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24 December 2021updated 01 Jan 2022 12:24pm
A century ago the philosopher anatomised a Spain fractured by separatisms. What can his prescient polemic tell us about the UK today?
By Harry Eyres
Just over 100 years ago a short book appeared, hardly more than a provocative essay, whose prophetic power would become apparent a decade and a half later when the once-great nation it anatomised in scathing detail descended into civil war. José Ortega y Gasset’s Invertebrate Spain (1921) is an indictment of a country that had been in decline for centuries, and was disintegrating into mutually uncomprehending factions and separatist nationalisms.
In Ortega’s telling, Spain’s fragmentation is a dark reversal of its earlier process of integration into a nation state and empire, which Ortega defines, following the great German historian of ancient Rome, Theodor Mommsen, not as the expansion of an initial nucleus but as a dynamic process of incorporation of entities that retain individuality in the larger whole. What drives this incorporation is not simply greed or military conquest, as most modern interpretations would have it, but a “project of a life in common”. When that project decays, the empire, and then the nation, falls apart.
Ortega y Gasset, founder of the pre-civil war periodical Revista de Occidente and widely regarded as Spain’s greatest 20th-century philosopher and leading public intellectual, was writing not long after the humiliating loss of Spain’s last outposts of empire (Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and Guam) in the Spanish-American war of 1898. Separatist pressures were growing in the proudly independent-minded regions of Catalonia and the Basque country. A Basque nationalist party, the EAJ-PNV, had been established in 1895, and Catalonia’s first pro-independence political party, Francesc Macià’s Estat Català, was being founded as Ortega wrote his book. Ten years later, on April 14 1931, Macià would stand on the balcony of the Generalitat in Barcelona to proclaim a Catalan republic.
Ortega explained the rise of separatist movements less in terms of their inherent strength than of the weakness and carelessness of the central power. The government in Madrid was not attentive to the wishes of the peripheral “nations”, but above all had ceased to offer the inducement of a convincing “project of a life in common”, which might override petty grievances.
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Separatist nationalisms for Ortega were symptoms of a deeper and more pervasive malaise, which he called “particularism” – the increasing inability of different segments, factions or classes of the body politic to take one another into account. These parts or factions included the monarchy (entirely self-centred, as Ortega charged in a well-known article entitled “Delenda est monarchia”, published not long before the abdication of King Alfonso XIII in April 1931), the Church (ditto), the military and the workers.
What can we, in another of Europe’s former imperial powers and “multi-national” nations, now apparently disintegrating, learn from Ortega’s premonitory broadside? Perhaps the most suggestive lesson stems from Ortega’s central insight into nation-building and its opposite. Great nations come about by facing outwards, not inwards. So it was in Spain – first with the consolidation of Castile and then with the unification of Spain under Isabella I of Castile and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon, who won over traditionally independent Peninsular peoples not accustomed to vassalage, by raising, as Machiavelli observed from Florence, “great expectation”. This extroversion and expectation culminated in the extraordinary feat – suspending, for a moment, moral judgement – of the colonisation of a large part of the Americas in the space of 80 or so years.
Something comparable happened with the creation and expansion of the British empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, initially powered more by commerce than religion (or the naked desire for conquest) – an “expectation” of advantage no less felt by the Scots, Irish and Welsh than by the English. The Acts of Union between England and Scotland in 1707 did not represent a subjugation of the latter by the former. A deal was done whereby the Scots accepted the Hanoverian succession and in return gained access to English and colonial markets, but retained its own established church and legal system. Scotland prospered (relatively) as a result: touring the Western Isles in 1773, Samuel Johnson observed “a nation of which the commerce is hourly extending, and the wealth increasing”. (He was a little early to witness the effect of the Highland Clearances.)
