Jaime Roberts
1 min readDec 8, 2022

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I think the concept you are trying to discuss is 'mass-man' by Jose Ortega y Gasset in his book 'Revolt of the Masses'. He says; The Fascist and Syndicalist species were characterized by the first appearance of a type of man who "did not care to give reasons or even to be right", but who was simply resolved to impose his opinions. That was the novelty: the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: "the reason of unreason."

I would add that mass-man is also a mass-consumer of information in the form of mass-media. He thinks he is an expert on everything, especially politics. His opinions are not his own but come from mass-media.

In this environment there is no 'truth', but rather information that is consumed to support mass-man's identity. The mass-man does not care if he is right or wrong, just if he has the correct opinions of his party or group.

This is very dangerous in an age of climate change where we need to know real information, and not develop solutions based solely on opinions.

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Jaime Roberts
Jaime Roberts

Written by Jaime Roberts

Architect writing about environmental design in an age of climate change.

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