “Europe has been left
without a moral code. It is not that the mass-man has thrown over an antiquated one in
exchange for a new one, but that at the center of his scheme of life there is precisely the
aspiration to live without conforming to any moral code”; 142).
The second half of Revolt, titled “¿Quién manda en el mundo?” (“Who Rules in
the World?”; 96) calls for European political unity in the form of a “United States of
Europe.” To Ortega’s dismay, this part of Revolt was overlooked in the public’s main
focus on the first part containing the social theory of masses and minorities (Lasaga,
“Significados” 35). In “¿Quién manda en el mundo?,” Ortega recognized that the
existing liberal democratic systems were not perfect and were in need of renewal. This
renewal can be found specifically in the project of the formation of a unified European
state. The political unity of Europe would then satisfy the democratic institution’s need
for a grander project than the existing one of individual nationalisms (Zamora, “El
mundo” 21). Ortega states of the existing political systems: “No son las instituciones, en
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cuanto instrumentos de vida pública, las que marchan mal en Europa, sino las tareas en
que emplearlas. Faltan programas de tamaño congruente con las dimensiones efectivas
que la vida ha llegado a tener dentro de cada individuo europeo” (“It is not institutions,
qua instruments of public life, that are going badly in Europe; it is the tasks on which to
employ them. There are lacking programmes of a scope adequate to the effective
capacities that life has come to acquire in each European individual”; 112), referring to
the higher quality of life of the European individual resulting from advances in
democracy and science (OC IV 247).
European society must be renewed through the formation of the “United States of
Europe.” In Revolt, the formation of Europe as a national entity, resulting in a unifying
project for the European society, is Ortega’s proposed remedy for the illnesses of
modernity that Europe experiences (Rougemont 325-326). Nationalisms are “callejones
sin salida” (“blind alleys”). In Revolt, Ortega argued that it was time for Europe to unite
as a supranation, overcoming the individual nationalisms. Ariane Chebel D’Appolonnia
states that, in Revolt, Ortega “perfectly summed up the content of the European
nationalism of this time” (177). Ortega describes nationalisms as insufficient for the
times: “Los círculos que hasta ahora se han llamado naciones llegaron hace un siglo o
poco menos a su máxima expansión. Ya no puede hacerse nada con ellos si no es
trascenderlos. Ya no son sino pasado que se acumula en torno y debajo del europeo,
aprisionándolo, lastrándolo” (“The groups which up to today have been known as nations
arrived about a century ago at their highest point of expansion. Nothing more can be
done with them except lead them to a higher evolution. They are now mere past
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accumulating all around Europe, weighing it down, imprisoning it”; 139). According to
Ortega, Europe was ready for statehood because the individual nationalisms could not
contain the existing European spirit of expansion. In place of nationalisms, the
construction of a unified state of Europe would renew society, and “volvería a entonar la
pulsación de Europa” (“would give new life to the pulses of Europe”). Europeans
needed a unified state as a new mission in life because “los europeos no saben vivir si no
van lanzados en una gran empresa unitiva” (OC IV 272-273, “the European cannot live
unless embarked upon some great unifying enterprise”; 139-140). Thus, trans-European
integration was a very important principle for Ortega, one that would bring about a
necessary rebirth of Europe (Rougemont 385).
Ortega’s idea of Europe as expressed in Revolt seems to consist of France,
England, Germany, Spain and Italy. In one instance, he states: “por Europa se entiende,
ante todo y propiamente la trinidad Francia, Inglaterra, Alemania” (OC IV 239, “By
Europe we understand primarily and properly the trinity of France, England, Germany”;
103). Subsequently, in Revolt he implies that Spain and Italy are a part of his European
ideal, grouping them with France, England and Germany as nations unified only
politically, not culturally. Each nation consists of numerous cultures which coexist
politically. The nation is a project of unity towards the future among a diverse
population. Further European political unity would enable the Western people to
overcome the limits of the old state (OC IV 261-264).
Ortega, in Revolt, is the first and possibly the only political commentator to
recognize and legitimize clearly European leadership in the world (Rougemont 325-326).
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Revolt answers a very valid question during the period between the world wars: “Who
rules in the world?” Ortega asks this very question in Revolt, naming the second half of
his book “¿Quién manda en el mundo?” (“Who rules in the world?”). In contrast to other
Europeanists, Ortega attempts to justify a European hegemony over the rest of the world,
especially over the United States and Russia (Rougemont 325-326). This “rule” is never
forced, but is always based on public opinion (OC IV 232). Ortega justifies a European
hegemony by stating that the United States and Russia are incapable of ruling the world:
“No importaría que Europa dejase de mandar si hubiera alguien capaz de sustituirla. Pero
no hay sombra de tal. Nueva York y Moscú no son nada nuevo con respecto a Europa.
Son uno y otro dos parcelas del mandamiento europeo que, al disociarse del resto, han
perdido su sentido” (OC IV 239-240, “It would not matter if Europe ceased to command,
provided there were someone to take her place. But there is not the faintest sign of one.
New York and Moscow represent nothing new, relative to Europe. They are both of
them two sections of the European order of things, which, by dissociating from the rest,
have lost their meaning”; 104). Later in life, Ortega came to respect the United States
more, especially when he came to the country in 1949, according to Professor
Niedermayer and Julián Marías (Donoso 149). However, Ortega still questions whether
the United States could be on par with Europe in his “Apéndice” (“Appendix”) to his
lecture, “Sobre un Goethe Bicentenario” (“Over a Bicentenary Goethe”), given in 1949 in
Aspen, Colorado (OC IX 570).
Although European hegemony was implicit in thinking such as Hegel’s, it was
never quite clearly stated before Revolt. In 1917, the Bolshevik revolution occurred, and
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the United States entered World War I. This was the first appearance of the United States
as a world power. The United States seemed to gain power on the world stage, especially
with its major contributions to ending World War I (“World War I”). Moreover, the
Bolsheviks came to power in Russia, along with their communistic ideal ("Bolshevik
n."). Communism was a completely different norm from the European ideal of
democracy (Zamora, “El mundo” 20). In Revolt, Ortega alludes to a change in Europe’s
outlook on its hegemony: “durante tres siglos Europa ha mandado en el mundo y ahora
Europa no está segura de mandar ni de seguir mandando” (OC IV 236, “for three
centuries Europe has been the ruler in the world, and now Europe is no longer sure that
she is, or will continue to be, the ruler”; 101). Ortega sees the Bolshevik potential as one
that Europe can overcome. However, Europe must become unified as one state. Ortega
declares, referring to the plans of Stalin: “Yo veo en la construcción de Europa, como
gran Estado nacional, la única empresa que pudiera contraponerse a la Victoria del ‘plan
de cinco años’” (OC IV 275, “the building-up of Europe into a great national State is the
one enterprise that could couterbalance a victory of the Five-Year Plan”; 141). In Revolt,
Ortega strives to give Europeans confidence with respect to their hegemony in the world.