Reuniting a disintegrating nation presumably requires the discovery of a new project of a life in common. The irony of the UK’s current situation is that the country embarked on such a project when it joined the European Economic Community, the precursor to the European Union, in 1973 – but then chose to abandon it in 2016. The EU was never presented to the British people as a genuinely inspiring enterprise, offering “great expectations” that transcended mere economic opportunities to embrace a new kind of fraternal “living together” (the Spanish word convivencia expresses it best) with our closest neighbours.
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The case was very different in Spain, whose enthusiasm for the EU has hardly waned since its accession in 1986. In a 2018 survey by the Pew Research Center looking at how favourable people in EU member states felt towards the EU, Spain (67 per cent favourable) came second behind Poland. There are various possible reasons for the EU’s comparative popularity in Spain, among them the widespread feeling that joining the EU was a way of cementing the country’s (re)nascent post-Franco democracy, and that Spain has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of EU structural funds and the biggest recipient of Cohesion Policy funds in absolute terms, to the tune of €200bn euros between 1989 and 2020. The transformation of the country’s infrastructure over the last 30 years, largely funded by EU subvention, has been remarkable to behold.
None of this would have surprised Ortega, who pronounced that “Spain is the problem, Europe is the solution”. Ortega was an early supporter of the Pan-European Union founded in 1923. Like Winston Churchill, Ortega argued for a “United States of Europe”. He hoped for a federalist middle ground between a homogenised European state that eradicated national differences – a prospect he regarded with horror – and the smorgasbord of nationalisms that had led to two world wars.
Invertebrate Spain does not end on a hopeful note. Ortega thought Spain doomed, barring an improbable conversion of the Spanish soul, to continue on its path of decomposition. Particularism seemed entrenched and likely to intensify. He was briefly inspired by the prospects of the Second Republic which was established in 1931, and, as the leader of a group of luminaries known as the Agrupación al Servicio de la República, was elected deputy (MP) in the Constituent Assembly for the province of León in the parliamentary elections in June 1931.
In speeches to parliament, Ortega delineated a vision of a Spain made up of autonomous regions under the aegis of a sovereign state, rather than a federal Spain of “mini-states”. What he outlined was not far from what came to pass under the democratic post-Franco Constitution of 1978. With a subtlety that might have helped pacify recent bitter disputes, he called the Catalan question one that could not be resolved but rather had to be lived with.
Disillusionment quickly followed. Ortega expressed disquiet at what he saw as the new republic’s increasing extremism. He resigned from his parliamentary seat and in October 1932 announced the dissolution of the Agrupación. Many have wondered whether history might have taken a different course if Ortega’s views had gained a wider hearing and he had enjoyed a less antagonistic relationship with Manuel Azaña, the leader of the Popular Front and last president of the republic.
If one were to take bets on the survival of Spain and the United Kingdom as political entities for another 20 years, I’d guess the odds would favour Spain, but not by much. Catalan independence, despite the constitutional crisis of 2017-2018, when the Catalan authorities attempted to hold an independence referendum deemed illegal by Madrid, still seems a more distant prospect than a breakaway Scotland.
Those in the UK who voted to leave the EU no doubt regard Brexit as exactly the kind of “project of a life in common” praised by Ortega. But it’s a project that faces inwards, seeking a chimerical national essence compounded of myths and fantasies, and operates by exclusions (all too literally, as the EU citizens held in detention centres would attest) rather than inclusions.
The UK Internal Market Act, a by-product of Brexit passed despite the opposition of the Scottish and Welsh administrations in late 2020, has had the effect, according to Stephen Weatherill, professor of European law at Oxford, of shifting the UK’s governance from a consensual model to “an involuntary Union held together only by the force of laws imposed by English votes with little regard for the aspirations of Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland”. It looks likely to hasten the sad unravelling of a United Kingdom whose name rings increasingly hollow.
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This article appears in the 05 Jan 2022 issue of the New Statesman, Johnson's Last Chance
FAQs
Which famous philosopher was born in Madrid? ›
José Ortega y Gasset, (born May 9, 1883, Madrid, Spain—died Oct. 18, 1955, Madrid), philosopher and humanist who greatly influenced the cultural and literary renaissance of Spain in the 20th century.
