Indocile Democracy and The Humiliation of the Masses

Abstract

This chapter examines José Ortega y Gasset’s proposed antidote to “hyperdemocracy,” a phenomenon akin to contemporary populism that he believed obstructed liberalism as well as post-imperial renewal. Situating The Revolt of the Masses alongside his related writings, the chapter shows that Ortega regarded mass self-assertion as an existential threat to liberalism and civilization alike. Motivated by his bleak appraisal of the “mass-man,” Ortega placed little faith in institutional reform, constitutional limits, or mass education as means of restraining democratic excesses. Instead, he argued that the masses must be allowed to rule—and to experience the consequences of their own ineptitude—so that, once chastened by failure, they would accept the leadership of enlightened liberal elites. The chapter concludes that Ortega’s embrace of this “pedagogy of humiliation,” including his openness to dictatorship, reveals a distinctive liberal response to the challenge of populism. It also demonstrates how, in the wake of imperial decline, the civilizing logic of liberal imperialism can be redirected toward disciplining the post-imperial demos itself.