However, this hegemony would only be assured under a unified state of Europe.
According to Revolt, the demoralization of Europe through the dominion of the
masses has jeopardized Europe’s ability to lead the world in a moral sense:
Europa había creado un sistema de normas cuya eficacia y fertilidad han
demostrado los siglos. Esas normas no son, ni mucho menos, las mejores
posibles. Pero son, sin duda, definitivas mientras no existan o se columbren otras.
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Para superarlas es inexcusable parir otras. Ahora los pueblos-masa han resuelto
dar por caducado aquel sistema de normas que es la civilización europea, pero
como son incapaces de crear otro, no saben qué hacer, y para llenar el tiempo se
entregan a la cabriola. (Obras, IV, 238)
Europe had created a system of standards whose efficacy and productiveness the
centuries have proved. Those standards are not the best possible, far from it. But
they are, without a doubt, definite standards as long as no others exist or are
visualized. Before supplanting them, it is essential to produce others. Now, the
mass-peoples have decided to consider as bankrupt that system of standards
which European civilization implies, but as they are incapable of creating others,
they do not know what to do, and to pass the time they kick up their heels and
stand on their heads. (103)
The crisis was in the European society’s structure, dominated by the “masses,” which put
in danger the past standards of Europe and thus Europe’s hegemony. The masses do not
appreciate the past European efforts in making scientific improvements and in developing
liberal-democratic systems, the benefits of which they enjoy. Thus, the masses do not
recognize that scientific progress and a democratic society require efforts that must be
continued (Zamora, “El mundo” 20).
Ortega also addresses the situation of the former colonies of Europe. Upon
becoming nations, these colonies lost their ties to Europe’s morals and leadership in the
world (OC IV 239-240). However, it could be argued that the United States, in declaring
and gaining independence, carried out a European ideal of rebelling against an absolutist,
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authoritarian government and formed a democratic, republican form of government.
Therefore, Ortega’s arguments for Europe’s exclusive hegemony in the world may not be
completely justified. However, in Revolt, Ortega was the first to outline such a
hegemony, which he used to motivate Europe towards integration. This aspect of Revolt,
along with Ortega’s insightful diagnosis of Europe, specifically in his vision of European
integration for a renewal of European society, make Revolt unique and worth serious
consideration.
IV. Ortega’s Revolt in the context of other calls for European unity
Ortega opposed a popular view that Europe was in decadence, a view specifically
expounded upon by Oswald Spengler in his book The Decline of the West (1918). In
Revolt, Ortega recognizes the widespread doubt over the future and present hegemony of
Europe. He notes that this doubt existed even before the publication of Spengler’s book
(OC IV 236).7 He criticizes the defeatist attitude that results in stronger nationalisms:
Es deplorable el frívolo espectáculo que los pueblos menores ofrecen. En vista de
que, según se dice, Europa decae y, por tanto, deja de mandar, cada nación y
nacioncita brinca, gesticula, se pone cabeza abajo o se engalla y estira, dándose
aires de persona mayor que rige sus propios destinos. De aquí el vibriónico
panorama de “nacionalismos” que se nos ofrece por todas partes. (OC IV 237)
The frivolous spectacle offered by the smaller nations today is deplorable.
Because it is said that Europe is in decadence and has given over ruling, every
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tuppeny-ha’penny nation starts skipping, gesticulating, standing on its head or
else struts around giving itself airs of a grown-up person who is the ruler of its
own destinies. Hence the vibronic panorama of ‘nationalisms’ that meets our
view everywhere. (102)
Guillermo Pérez Sánchez acknowledges that the call for a rebirth of Europe
through European unity, along with Ortega’s reflections on the nature of Europe, make
the contents of Revolt of great importance. Ortega states: “Todo el mundo percibe la
urgencia de un nuevo principio de vida” (OC IV 273, “Everyone perceives the need for a
new life principle”; 139), with European unity as a supranation providing the solution
(Pérez Sánchez 43). Denis de Rougemont also characterizes J. Benda, Hugo Von
Hofmannsthal and M. Heidegger as proponents for a rebirth of Europe (326-332).
A consciousness of European unity began in the Enlightenment. From the
Enlightenment to 1848, there emerged the idea that Europe was an intermediate stage in
the progression from nation to human universality. According to this notion, national
sentiments could coexist with, and not contradict, the authority of Europe. As
Montesquieu states: “Matters are such in Europe that all states need each other. Europe is
a state made up of several provinces.”8 Also, pacifist projects, including Kant’s
Perpetual Peace (1795), and the conviction of the superiority of Europe in the world,
characterized European nationalism from the Enlightenment to 1848. A prominent ideal
of Europe from 1848 to 1939 promoted the theme of the “United States of Europe” in
hopes of limiting bellicose nationalisms and combating the economic decline of Europe
in relation to other world powers, such as the United States of America. In the Congress
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of Peace organized in 1849 in Paris, Victor Hugo and Richard Cobden defended the
“United States of Europe.” This effort was mostly aimed at unifying Europe just enough
to adapt it to the presence of other rising world powers rather than fully integrating the
European nations (D’Appollonia 174-176). The term “United States of Europe” was
probably first used by Victor Hugo in this conference (Zamora, “El mundo” 23). The
Third International Congress in Rome in 1891 and the 1900 Congress of the Free School
of Political Sciences were movements which advocated that political and economic unity
were necessary in Europe (D’Appollonia 176).
A push for European integration then occurred in the 1920s and early 1930s, after
World War I. Besides reacting to rising world powers such as the United States, from
World War I, Europe also realized that integration was necessary to protect the European
nations from each other (D’Appollonia 177). After publishing other articles calling for
European unity in 1922, Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi published his book Pan-Europe
in 1923, expressing the need for a “United States of Europe” under a new economy,
political structure and society. Europe needed to unite to avoid future intra-European
wars and to compete with the rising powers of America (especially the United States),
Russia and Asia (Zamora, “El mundo” 24). The publication of Pan-Europe, according to
Henri Brugmans (1972), was the first call for European integration after World War I
(qtd. in Martín and Pérez 4). In 1924, the Pan-European Manifesto was written in
Vienna, calling for a Pan-European union in which loyalties could be given to
nationalities and to Europe without conflict (Martín and Pérez 4). The first Pan-European
Congress met in Vienna in 1926, attended by European intelligentsia including Ortega.