What did Jose Ortega y Gasset believe? ›Ortega y Gasset proposes that philosophy must overcome the limitations of both idealism (in which reality centers around the ego) and ancient-medieval realism (in which reality is outside the subject) to focus on the only truthful reality: "my life"—the life of each individual.
What is the revolution of the masses? ›rebelión de las masas (1929; The Revolt of the Masses), in which he characterized 20th-century society as dominated by masses of mediocre and indistinguishable individuals, who he proposed should surrender social leadership to minorities of cultivated and intellectually independent men.
What happened with Brexit? ›The electorate voted to leave the EU with a 51.9% share of the vote, with all regions of England and Wales except London voting in favour of Brexit, and Scotland and Northern Ireland voting against.
Who is the most famous philosopher of all time? ›Socrates. Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) is a founding figure in the history of Western philosophy, revered for his single-minded dedication to truth and virtue, for his great argumentative skill, and for his death, which came to be viewed as a martyrdom.
Who was the father of European philosophy? ›Socrates is considered by many to be the founding father of Western philosophy—as well as one of the most enigmatic figures of ancient history.
What does Ortega mean by the title Revolt of the Masses? ›Ortega divides every society into “minorities,” a small set of people who are “specially qualified,” and the “masses,” everyone not specially qualified.
Who is the French philosopher who claimed that consciousness is primarily not a matter of I think that but of I can? ›In this paragraph, Merleau-Ponty defines understanding as a harmony between what we aim at and what is given, between intention and performance, and this also sheds some light upon his suggestion that consciousness is primarily not a matter of “I think that”, but of “I can” (PP 137).
What is the meaning of gasset? ›[n] the deliberate act of poisoning someone with gas.
What are the 3 major revolutions in order? ›This course considers the literature, culture, and politics of three major revolutions in the Atlantic world at the close of the eighteenth century: the American revolution, the French revolution, and the Haitian revolution.
Who led the first cry in 1896? ›
In late August 1896, members of the Katipunan led by Andrés Bonifacio revolted somewhere around Caloocan, which included parts of the present-day Quezon City. Originally the term cry referred to the first clash between the Katipuneros and the Civil Guards (Guardia Civil).
What were the three big revolutions? ›The first was the Industrial Revolution which began in the late eighteenth century; the second, the Demographic Revolution that started in the late nineteenth century; and we are now in the midst of a third, a Happiness Revolution, taking off in the late twentieth century.
Was Brexit good or bad for the UK? ›The economic effects of Brexit were a major area of debate during and after the referendum on UK membership of the European Union. The majority of economists believe that Brexit is likely to harm the UK's economy and reduce its real per capita income in the long term, and the referendum itself damaged the economy.
Does Britain regret Brexit? ›In the latest YouGov poll last week, 53% said the U.K. was wrong to leave the European Union, versus 32% who still believed it was the right call.
What was the real reason for Brexit? ›Factors included sovereignty, immigration, the economy and anti-establishment politics, amongst various other influences. The result of the referendum was that 51.8% of the votes were in favour of leaving the European Union.
Who is the smartest philosopher to ever live? ›1. Aristotle. Aristotle, one of the most famous Greek philosophers, was also a polymath who lived in Ancient Greece in 384-322 BC. He was taught by another famous philosopher, Plato.
Who is the wisest philosopher of all time? ›His reputation as a philosopher, literally meaning 'a lover of wisdom', soon spread all over Athens and beyond. When told that the Oracle of Delphi had revealed to one of his friends that Socrates was the wisest man in Athens, he responded not by boasting or celebrating, but by trying to prove the Oracle wrong.
Is Jesus considered a philosopher? ›Jesus was a prophetic philosopher, a Jewish thinker among Jewish thinkers in a Hellenized Jewish world, prophetic in his tone and philosophical in his reasoning. One place we see this at work is near the end of the Gospel of Matthew.
