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To: AlbionGirl
the mob (those inately or willingly ordinary), jealous of the superior man (inately or willfully extroadinary), and wanting to disable and destroy him, forms the 'collective' and by this means accomplishes the task.

Michael Oakeshott has an excellent essay on the rise of anti-individualism in the sixteenth century, "The masses in representative democracy."

11 posted on 12/20/2003 2:01:54 PM PST by cornelis
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To: cornelis
Sounds like similar themes as those in Ortega y Gasset's Revolt of the Masses and in Benda's Treason of the Intellectuals.
12 posted on 12/20/2003 2:12:00 PM PST by mrfixit514
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To: cornelis
I was born in Italy and emigrated to the States when I was just a little girl, and have been back to Italy many times. The reason I mention this, is that I noticed very early on that the peasant class, from which my lineage is derived, exhibits nearly all the tendencies attributed to them by Nietzche. And the most over-arching tendency being jealousy.

I'll give you an example: the last time I was there (2000) I met an old friend of the family, and he was doing very well financially. He's about my parents age of 70, and had done quite well for himself during the 60s and 70s, lost most of his wealth, and then climbed back out of that financial abyss.

I commented to some neighbors that Enzo was doing very well, and that his comeback was impressive. Their reply to me was, 'well maybe, but he's a little deaf, didn't you notice?' I didn't reply, except to shurg my shoulders in an attempt to relay the maxim that to argue against such entrenched obtuseness was obtuse in itself.

Anyway, my point is that rather than admit that he had indeed availed himself of some of his superior qualities, they had to find some unrelated defect, even if it meant naming something that was beyond his control.

The tendency of the inferior to do that is not confined to the peasants in Italy, or Europe in general. However, it flourishes there as opposed to here in the US, because here a man is judged and mostly admired (even if begrudgingly so) for his accomplishments.

That's the beauty of the US; a free society producing free minds. The greatest gift of my life, following the drawing of life's breath, was the gift of emigration to the United States.

14 posted on 12/20/2003 2:29:42 PM PST by AlbionGirl (A kite flies highest against the wind, not with it. - Winston Churchill)
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