22
The congress promoted the principles expressed in Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europe
(Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 166). Besides Revolt, other works promoting a
politically united Europe contributed to the Europeanist atmosphere, including Die
Vereignten Staaten von Europa (1926) by Wladimir Woytinsky, L'Europe: ma patrie by
Gaston Riou, Diplomatic Europe Since the Treaty of Versailles (1928) by the Count
Carlo Sforza, Vers les Etats Unis d’Europe (1930) by Bertrand de Jouvenel, The United
States of Europe (1931) by Edouard Herriot, and The United States of Europe: Idea and
other papers (1933) by Sir Arthur Salter.9 In 1930, Aristide Briand, the French Minister
of Exterior Relations and honorary president of the Pan-European Congress, presented
his ideas for a European unity to be achieved through a common European market in his
Memorandum sur l’organisation d’un régime d’union fédérale européenne to the League
of Nations assembly. This proposal would allow national sovereignty while creating
closer ties between the European nations. The assembly approved a Commision for
Enquiry for European Union which would further examine the Memorandum to devise a
plan of action. Ricardo Martín de la Guardia and Guillermo Pérez Sánchez characterize
Coudenhove-Kalergi, Briand and Ortega as “puntas de lanza del movimiento
paneuropeo” (“spearheads of Pan-European movement”) of the interwar period (6). Juan
Pablo Fusi (1991) further characterizes the three figures: “la voluntad más tenaz fue la del
conde Coudenhove-Kalergi; la iniciativa más sólida, la del ministro Briand; y los
argumentos más ambiciosos, los de Ortega” (qtd. in Martín and Pérez 6, “The most
tenacious will was that of the Count Coundenhove-Kalergi; the most solid initiative, that
of the minister Briand; and the most ambitious arguments, those of Ortega”).
23
Ortega had intimate knowledge of the history of the meaning of Europe and was
in tune with the Pan-European movement after World War I. According to Sebastián
Lorente, Ortega in Revolt “se adscribió explícitamente al paneuropeísmo del Conde
Coudenhove-Kalergi. Es indudable que el afán europeo de Ortega y Gasset se
manifestará en gestos de adhesión a todo intento unificador” (qtd. in Moratinos, José
Ortega y Gasset 91, “subscribed explicitly to the Pan-Europeanism of Count
Coudenhove-Kalergi. It is undoubtable that the Europeanist zeal of Ortega y Gasset was
manifested in gestures of adhesion to all attempts at unification”). Indeed, Ortega’s
participation in the Pan-European Congress in 1926 is evidence of his support for the
Pan-European movement at the time. However, Javier Zamora notes some differences
between Ortega’s European ideal and that of Coudenhove-Kalergi. The main difference
was that Pan-Europe was a political manifesto to promote European integration, while
Revolt outlined the demoralization of Europe and called for European unity to provide a
cure. Thus, while Pan-Europe focused on the present of Europe, Revolt analyzed
Europe’s past in order to give Europe a project for the future. Moreover, CoudenhoveKalergi’s geopolitical ideal differed from Ortega’s: Great Britain was not included in
Coudenhove-Kalergi’s ideal, while it was essential in Ortega’s (25). Luis Alberto
Moratinos notes the influences on Revolt of previous Europeanists, such as “de
Montesquieu cuando decía que Europa era ‘la nación de naciones’, de Rousseau por su
consideración de Europa como una sociedad, de Guizot remarcando el carácter de
pluralidad, libertad y equilibrio que ha caracterizado a la civilización europea, de Renan y
sus reflexiones sobre la idea de nación, o, del propio Coudenhove-Kalergi cuando
24
afirmaba que la unidad de Europa era el único medio para evitar que se extendiera el
peligro comunista en la Europa de entreguerras” (“from Montesquieu when he said that
Europe was the ‘nation of nations,’ from Rousseau for his consideration of Europe as a
society, from Guizot emphasizing the character of plurality, liberty, and equilibrium that
has characterized European civilization, from Renan and his reflections on the idea of the
nation or of Coudenhove-Kalergi himself when he affirmed that European unity was the
only way to prevent the spread of the danger of communism of the interwar Europe”;
José Ortega y Gasset 92-93). Revolt’s call to European unity fit in well with European
integration efforts at the time to help the overall Pan-European movement. Ortega
complemented the efforts of Coudenhove-Kalergi while demonstrating knowledge of
Europeanist traditions.
The efforts of Coudenhove-Kalergi, Briand, Ortega and other Europeanists of the
interwar period would be severely impeded in years immediately prior to World War II.
Briand died in 1932, and the National Socialist party came to power in Germany,
abruptly halting the efforts towards European integration in Europe until after World War
II.10 In “Prólogo para franceses,” published in 1937, Ortega signals his frustration over
the failed efforts of European integration (Foncke 82). Ortega complained bitterly that
his vision of European unity as outlined in Revolt, in which nationalisms would no longer
obstruct the supranation Europe, was not heeded enough before World War II (Martín y
Pérez 9).
During World War II, political leaders against Nazism and fascism reaffirmed the
need for European integration as a part of the reconstruction following the war. In 1944
25
in Geneva, the Manifesto of the European Resistance was launched by representatives
from nine countries (France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Poland,
Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia). The authors affirmed that peace and democracy in
Europe could only be assured by a federal union of the European nations. Following
World War II, a surge of willingness for an integrated Europe took place. However,
shortly after the start of the Cold War, a stronger sense of national interest, especially on
the part of France and the United Kingdom, replaced some of the former enthusiasm for
European integration (Ruttley 229-230). Winston Churchill re-sounded the call to a
“United States of Europe” in his speech at the University of Zurich in 1946. In 1947, the
general Georges Marshall presented the “European Recovery Program,” otherwise known
as the “Marshall Plan,” at Harvard University. The “Congress of Europe” in The Hague
took place in 1948 and promoted economic and political unity within Europe, as well as
the creation of the Council of Europe, founded in 1949. Ortega gave his lecture series,
“De Europa Meditatio Quaedam” (“Meditations on Europe”), in 1949, which was
considered a major stimulus towards European integration by some historians, such as
Martín de la Guardía, Pérez Sánchez and Moratinos. The “Schuman Declaration,” in
1950, by Robert Schuman along with Jean Monnet, was the stimulus for the formation of
the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 by France, Germany, Italy,
Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands (Martín and Pérez Sánchez 7).
