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PARTISAN REVIEW
tology, religious dogma, and abstract principles, it is in lived reality
that historical reason exercises its power of discrimination.
The European Question
Before comparing Ortega's philosophy of elites with those
of some of his contemporaries, it seems necessary to summarize his
analysis of Europe's place in the world. In effect, in the idea we are
trying to grasp, the decline of Europe constitutes one of the major
causes of the phenomena he observes and deplores. European cul–
ture seemed to him incarnated, at that time, by three national states,
Great Britain, France , and Germany . Europe for centuries had rul–
ed the world; it lost this capacity after World War I: "for the single
reason that Europe, as has been said, is decadent, and as a result no
longer bothers to command each nation, even the most miniscule
come out of nowhere and make grand gestures ." We are offered from
all sides "a vibrating panorama of nationalisms."
With Europe demoralized, who is to take over as leader?
Russia? "Russia needs centuries before being able to
aspire to rule.
It
is because it still lacks control of itself that it needed to fake its adhe–
sion to the European principle of Marx . It is still young, and this fic–
tion is enough." As to America, it is even younger than Russia: "I
have always maintained that it was a primitive people, camouflaged
by the latest inventions. America has not yet suffered, and it is il–
lusory to think that it could possess the necessary force to rule."
It is vain to speculate what Ortega would think of today's
giants. In all probability, he would have modified his judgment of
the role of Marxism in the Soviet Union. Its role is not what he
would have recognized. Young or not, Russia gave itself to an ideol-
ogy that did not forego the capacity of expansion, even though in
Western Europe it seemed destined to an irresistible decline . Con–
cerning the United States, on an important point he was wrong , at
least in this book. (Perhaps later he would have expressed himself
1
otherwise.) Ortega thought that the United States was too narrowly
l
utilitarian to support the flame of science, disinterested, without
l
Europe . And without scientific progress, he wrote, technique would
)
also perish. But since World War II, the United States has had an
I
eminent place in pure science. Altogether, the current military
power of the Soviet Union and the United States would not neces-
•
sarily have modified Ortega's fundamental diagnosis. Perhaps he
{
would have added that the great powers, neither separately nor
