In the 19th century the status of mass society became a philosophical and moral issue in a manner hitherto unseen. It came to be defined as the permanent possibility in all individuals of losing concern for their personal status and worth, and assigning themselves to something outside themselves in an abstract “other”.  

We’ll be exploring the various existential critiques and interpretations of this phenomenon peculiar to modern society from four major 19th century thinkers who have integrated the event of the masses into the very structure of their philosophies: Søren Kierkegaard ("The Crowd is Untruth" and "The Public"), Friedrich Nietzsche ("The Last Man"), Martin Heidegger ("Das Man") and José Ortega y Gasset (The Mass Man").

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📚 Recommended Reading

▶ The Present Age – Kierkegaard

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▶ The Sickness unto Death – Kierkegaard

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▶ Thus Spoke Zarathustra – Nietzsche

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▶ The Question concerning Technology – Heidegger

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▶ The Revolt of the Masses – Ortega y Gasset

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⌛ Timestamps

0:00 Introduction

1:20 Kierkegaard: The Crowd is Untruth

4:50 Kierkegaard: Levelling and The Public

6:19 Nietzsche: The Last Man and The Übermensch

7:30 Heidegger: Das Man and Being-toward-Death

8:57 Ortega y Gasset: The Mass Man

11:30 Ortega’s Philosophy of Life

13:36 New Challenges: Posthuman Era