The Treaty of Rome would then be signed in 1957, forming the European
Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community EURATOM. From
1965 to 1987, clashes occurred between Member States and Community Institutions, as
26
the centralized powers of the Community Institutions began to exercise their forces.
Also, the European Communities expanded from six to twelve Member States. The 1987
Single European Act brought greater economic and political integration. The Treaty of
Maastricht was signed in 1992, and the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 (Ruttley 232). The
Euro was adopted by twelve of its fifteen countries in 2002. In 2004, ten new countries
joined the European Union, which now includes twenty-five states (“European Union”).
European unity has significantly strengthened since Ortega’s publication of
Revolt, although it still does not completely fulfill his ideal of the “United States of
Europe.” Nationalistic interests continue to block a truly meaningful unity, as noted by
D’Appollonia in 2002. European citizens need a stronger sense of being European in
order for the European Union to function as a more powerful institution than the nations
themselves (190).
V. The reception of Revolt
José Luis Abellán claimed in 1994 that Ortega’s Europeanist ideas inspired “el
proceso de construcción europea que se plasmó en el Tratado de Roma (1957)” (“the
process of European construction that was expressed in the Treaty of Rome (1957)”;
“Meditaciones” 424). According to Abellán, the Generation of the 1950s, which
included European politicians of the postwar period, were influenced by Ortega’s
Europeanist works such as Revolt in their efforts towards European integration. These
27
politicians would have included R. Schuman, J. Monnet, A. de Gasperi, P. H. Spaak and
K. Adenaurer.11
Pérez Sánchez also claims that Revolt had great resonance in its call to European
unity, but he does not describe the precise influence (43). However, Luis Alberto
Moratinos states that Revolt’s call to European unity fell far short of widely motivating its
audience towards European integration (“El europeísmo orteguiano” 4). In an attempt to
evaluate Abellán’s, Pérez Sánchez’s, and Moratinos’s claims, I will now examine
whether and to what extent Revolt influenced European integration.
At least one Spanish intellectual who contributed to the movement towards
European unity utilized Ortega’s Europeanist views as outlined in Revolt. Manuel García
Morente, a disciple of Ortega, participated in the 1932 “Convegno di Scienza Morali e
Storiche” in Rome, an international gathering for the discussion of European affairs. He
also was involved in other European integration efforts. Morente attributed his ideas to
Revolt. He denied that Europe was in decadence and urged the formation of a
supranational Europe as a project for the future, both ideas having been expressed in
Revolt (Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 70-72). Morente serves as a concrete example,
but not necessarily a typical one, of the influence of Revolt on the movement towards
European integration. One is hard-pressed to find many specific Europeanist intellectuals
or politicians who acknowledge the influence of Revolt in their efforts towards European
unity.
Another exception was Raymond Aron, a French political philosopher and
sociologist, who cited Ortega’s Revolt as a basis for action in the 1980s. He had been
28
part of the Mont Pelerin Society, an organization founded in 1947 to promote liberalism
in the West out of fear of the decline of democracy. Although the Society did not attempt
to influence politics directly, it had significant political influence in reviving liberalism in
the West in the 1980s. About a dozen members of President Ronald Reagan’s program in
the 1980s were members, as well as Walter Eucken and Ludwig Erhard, architects of
German postwar prosperity (“Mont Pelerin Society”). Aron highly influenced the journal
Commentaire and had close political relations with moderate liberals. The journal was
founded in 1978 and came to represent liberal thought in France, especially after the left
came to power in France in 1981. Prior to the renewal of liberalism in France, French
social philosophers had been predominantly Marxist, and Aron had been engaged in
disputes regarding his rejection of Marxism (“Aron, Raymond”). 1981 signaled a
renewal of France’s liberal traditions, a time of return to such intellectuals as Guizot and
Tocqueville, both much studied by Ortega (Foncke 85-86).
Aron saw the greatest contribution of Ortega as his promotion of liberalism. Aron
cites Revolt’s advocacy of liberalism in his work The Opium of the Intellectuals (1955):
“el liberalismo--conviene hoy recordarlo--es la suprema generosidad: es el derecho que la
mayoría otorga a las minorías. Y es, por tanto, el más noble grito que ha sonado en el
planeta” (“Liberalism--it is well to recall this to-day--is the supreme form of generosity;
it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry
that has ever resounded on this planet”; 58).12 Aron was also quite interested in the
second part of Revolt, “Who Rules in the World?” He agreed that Ortega’s call to
European unity in Revolt should be carried out, an action that would renew liberalism in
29
Europe. In addition, Aron agreed that Europeans should unite politically to avoid a future
loss of power on the world scale. Europe was ready for the project of unity to overcome
the limitations of the individual nationalisms. Aron cites Ortega’s “Prólogo para
franceses”: “La unidad de Europa no es una fantasía, sino que es la realidad misma, y la
fantasía es precisamente lo otro: la creencia de que Francia, Alemania, Italia o España
son realidades sustantivas e independientes” (“European unity is not a fantasy, but is
reality itself, and the fantasy is precisely the opposite: the belief that France, Germany,
Italy or Spain are substantive and independent”; my trans.). Foncke notes that Aron
received his main inspiration from Ortega by his reading of Revolt (88).13
I will now examine the reception of Revolt in a more general sense. I have given
a couple of examples in which Revolt influenced specific intellectuals involved in politics
who fought for European unity. However, it should be useful to examine also the
reception of Revolt’s Europeanist message both by the general public and in academic
institutions. This examination should help to understand ways in which Revolt had an
impact on European integration other than through intellectuals directly involved in
politics. Moreover, it will help to understand why Revolt’s call to European unity
received little attention in certain countries and time periods.
Revolt was published in a less favorable atmosphere for the reception of its call to
European integration than was Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Pan-Europe in 1923. The fear of
another war had decreased after 1923, from the treaties signed years before the
publication of Revolt, lessening the motivation for European unity in order to avoid war.
Moreover, the worth of liberalism was under severe doubt, especially after the United
30
States’s stock market crash in 1929. Fascist governments had sprung up in Europe,
adding to skepticism over democracy. Thus, the idea of a renewal of liberalism through
the formation of the “United States of Europe,” called for in Revolt in 1930, was received
less enthusiastically than was Coudenhove-Kalergi’s democratic vision of a united
Europe in 1923, with the publication of Pan-Europe (Zamora, “El mundo” 25).
The popularity of Revolt does not necessarily indicate that Ortega’s ideas
pertaining to European integration were also widely or energetically recognized and
promoted. Ortega received more attention for his societal theory of the proper dynamics
between masses and minorities in the first part of Revolt than for the call to European
unity in the second part of that work (“Who Rules in the World?”). He was dismayed by
this inattention to his promotion of European integration in what was to become his most
famous book (Lasaga, “Significados” 35).
