The Crisis of Our Time is not economic or political, but anthropological. The dominant character is the “mass-man” – a psychological type found across all social classes. He is the average man who feels no need to demand excellence of himself, viewing his comfortable existence as a natural, self-sustaining right.
He is a historical rupture. Past generations inherited culture through struggle. The modern mass-man inherits wealth, technology, and civilization as a ready-made inheritance, like finding a furnished house. He feels no gratitude or responsibility for its upkeep.
His psychology is defined by two defects: Hermetic Closure & Spontaneous Narcissism. • Hermetic Closure: His soul is sealed. He dismisses external critique, higher truths, and history. He is immune to reason. • Spontaneous Narcissism: He believes life is intrinsically easy, abundant, and devoid of tragedy. His desires equate to rights.
He mistakes civilization for nature. He sees technological progress (better/cheaper goods) and social order as automatic processes, like the sunrise. He does not grasp that civilization is a delicate, artificial garden requiring constant cultivation by disciplined minds. He is a parasite on a past he does not understand.
The “Americanization” of Europe is not mimicry but parallel evolution. It signifies the triumph of mass sovereignty – the social ascent of the average man’s tastes and sensibilities. What was once luxury for elites (travel, culture, rights) is now democratized, often diluting excellence in the process.
He glorifies mediocrity and attacks distinction. His mantra: “Being different is indecent.” He conflates equality of rights with equality of competence, dismissing expertise in governance, art, and thought. The specialist (scientist, technician) becomes a prime example—master of a tiny fragment, ignorant of the whole, yet arrogantly opinionated on everything.
True Nobility is its antithesis. It is earned, not inherited. It lies in self-imposed discipline, service to transcendent ideals, and the permanent will to self-transcendence. The noble man doubts and strives; the mass-man is complacent and self-satisfied.
The Liberal Democracy paradox: The 19th century’s liberal order (technical progress, abundant rights) created the conditions for humanity’s flourishing but also unleashed the mass-man who now threatens to dismantle it from within. By abolishing formal privilege, it accidentally eroded the respect for informal excellence necessary to lead.
History is not automatic progress. It trembles with indeterminacy. Regression is as possible as advancement. We are at a crossroads: either the “revolt of the masses” leads to a new dark age of homogenized, soulless vulgarity (like late Rome), or it is corrected by the resurgence of “excellent minorities” who provide vision and leadership.
Our only way out is Historical Reason. We must reject the Cartesian fantasy that pure logic can govern human affairs. We must embrace historical reason—understanding that man is his accumulated past, his memory, and his errors. To break with history is to become an animal. Civilization advances only by digesting its tradition, not by rejecting it.
The mass-man is not a class. It is a state of soul. And it is the defining crisis of the West.