Vulgarity As A Right
…the individual finds himself already with a stock of ideas.
He decides to content himself with them and to consider himself
intellectually complete. As he feels the lack of nothing outside himself,
he settles down definitely amid his mental furniture.
Such is the mechanism of self-obliteration.
The mass-man regards himself as perfect.
…it never occurs to the mediocre man of our days,
to the New Adam, to doubt his own plentitude.
His self confidence is, like Adam’s, paradisiacal.
…the characteristic of our time; not that the vulgar
believes itself super-excellent and not vulgar,
But that the vulgar proclaims and imposes the rights of vulgarity,
or vulgarity as a right.
-excerpt, Revolt of the Masses, by José Ortega y Gasset, Chapt. 8
One thought on “Vulgarity As A Right”
“Elitism” is the slur directed at merit by mediocrity.
— Sydney J. Harris, in Pieces of Eight (1982)
Many other such observations about mediocrity — which seems to be the interpretation of vulgarity referred to here — may be found at https://www.drmardy.com/dmdmq/m.