Just two years after its publication in German in 1931, more than 300,000 copies
of Revolt were sold in Germany, where it had the greatest resonance (Mermall 7). In the
1920s, Ortega had had a wide following in Germany. Ernst Robert Curtius acknowledges
Ortega’s philosophical works as an important contribution to the rich intellectual
ambience in Germany in the 1920s (5-7). After World War II, Ortega was not as popular
in the German university setting as he had been during the interwar period, but Revolt
was still widely read by the general public. The German academic public did not approve
of Ortega’s fragmented, essayistic style, which appealed more to the general public. This
German public needed relief from the excess of professionalism and technicality in
German philosophy, and Ortega offered such relief through his greater readability. His
31
clear and lively prose proved more accessible to the general public in Germany than did
the deep and often jargon-laden style of German philosophical works (Lledo 198-199)
Ortega’s popularity with the German general public was also manifested in his
lecture in Berlin in 1949, part of a lecture series named “De Europa Meditatio Quaedam.”
Thousands clamored to hear his call for European unity in his Berlin lecture. This was an
event humorously dubbed “The Revolt of the Masses” by the German press (Abellán,
Transiciones 178). Berlin, the site of this particular lecture, symbolized the precarious
division of Europe after World War II, dominated by the new superpowers, United States
and Russia. Ortega’s recognition as a Europeanist, mostly gained from his Revolt, gave
him the ability in his lecture to rally the defeated Germans with a certain authority. He
urged the German crowd to have hope in the rebirth of Europe after World War II. His
ideas on Europe in De Europa Meditatio Quaedam were essentially the same as those
expressed in Revolt, but with a little more development of his ideas behind the history of
Europe. Moratinos has recognized this lecture as an important catalyst for European
unity among other similarly acclaimed events, including Winston Churchill’s speech
(1946), the Marshall Plan (1948), the Congress of Europe (1948), and the Schuman
Declaration (1950) (“En el cincuentenario” 106-114). Ricardo Martín de la Guardia and
Guillermo Pérez Sánchez also acknowledge that the lecture should be recognized as a
significant stimulus to European integration (9). The time and place of the lecture were
of great historical significance. Moreover, Ortega was quite prestigious as a Europeanist
and was internationally recognized for his work, Revolt (Moratinos, “En el
cincuentenario” 103, 109). In 1953, Ortega declared himself the “decano de la idea de
32
Europa” (“doyen of the idea of Europe”), a rightful claim, because he was one of the
oldest and most prestigious members of the community of Europeanists who had insisted
that European unity take the form of a supranation.14 The lecture’s ideas were founded in
Revolt, and Ortega’s international prestige as a Europeanist was also generally attributed
to Revolt, enabling Ortega to make an impact on European integration in his Berlin
lecture, De Europa Meditatio Quaedam.
Revolt received a colder welcome in France than in Germany, because, according
to Manuel Durán, many French intellectuals and politicians opposed a supranational
Europe after World War II.15 Ortega was recognized in the 1920s in France as a
distinguished Europeanist, with the help of the promotion of Hispanism in French
universities in that decade. Jean Cassou, a distinguished Hispanist and one of the first
French intellectuals to realize the potential European legacy of Ortega in the 1920s,
categorized him along with Aristide Briand and Coudenhove-Kalergi as one of the
intellectuals who could influence the pacifist future of Europe in the Pan-European
movement (Fonck 75-77). However, after 1935, two years before the publication of
Revolt in France, Cassou ceased promoting Ortega’s European ideal and adopted more
communistic views, a trend among other French intellectuals as well. Numerous French
thinkers had become proponents for communism while France forged ties with the Soviet
Union and distanced itself from Germany. Another major factor in Ortega’s cold
reception in France was his association with German philosophy, to which French
nationalists between and after the world wars did not take kindly.16 In his “Prólogo para
franceses,” Ortega emphasizes political unity in Europe as the only possibility of
33
opposing Stalin’s Five-Year Plan (OC IV 346). In 1937, this statement would have
caused him to be labeled as being pro-German and thus anti-French.
When Revolt was published in France in 1937, Ortega also published with it a
“Prólogo para franceses,” which, according to Beatrice Fonck, was perceived as “una
provocación hacia la tradición filosófica e ideológica francesa de la época” (77-81,
“provoking to the philosophical and ideological French tradition of the time”). In the
“Prólogo para franceses,” Ortega is critical of two great thinkers in the French tradition:
René Descartes and Victor Hugo. Ortega’s critique of Cartesian reason was a result of
his German philosophical background, not widely studied in France at the time. In the
“Prólogo para franceses,” according to Beatrice Fonck, the rationalism of Descartes is
said to cause the destruction of Europe by adversely influencing the thinking of the
people. Ortega criticizes Descartes in the following passage by insinuating that Cartesian
reason can madden humanity, first sarcastically praising Descartes:
Pero era natural que me interesase sobre todo escuchar una vez más la palabra de
nuestro sumo maestro Descartes, el hombre a quién más debe Europe. El puro
azar que zarandea mi existencia ha hecho que redacte estas líneas teniendo a la
vista el lugar de Holanda que habitó en 1642 el nuevo descubridor de la raison.
Este lugar llamado Engegeest, cuyos árboles dan sombra a mi ventana, es hoy un
manicomio. Dos veces al día – y en amonestadora proximidad – veo pasar los
idiotas y los dementes que orlan un rato a la intemperie de su malograda hombría.
But it was natural for me to be interested above all in hearing one more time the
speech of our supreme master Descartes, to whom Europe has the greatest debt.
34
The pure chance that shakes my existence has caused me to write these lines
having in view the place in Holland that he [Descartes] inhabited in 1642, the new
discoverer of “raison.” This place called Engegeest, whose trees give shade to
my window, is now a mental hospital. Two times per day—and in dangerous
proximity—I see idiots and madmen that adorn the open air with their wasted
humanity for a while.” (my trans.)17
Ortega also indirectly attacks Hugo’s plan for the “United States of Europe” in the
“Prólogo para franceses.” Hugo’s European ideal was a balance of individual
nationalities and European power. Ortega argues for the elimination of nationalism as a
necessary step in the formation of the supranation Europe. He takes his distance from
Hugo’s custom of “hablar de la Humanidad” (“speaking of humanity”; my trans.), saying
“no me he dirigido jamás a la humanidad” (OC IV 116, “I have never addressed myself
to humanity”; my trans.). He also indicates disapproval of the custom of speaking “urbi
et orbi,” or, as he puts it, “a todo el mundo y a nadie” (“to everyone and to no one”; my
trans.), preferring to know to whom he is writing (OC IV 115). Thus, he indirectly
criticizes Victor Hugo, a probable offense to many French (Fonck 81-82).
