The Misery of the Intellectual. The Sad Testimony of Ortega y Gasset

According to Ortega's analysis, the European intellectual in the first half of the XXth century, coming from a decadent Europe with bankrupt principles, was forced to adopt a new position: a discrete role, that of spectator. The minorities had cut off communication with the masses, and the intellectuals, he himself verifies (as an intellectual and member of a minority), had become mute. No longer were they minstrels with romantic characteristics, entertaining their public with strong personalities and few ideas. In his time, the intellectual had to return to pure contemplation, to the search for truth without creating a stir, without a public, in a responsible manner and distance himself from those who came before, from Unamuno and Shaw, for example, who were authentic minstrels.