Nov 16 2007
Revolt of the masses
Through one of the photography groups I participate in, I discovered this discussion about the good and evils of Flickr, amateur vs. professional photographers, and the supposed drop of quality caused by the access of the masses to digital photography technology. This is, in some sense, another example on the controversy around collective creation that I referred to in a previous pots.
But what I found more interesting (and disturbing…) is how some of the arguments, specially those ones about the concept of Good Enough Quality Syndrome, looked so similar to what Ortega y Gasset had written down around 80 years ago in his book The Revolt of teh Masses:
There is one fact which, whether for good or ill, is of utmost importance in the public life of Europe at its present moment. The fact is the accession of the masses to complete social power.
(…)
The mass crushes beneath it everything that is different, everything that is excellent, individual, qualified and select.
I have never liked much Ortega’s ideas and books; one of the main reasons is that I had to read and study several of them for my high school history and philosophy classes (that’s what happens when your culture has very few modern philosophers, you always end up having to read the same ones…); and I do not think he is right on most of the pessimistic predictions he included in The Revolt of the Masses.
However, it is a good food for thought to think how some of the advances in communication and information technologies, and new applications such as social network sites, have an effect on the concept oft the masses that Ortega described so negatively in the 30s (remember, that was the decade of the Great Depression, the rise of fascist movements,…), and how his ideas may be an interesting counterpoint to the Smart Mobs theory (but then, of course, Smart Mobs has its own web site, and Revolt of the Masses just a short entry in wikipedia…)
Maybe it’s time to dust my old Ortega’s books, and read them again…