However, some well-known French Europeanists came to recognize Ortega’s
importance. For Albert Camus, who fought for the publication of Ortega’s works in
France, Ortega is second only to Nietzsche in being the greatest writer of European
thought (Mermall 11). And, as noted earlier, Raymond Aron acknowledged Ortega’s
influence in Revolt as an important stimulus for his involvement with European
integration in the 1980s (Fonck 73-89).
35
In Great Britain, Revolt was not received very enthusiastically. Andrew Dobson
reasons that British liberalism, universalist and collectivist on the whole, would have
impeded wide reception of Revolt for the individualist and somewhat elitist liberalism
expressed in Ortega’s Revolt. Moreover, Ortega’s previous work in general was not well
known in Great Britain (qtd. in Mermall 8).
In Spain, Revolt was recognized, but was not as widely appreciated as in
Germany. It sold 120,000 copies in Spain within two years of its publication in 1930.
The elitism of Revolt, implied in the very terminology of “masses” and “minorities,”
created an unfavorable attitude towards the work in Republican Spain, most likely also
hurting the reception of Revolt’s call to European unity. The elitism of Ortega’s social
theory of “masses” and “minorities” also caused controversy in other countries, but the
work’s overall reception outside of Spain was not negative. However, in Spain, Revolt
was, for the most part, controversial when it was given attention, but it was often ignored.
Notice of Revolt’s publication on August 1, 1930 only received cursory mention in six
newspapers in Spain. The socialist leader Luis Araquistain, in his essay in the journal
Leviatán in 1934, declared that Ortega was the enemy of the interests of the Spanish
people and the European masses (qtd. in Mermall 13). Ortega fared no better during the
Franco regime in the 1950s. Criticism of Ortega was abundant because he had been a
proponent of the Republican government, which the Franco regime overturned, calling it
the “anti-Spain” (Mermall 8, 11-14). Under General Franco, the rich community of
writers, artists and scientists in the pre-war Spanish scene in Madrid, spear-headed by
Ortega in the twenties and thirties, was persecuted. Most intellectuals were forced into
36
exile, and Spanish culture under Franco became “un acabado espécimen de barbarie”
(Stern 136-137, “a perfect specimen of savagery”). In the late 1960s and 1970s, Revolt
was again perceived as elitist by the younger generation, grown critical of Franco’s
regime, so the work was again ignored. Javier San Martín remembers that “la filosofía
española de los años sesenta-setenta fue anti-orteguiana; quienes nos formamos en esa
década no hemos utilizado a Ortega para nada” (qtd. in Mermall 14, “Spanish philosophy
of the 1960s and 1970s was anti-Orteguian; those of us educated during that decade have
not utilized Ortega for anything”). Until the 1980s, Orteguian philosophy would be
highly neglected in Spain, impeding study of Revolt’s call to European integration.
In most European countries, around Ortega’s death in 1955, the trend in
philosophy changed in that the study of metaphysics entered a new phase. Studies of
Ortega’s philosophy, a philosophy characterized by R. Lane Kauffmann as “existential
humanism,” did not fit in well with the anti-humanist trends starting to grow in the 1960s
(Kauffmann 618). Thus, Ortega’s work in general was not given very much attention in
the 60’s and 70’s.18 In the 1980s, Ortega started to be studied more internationally. The
100th anniversary of his birth, 1983, was a major catalyst for studies on Ortega
(Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 80). At present, Ortega is fairly well studied in Spain,
but not across Europe. For example, the international conference, “Ortega medio siglo
después, 1955-2005: La recepción de su obra,” held in Madrid in October 2005, drew
participants mostly from Spain and the Americas. The Fundación Ortega y Gasset in
Madrid currently serves as a center for Orteguian studies, as well as a publication center
37
for journals such as Revista de Estudios Orteguianos and Revista del Occidente, featuring
articles on Ortega’s works.
Ortega’s thought on Europe in Revolt has been cited by numerous historians of
European integration, but has been ignored by others. Moratinos records various
histories of European integration that acknowledge Ortega, and others that ignore him.
One key study that acknowledges Ortega is Vingt-huit siècles d’Europe. La consciencie
européenne á travers les texts. D’Hesoide á nos jours, by Denis de Rougemont (1961).
However, other histories of Europe in the period of Rougemont’s book, the 1960s and
1970s, do not mention Ortega as a significant contributor to the idea of Europe: for
example, L’idée européenne et sa realisation by Édouard Bonnefous (1950), Historia de
la idea de Europa by Bernard Voyenne in the 1960s, Europa, esa utopía (1967) by René
Sedillot, Europa: el surgimiento de una nación (1973) by Carl J. Friedrich, and La idea
de Europa, 1920-1970 (1972) by Henri Brugmans (“José Ortega y Gasset” 74-76). In the
1990s, significant books on the construction of Europe that omit mention of Ortega
include De LiI’idée européenne á L’Europe: XIXe-XXe siècle (1997) by Philippe Mioche,
Les grandes figures de la construction européenne (1997) by François Saint-Ouen, La
construction de l’Europe (1994) by Pierre Gerbet, Historia política de la Unión Europea
by Rogelio Pérez Bustamante, El futuro federalista de Europa (1998) by Dusan
Sidjanski and Histoir’e de la construction européenne de 1945 à nos jours (1996) by
María-Thèrése Bitsch (Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 106). It can be concluded that
Ortega was not in the forefront of consciousness of many historians as a key promotor of
European integration during the second half of the twentieth century.
38
Works about European integration that do acknowledge Ortega’s influence in the
history of Europe include Europa, una tarea inacabada by Antonio Sánchez-Gijón in the
1960s, Los buenos europeos: Hacia una filosofía de la Europa contemporánea by Félix
Duque and La integración europea: Idea y realidad by Antonio Truyol y Serra (1972).
