ブックタイトル佐藤栄作　受賞論文集

概要

佐藤栄作　受賞論文集

第20回優秀賞the commonplace mind, knowing itself to be commonplace, has the assurance toproclaim the rights of the commonplace and to impose them wherever it will”(Op. cit.,Ch. I) or even more harshly that“the mass believes that it has the right to impose andto give force of law to notions born in the cafe”(Op. cit., Ch. I).‘Hyperdemocracy’, as the essayist denominated, is the political outcome of theadvancement of the masses: the mass acting directly, not bounded by morality, lawor discipline of responsibility,“imposing its aspirations and its desires by means ofmaterial pressure”(Op. cit., Ch. I). By consecrating violence as primary resort, ifnot the sole resort to secure its triumph, the society ruled by the mass-man movedtowards barbarism 5 , favoring the prevalence of pure statism as Mussolini, one tragicillustration of how far a mass-man can go, clamored:“All for the state, nothing outsidethe state, nothing against the state.”4．Tocqueville, Ortega Y Gasset, and ?The Psychology of the SpoiltChild?“What sort of despotism democratic nations have to fear”, questioned Alexis deTocqueville in his monumental book Democracy in America (1835-40, Ch. VI). Thedespotism the author referred to is, as he admitted, of new type: only the peculiaritiesof democracy, namely, the equality of conditions, favor such absolute power totriumph. The mass of equal men, each of them seeking to filly satisfy their pleasuresand immediate desires, each of them narrowing the whole world in the needs of theirdaily lives, may, even willingly and regardless of the fate of each other, tolerate theaction of“(…) an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to securetheir gratifications, and to watch over their fate. That power is absolute, minute,5“Civilization is nothing else than the attempt to reduce force to being the ultima ratio”(Op. cit, Ch. VIII).301