Man adapts himself to everything, to the best and the worst.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
Barbarism is the absence of standards to which appeal can be made.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Barbarism signifies a lack of established norms or values that can be referenced to judge actions or behaviors.
In this quote, Jose Ortega Y Gasset highlights that barbarism arises when there are no shared standards or principles that people can turn to for guidance or evaluation. This absence leads to chaos and disarray, as individuals act without common benchmarks to measure their actions or beliefs against, thereby fostering a society that lacks ethical or moral clarity.
Themes
BarbarismStandardsValuesPhilosophyMorality
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about moral relativism, this quote can be used to emphasize the need for common standards.
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All quotes β"Natural" man is always there, under the changeable historical man. We call him and he comes-a little sleepy, benumbed, without his lost form of instinctive hunter, but, after all, still alive. Natural man is first prehistoric man-the hunter.
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We have not reached ethical perfection in hunting. One never achieves perfection in anything, and perhaps it exists precisely so that one can never achieve it. Its purpose is to orient our conduct and to allow us to measure the progress accomplished. In this sense, the advancement achieved in the ethics of hunting is undeniable.
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We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies.
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Life is a terrible conflict, a grandiose and atrocious confluence. Hunting submerges man deliberately in that formidable mystery and therefore contains something of religious rite and emotion in which homage is paid to what is divine, transcendent, and in the laws of Nature.
Jose Ortega Y GassetRead
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