Works in the 1980s and afterwards that credit Ortega as a major contributor to European
integration include Europa: historia de una idea by Federico Gutiérrez Contreras (1987),
L’idée d’Europe au XXe siècle (1995) by Elisabeth du Reau, Les Fondateurs de l’Europe
(1994) by Gérard Bossuat, Historia de la unidad europea. Desde los precedentes
remotos a la ampliación al Este (2000) by Manuel Ahijado Quintilán, Historia de la
integración europea, specifically the article “El ideal europeísta: de la modernidad hasta
la contemporaneidad,” by Guillermo Pérez Sánchez (2001), Le débat européen dans
l’entre-deux-guerres by Yannick Muet, Inventing Europe by Gerard Delante and The
Idea of Europe (2002) by Anthony Padget. Most, if not all of those sources recognize
Ortega’s contributions mainly from Revolt, without mention of Ortega’s contributions
after World War II (Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 104-105). Thus, many historians
attest that Revolt has had an influence on European unity.
VI. Conclusions
In conclusion, Revolt is significant because it calls for the formation of a “United
States of Europe” to renew European society. The supranation would do away with
nationalisms to form the powerful state of Europe, an ambitious plan. This “United
39
States of Europe” would also have hegemony in the world, a bold projection never
explicitly advocated before Revolt. The work appeared during a time of doubt about the
hegemony of Europe, and it was the first to argue clearly that only Europe could set the
norm in the world. Revolt contains the mature Europeanist thought of Ortega and it
brought him international fame that would help him to directly influence European
integration with his lecture series “De Europa Meditatio Quaedam.” The sheer number of
copies sold would suggest that Revolt had a significant impact on its audience. However,
those numbers vary by country, and the book was not always interpreted primarily as a
call to European unity. Most attention was given specifically to Ortega’s social theory
involving “masses” and “minorities.” The elitist aspect of this social theory resulted in
Revolt’s limited reception in Spain, also affecting the reception of its call to European
unity. Neither did Revolt appeal to the French very much, for its ties to German
philosophy; nor was it well received among the British. Books on the history of
European integration and the idea of Europe often do not include Ortega’s influence, but
when they do, Ortega is always associated with his most famous book, Revolt. Two
intellectuals involved in the push for European integration, Manuel García Morente and
Raymond Aron, acknowledge the direct influence of Revolt on their own efforts towards
European unity. Unquestionably, Revolt did have an impact on the tradition of thought
leading to European integration, although both limited and uneven reception of the work
probably kept it from having the influence that it merits. Revolt possesses unique
qualities, such as its ambitious vision of a superstate Europe that has overpowered the
individual nationalisms and that takes a moral lead in the world. Arguably, Europe has
40
yet to fulfill Ortega’s vision of the “United States of Europe.” But Orteguian studies are
far from dying out. Some of Revolt’s influence may well lie in the future.
VII. Epilogue
I would like to comment on the reception of Ortega’s Revolt in the United States.
In spite of his pejorative treatment of the United States in Revolt, Ortega’s works are
being widely studied in this country. That the United States has proven fertile ground for
Orteguian studies may have interesting consequences for the future impact of Revolt on
European integration.
Ortega’s comparison of the United States to Europe, along with his harsh
judgment of the United States in Revolt, has been a point of disagreement among some of
Ortega’s disciples. For Julián Marías, a well-known disciple of Ortega, America is a
European possibility: “La vinculación de América a Occidente es, simplemente, su propia
realidad; fuera de él no tiene ninguna, y sólo puede encontrar su falsificación y
decadencia. Pero esto no implica la subordinación respecto de Europa, sino
coordinación, o mejor aún, integración. Europa y América son los dos lóbulos
inconfundibles e inseparables de la única realidad histórico-social que es el mundo
occidental” (“The link between America and the West is, simply, their own reality;
outside of it nothing can be found but falsification and decadence. But this does not
imply suboordination with respect to Europe, but coordination, or better yet, integration.
Europe and America are the two unmistakable and inseparable lobes of the unique
41
historical-social reality that is the Western world”). America in this sense includes all of
North and South America, not just the United States. Marías deems Europe to have the
quality of intelligence by historical right. Europe and America need each other because
“América suele ser sumamente creadora sin ser demasiado inteligente; y por eso sigue
nutriéndose de Europa, a veces de una Europa que ya no existe salvo en líneas irreales y
formas deficientes” (“America tends to be extremely creative without being too
intelligent, and because of that it continues to feed off of Europe, sometimes from a
Europe that does not exist except in imaginary lines and deficient forms”).19 Ortega’s
pejorative treatment of America, especially of the United States, in Revolt, could be
attributed to his relative ignorance of society in the United States. Moreover, Harold C.
Raley sees a common European attitude of distrust towards the United States in Ortega’s
treatment. He notes of Ortega’s disdain that it “no dista mucho del desdén con que
algunos intelectuales actuales o recientes tratan--o más bien pasan por alto--los temas
americanos. Hace tiempo que América tiene mala prensa, y entre ciertos círculos
intelectuales (incluso los americanos, desde luego) constituye casi una indecencia hablar
bien de los Estados Unidos” (“is not very far from the distain with which many present or
recent intellectuals treat--or more appropriately overlook--American topics. America has
had bad publicity for a while, and among certain intellectual groups [including
Americans, of course] it constitutes almost an indecency to speak well of the United
States”).20 However, one must also note that past key European intellectuals, such as
Tocqueville and Burke, were enthusiastic about the possibilities of America, including
the United States, as a creation of Europe (Raley 419).
42
The response to Ortega in the United States, and especially the response to Revolt,
has been quite fascinating. In spite of the United States being, in Ortega’s view, “el
paraíso de las masas” (OC IV 222, “the paradise of the masses”; 89), Ortega is widely
studied in this very country (Wedel 485). From 1965 to 1977, 100,000 copies of Revolt
were sold in the United States (Mermall 8). For three decades after its publication it was
studied in United States universities by students of sociology, science, politics, history
and philosophy, in spite of its harsh criticism of the country.21 One possible reason for
Revolt’s popularity in the United States, outlined by Alfred Wedel, is that Ortega
consistently considers the United States as the opposite extreme of European society, a
contrast which promotes interest (488). Nelson Orringer suggests that Ortega is widely
studied in the United States because Hispanic studies are strongly developing in
universities across the country (149).
Ortega’s arguments for European hegemony over the United States seem
questionable from the present vantage point. Ortega disagreed with German philosopher
Spengler’s belief that the United States could live without the help of Europe in the
sciences. Ortega states in Revolt that, without cultural principles provided by Europe, the
United States’s society would be barbaric. In view of the accomplishments of the United
States in space exploration, to mention one obvious example, Ortega’s claim rings
hollow. One of Ortega’s arguments in Revolt for the inability of the United States to lead
in the world is its alleged lack of past, of history, and thus of suffering. However, the
United States suffered from the Civil War (1860-1865), and, as Alfred Wedel points out,
since post-World War II, the country has suffered through the Vietnam War, among other
43
events (489-490). I would point out that the current Iraq War seems to be another
suffering event in the history of the United States. Thus, Ortega’s historical arguments
for Europe’s necessary hegemony over the United States seem open to challenge.
