Being is what they already are without any effort upon themselves. I have brought up the work of Ortega y Gasset because I believe that the type of being, which "the mass" lacks, is exactly the type of being which I refer to as essential for complete human happiness. He refers to the "half man" as being content with his mediocre existence and "just getting by" attitude, which is exactly the opposite to what I said, striving and fighting to be the best and most complete individual you can be. So far I couldn't be more in accordance with him.
I must make it clear, however, that the author does not refer to the mass as belonging to any social class in particular i.e. the working class, but instead it is a class of man. Ortega y Gasset calls it a rebellion of the masses because he believes that previously the masses were content with being mass and being in the background of cultural, social and political life, but now recognizing their crudeness and ignorance have decided to take a leading role and which is ultimately leading to the decadence of Europe. However what is really important is the way in which this man has come to being. He blames it on the specialization of labor. Particularly in the area of science, but engineers, economists, doctors and even professors are not exempt from being guilty. He says that due to the specialization of labor, scientists have advanced mankinds knowledge each within their particular area of work. However the specialization has become so minuscule that each person knows a lot about something that is very little in the general scheme of things and is a complete ignorant of everything else. I do not agree completely with Gasset, because although it is true that people's specializations are very small in relation to the overall picture, people still have knowledge of many other things and not just of that area which they work in. The relevance of the authors work to this paper is that he criticizes the "half man", which is the antonym of what I believe to be a complete individual.
(Rose Gallo 39). ... Bruccoli pointed out that "in Gatsby's name the pun on gat, the slang term for pistol is obvious- (208) and the "old sport- saying Gatsby uses was taken from an acquaintance of Fitzgerald, Max Geralch, an alleged bootlegger, who shot himself in 1939 (210). ...