Who were the two philosophers of Europe? ›The American revolutionaries were greatly influenced by the ideas of European philosophers Locke Voltaire and Rousseau who inspired them to fight for liberty.
Who is the father of British philosophy? ›Who was the first European philosopher? ›
The first recognized philosopher, Thales of Miletus (born c. 625 BCE in Ionia) identified water as the arche (claiming "all is water") His use of observation and reason to derive this conclusion is the reason for distinguishing him as the first philosopher.
What were the main reason for the out break of the revolt? ›One of the main reasons for the outbreak of the revolt was the policy of annexation pursued by the British. This policy led to the annexation of several native states, which made the people feel that their rights were being usurped. The Doctrine of Lapse was another major cause of the revolt.
Why was the revolt of the masses written? ›Agoncillo's book was written in 1947 in order to hook the present onto the past. The 1890s themes of exploitation and betrayal by the propertied class, the rise of a plebeian leader, and the revolt of the masses against Spain, are implicitly being played out in the late 1940s.
What does revolt mean by Camus? ›'Revolt … is a constant confrontation between man and his own obscurity … [It] is certainty of a crushing fate, without the resignation which out to accompany it'. Camus crystallizes the attitude of revolt in the character of Sisyphus, a figure from Greek myth.
Who was the controversial French philosopher? ›Paul-Michel Foucault (UK: /ˈfuːkoʊ/, US: /fuːˈkoʊ/; French: [pɔl miʃɛl fuko]; 15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984) was a French philosopher, historian of ideas, writer, political activist, and literary critic.
Who were the three philosopher who inspired the French Revolution? ›Note: The philosophers who impacted the French revolution were writers and scientists who were extremely brilliant. Baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot were among them. They had a significant impact on the French Revolution in the 18th century.
Who is the French philosopher that says only the mind not the body can arrive at clear ideas which Cannot be doubted? ›Hence, Descartes is claiming in both premises that his idea of the mind and his idea of the body exclude all other ideas that do not belong to them, including each other, and all that remains is what can be clearly understood of each.
What is the difference between a gazette and a newspaper? ›A gazette is an official journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper. In English and French speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name Gazette since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name The Gazette.
What does Crispin mean in English? ›Meaning:Curly-haired. Crispin is a boy's name of Latin origin. It derives from the Roman surname Crispinus, which came from the Latin word crispus, meaning “curly-haired.” If your little one has a beautiful head of curly hair, this could be the perfect name for them!
What does Futura mean in English? ›Latin. English. futurus [futura, futurum] adjective. about to be ▼ adjective. future ▼ adjective.
Why did America want independence from Britain? ›
Many colonists were angry because no one represented their needs in the British government. Colonists believed they did not have self-government. The British forced colonists to allow British soldiers to sleep and eat in their homes. The colonists joined together to fight Britain and gain independence.
Who helped America in the Revolutionary War? ›Between 1778 and 1782 the French provided supplies, arms and ammunition, uniforms, and, most importantly, troops and naval support to the beleaguered Continental Army. The French navy transported reinforcements, fought off a British fleet, and protected Washington's forces in Virginia.
Which was first American or French Revolution? ›Influenced by the new ideas of the Enlightenment, the American Revolution (1765–1783) is usually considered the starting point of the Age of Revolution. It in turn inspired the French Revolution of 1789, which rapidly spread to the rest of Europe through its wars.
What is the FirstCry called? ›Definition of 'vagitus'
1. a new-born baby's first cry.
Jose Rizal, National Hero of the Philippines
His advocacy for reforms in the Philippines under the hands of Spanish colonial authorities led to his early death at the age of 36. He was executed in Bagumbayan, now called Luneta, in Manila on December 30, 1896.
The first cry of revolution happened in Balintawak, at the house of Apolonio Samson, on August 26, 1896. 9 o'clock in the morning, the board of directors held a meeting for the final date of uprising.
What was the most violent revolution? ›The French Revolution marks a stain in history, notorious for one of the bloodiest periods in modern civilization.