It could be asked, should any nation have hegemonic status in the world? Ortega
expressed the necessity of having a single nation in command because of the messy
processes of globalization. This globalization brings humanity into closer contact. The
close contact of nations creates the need for one nation to take the lead in order to avoid
conflict. This lead or “rule” can never be forced, but is always a matter of convincing
other nations to follow, a leadership based on public opinion (OC IV 232). One can
safely allow that international relations are often smoother when many nations follow the
lead of another. However, more than one nation in the world should be able to hold
values that the others respect and admire. Thus, I cannot fully agree with Ortega’s belief
in the necessity for one nation to predominate in the world. However, for the sake of
argument, let us for a moment concede that a nation should be able to be the law-giver in
the world, on the basis of public opinion.
I would like to consider the possibility of the United States ruling in the world
instead of Europe. The United States desires hegemony in the world similar to that which
Ortega outlines for Europe. The United States wants the world to follow its lead in its
democratic and capitalist ideals. Ortega has been proven right, in the United State’s
present situation, in his claim that the “rule” must be based on public opinion. The
United States has failed to impose its lead with brute force alone, as has been shown by
its failures in the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
44
The United States has nevertheless been convinced of its moral hegemony in the
world, especially during the prosperous 1980’s and 1990’s. During the twentieth century,
Europe watched as the United States grew in power. The tables have somewhat turned
since Ortega’s Revolt, because now the United States observes a Europe that is
integrating and increasing its economic and political power. Those of us in the United
States who look to Europe often see a less wasteful, less militarily aggressive and a more
liberal society, and we look with admiration towards these qualities. The growing power
of Europe may not be a threat to democracy so much as a challenge to the United State’s
hegemonic desires, whether military or capitalist. Interestingly, the United States public
does not find Europe’s threat very menacing. Contrariwise, Europeans often find the
power of the United States quite scary, especially in its unilateral militaristic endeavors.
Could Ortega be right, that Europe was meant to have moral hegemony in the world? I
would speculate that Europe presently enjoys a greater “rule” than the United States in
the sense of greater respect. This could be from the highly negative international opinion
at present towards the United States, in light of what the world sees as its aggressive
militaristic actions abroad. Also, Europe promotes ecological conservation and
liberalism often to a greater degree than the United States, adding to its greater respect in
the world. In Revolt, Ortega argues in 1930 for the inability of the United States to rule
in the world, and for Europe’s greater capability in this regard. Now, I have not
considered still other candidates that could conceivably challenge Europe’s potential rule.
Nor has Europe achieved the full potential as the “United States of Europe,” from
Ortega’s Revolt. Thus, I cannot agree with Ortega that if one state should rule the world,
45
it should be Europe. However, present events lead many, myself included, to believe that
the United States is not ready to rule in the world, and that Europe, especially a “United
States of Europe,” might be a better candidate for global leadership.
46
Notes
1
Abbreviated as Revolt in this essay.
2
All translations to English from La rebelión de las masas are taken from The
Revolt of the Masses unless otherwise indicated. All other translations to English are
mine.
3
Vicente Cacho Viu, Los intelectuales y la política. Perfil público de Ortega y
Gasset (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2000) 16-17, qtd. in Lasaga 37.
4
The Spanish edition cited in my essay is the fourth edition of Ortega’s Obras
Completas, hereafter abbreviated as OC, volume IV (Madrid: Revista de Occidente,
1957).
5
Béatrice Fonck, “Historia y política en La rebelión de las masas,” Revista de
Occidente 73 (1987), qtd. in Mermall 32.
6
OC IV,143-144, qtd. in Cascardi 340.
7
Ciríaco Morón Arroyo, El sistema de Ortega y Gasset (Madrid: Alcalá, 1968)
301-302, qtd. in Mermall 48.
8
Montesquieu, De L’Espirit des lois, Book XI (Geneva, 1748), qtd. in
D’Appollonia 174-175.
9
Henri Brugmans, La idea de Europa, 1920-1970 (Madrid: Moneda y Crédito,
1972) 54-62, qtd. in Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 166.
10
Antonio Truyol, La integración europea. Análisis histórico-institucional con
textos y documentos, Vol I, Génesis y desarrollo de la comunidad Europea (1951-1979)
(Madrid: Tecnos, 1999) 32, qtd. in Martín de la Guardia and Pérez Sánchez 5.
47
11
Guillermo A. Pérez Sánchez, “La Europa comunitaria, año cero; la puesta en
marcha del proceso de integración.” Hernández Sánchez, Alfredo and Sacristán Represa,
Marcos (coords.), Cincuenta años de la Unión Europea: reflexiones desde la
Universidad. (Oviedo: Instituto de Estudios Europeos, Universidad de Valladolid, 2001)
19-21, qtd. in Moratinos, José Ortega y Gasset 86.
12
OC IV 192, qtd. in Fonck 86.
13
OC IV 120, qtd. in Fonck 87.
14
OC IX 247, qtd. in Moratinos, “En el cincuentenario” 112.
15
Manuel Durán, (ed.), “Prólogo a Ortega, hoy,” Ortega, hoy: Estudio, ensayos y
bibliografía sobre la vida y la obra de José Ortega y Gasset, (Xalapa: Univ.
Veracruzana, 1985) 7, qtd. in Mermall 11.
16
A few French intellectuals, such as Jean Hyppolite and Jean-Paul Sartre, did
appreciate German philosophy in the 1940s, Hegel in Hyppolite’s case and Heidegger in
Sartre’s (“Hyppolite, Jean-Gaston” The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford
University Press, 2005, 12 August 2006
<http:/www.oxfordreference.com/views/BOOK_SEARCH.html>; “Existentialism”
World Encyclopedia, Oxford University Press, 2005, 12 August
2006 <http://www.oxfordreference.com/views/ENTRY.html>).
17
OC IV 135, qtd. in Fonck 80.
18
OC IV 135, qtd. in Fonck 80.
19
Julián Marías, “¿Dónde está América?” La Vanguardia Española 24 de Feb.
1974: 15, qtd. in Raley 419-420.
48
20
Julián Marías, “¿Dónde está América?” La Vanguardia Española 24 de Feb.
1974: 15, qtd. in Raley 419.
21
Donoso, Antón, “Bibliografía estadounidense sobre Ortega,” Quinto centenario,
6 (1983) 178, qtd. in Mermall 8.
49
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