‘The Intellectuals and the Masses’ was written by John Carey to illustrate the population explosion, to which the intellectuals blame the ‘masses’ for. Any modernist books that were written, were to exclude the newly educated people from the 19th Century when educational reform took place.
The Revolt of the Masses:
The ‘masses’ are known as the lower class, to which the people are not considered to be individuals they are only seen to be a part of this mass.
The majority of examples within this book are made by intellectuals who state why the ‘masses’ are a highly negative factor to civilisation.
The increase in population within the UK is described as "the essential disaster of the 19th Century" by H.G.Wells. Wells explains three consequences of the population increase:
1) It causes overcrowding as everywhere is full, for example, trains, cafes hotels, parks etc.
2) It is seen as intrusion by the intellectuals because the crowd has taken over the places originally made for the best.
3) Due to the masses being the bigger party, they have a kind of dictatorship.
It is said that hyperdemocracy has created the modern state because the masses feel it is no longer necessary to have a political representative so they represent themselves, which the intellectuals then say is threatening civilisation. This becomes threatening because the intellectuals no longer have full control over the masses which they at one time had.
Within ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ written by Nietzsche, Zarathustra says, "Many too many are born and they hold onto their branches too long". Meaning he only wants the people who are willing to be different from the norm to survive and too many commoners are reproducing. People are taken within the masses and aren’t considered to be individual.
Nietzsche also stated, "everywhere the mediocre are combining in order to make themselves the master". The intellectuals were worried by the masses growing in power and influence, however they were making sure it did not get out of hand by writing new forms of work, which the masses were unable to understand as they were deliberately exclusive. The intellectual’s viewpoint on education was that it gave the public what the intellectuals wanted.
Popular newspapers were a major threat to the intellectuals as newspapers such as The Daily Mail were created for the masses. Northcliffe viewed newspapers as giving the public what they want. Newspapers introduced a new culture, which the masses followed and therefore bypasses the intellectual. Within these newspapers, stories of human-interest stories were very popular, as they included stories of everyday life, business and politics, which related to the masses. F.R.Leavis stated, "films, newspapers, publicity in all forms all offer satisfaction at the lowest level".
The masses had the same level of enjoyment while reading popular newspapers as the intellectuals had while reading sophisticated writing.
Newspapers then began to cater for women, which all men but mainly intellectuals highly disliked. Northcliffe said women readers are worthy of attention, which also created a threat for intellectuals as newspapers encouraged women to better themselves. "Are you visiting women? Don’t forget your whip." This quote from Nietzsche clearly illustrates how he viewed women.
Leavis said, "culture is at a crisis unprecedented in history", meaning no other period has seen this change of status between social classes. There was only a small minority of people who were capable of appreciating fine art and literature but this minority was being expanded due to more and more people being educated. This led to the intellectuals producing a class of literature that was only available to those intelligent enough to understand it, because once again they were then superior to the masses. Nietzsche states that ‘education should remain a privilege’ which supports the actions of the intellectuals.
D.H.Lawrence said, "only the higher forms of life live, the lower merely survive", and a similar suggestion from Nietzsche is that, "life in the modern state is a slow suicide". There was a lot of thought by the intellectuals regarding elimination of the masses, as it was considered "no more dreadful than the fall of leaves in the autumn". Yeats even said, "sooner or later we must the families of the unintelligent classes".
Modern art was said to be the divider between two classes; those who can understand it and those who cannot. Modern art was used so people can understand more of who they are.
Rewriting the Masses:
You will never see the mass in the physical sense and Nietzsche imagines he mass as a heard of animals, which strips them of human status. It is said that you can tell whether an individual belongs to the mass or the intellectuals. ‘Mass man’ is seen as lower class and therefore common.
The Mass Observation by Tom Harrison was carried out so that 30 observers used an impersonal notation when identifying human specimens. They would identify people by gender, age and social class. (M 45 D would be a male of 45 who is unskilled.) Masses were also considered as bacteria in a similar way that Hitler considered Jews as a bacterial disease. Hitler said, "only when we have eliminated the Jews will we regain our health".
The masses are often seen as crowds because they are dangerous. These crowds are seen to have the same characteristics as women: irrational, impulsive, emotional, and irritable.
Freud explained that the individual, on becoming mass man throws off the repressions of his unconscious instincts. He says that the intellectuals see the mass as being preoccupied with fact and mundane realism. The invention of the camera proved the way the intellectuals see the masses. The camera was in reach of everyone and was very popular among the masses. Taking a picture meant the image was what you see, and nothing more needed to be understood about it, it was fact.
George Orwell was a journalist and explained that he became aware of social classes at the age of 6 when he was forbidden to play with children who were working class. He once had no problem with the children but growing up with this mindset meant he then became enemies with them. He said, "all I knew was that it was lower class sweat I was smelling and the thought of it made me sick". This shows how 19th Century society manipulated people into disliking the lower class. Only the individual can appreciate high culture and mass civilisation threatens to destroy the individual.
The Suburbs and the Clerks:
In the 1900s there was a significant increase in the number of suburbs and the number of clerks. The increase in suburbs was due to developments in modes of transport, which were in turn cheaper.
Intellectuals were known to have lived in old-style green outer suburbs, which were no longer present due to the greed of the landowners of this time that wanted to keep building houses and buildings in place of the greenery.
It was said that the educational level of the clerks was relatively low because education for the majority in Britain did not exceed basic skills.
The clerks were also unequipped to appreciate high culture therefore the intellectuals did not favour them either. This matter was mad worse when Northcliffe aimed the Daily Mail at the clerks.
"The rejection by intellectuals of the clerks and the suburbs meant that writers intent on finding an eccentric voice could do so by colonising this abandoned territory."
Natural Aristocrats:
Nietzsche said, "men are not equal, and the mistaken belief that they are is to blame for the degeneracy of Europe". He also says, "one has a right to be a philosopher only by virtue of one’s origin".
Being a natural aristocrat means having a secret kind of knowledge which only intellectuals can posses. Intellectuals say you should only trust what your body tells you.
Bell explains that, "civilisation depends on the existence of a small group of people of exquisite sensibility, who know how to respond to works of art and who also have refined appreciation of sensory delights such as food and wine".
The masses were very much feared by the intellectuals because they were viewed as a crowd. The only control the intellectuals could hold over the masses was language, which is why they produced new works in order to exclude the masses and to, in effect, keep them stupid so their superiority remained.
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