What was the bloodiest revolution in the world? ›The French Revolution had general causes common to all the revolutions of the West at the end of the 18th century and particular causes that explain why it was by far the most violent and the most universally significant of these revolutions.
What was the biggest revolution in America? ›The Revolutionary War was a war unlike any other—one of ideas and ideals, that shaped “the course of human events.” With 165 principal engagements from 1775-1783, the Revolutionary War was the catalyst for American independence.
What are 3 benefits of Brexit to the UK? ›There are a great many benefits to Brexit: control of our democracy, borders and waters; control of our own money, helping us to level up across the country; the freedom to regulate in a more proportionate and agile way that works for our great British businesses; benefits for people that put money back in their ...
Is the UK going to rejoin the EU? ›
Over time, Brexit will have diminishing support and the next generation of voters and politicians are likely to have very different attitudes. It is certainly not a given the UK will rejoin the EU. It may be we end up being closer but still outside.
Do people still support Brexit? ›As of May 2023, 56 percent of people in Great Britain thought that it was wrong to leave the European Union, compared with 31 percent who thought it was the right decision.
Does Brexit affect America? ›Brexit has caused multidirectional economic consequences that affect not only Britain itself but also the United States and the European Union.
Why is Norway not in the EU? ›Two themes have been fundamental to Norwegians against membership in the EU since the Treatise of Rome was signed in 1957: 1) the perception that democratic values at the national as well as the local level are best retained outside the EU, and 2) skepticism towards the market liberalism embedded in the EU constitution ...
Who is the most famous in Real Madrid? ›Luís Figo became the first Real Madrid footballer to win the FIFA World Player of the Year in 2001. Cristiano Ronaldo is the record goalscorer in a league season for Real Madrid, with 48, and he is the first Real Madrid footballer to win four Ballon d'Ors, in 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017.
Who was Rene Descartes famous for? ›Descartes has been heralded as the first modern philosopher. He is famous for having made an important connection between geometry and algebra, which allowed for the solving of geometrical problems by way of algebraic equations.
What is John Philoponus famous for? ›Philoponus' most famous innovations in philosophy include the arguments for the creation of the universe ex nihilo, the new analysis of prime matter as three-dimensional extension, the explanation of projectile motion by impressed force (later to be called impetus), and the rejection of the fifth element as the matter ...
Why is Hegel so famous? ›Hegel was the last of the great philosophical system builders of modern times. His work, following upon that of Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and Friedrich Schelling, thus marks the pinnacle of classical German philosophy.
Who is the biggest legend in Real Madrid history? ›| Player | Country | Appearances |
|---|---|---|
| Cristiano Ronaldo | Portugal | 438 |
| Zinedine Zidane | France | 225 |
| Ferenc Puskas | Hungary | 225 |
| Iker Casillas | Spain | 725 |
Few teams in world football can compete with Madrid when it comes to their incredible popularity and Los Blancos command a huge global fan base, including the likes of Jennifer Lopez, Enrique Iglesias, Russell Crowe, Viggo Mortensen, Russell Crowe, Robbie Williams and Tom Cruise.
Who is more popular Barcelona or Real Madrid? ›
The study revealed that Barcelona are the most popular soccer club in the US ahead of Real Madrid. No other Spanish clubs made the top 10, which contained six Premier League teams, explaining the league's overall popularity.
What is Voltaire most famous for? ›His most famous works included the fictitious Lettres philosophiques (1734) and the satirical novel Candide (1759). The former—a series of essays on English government and society—was a landmark in the history of thought. Today it is considered one of the great monuments of French literature.
What is Thomas Hobbes known for? ›Thomas Hobbes was an English philosopher, scientist, and historian best known for his political philosophy, especially as articulated in his masterpiece Leviathan (1651).
Does Descartes believe in God? ›Descartes bridged this gap by arguing his existence derived from something more perfect than himself. That something was God. Throughout his life Descartes was a devout Christian. He believed his arguments did more than simply provide a way for faith and reason to peacefully coexist.