From Dark Nights - Italy
Now that the masses all over the world have expressed their solidarity with Gaza, I’d be curious to know how social scientist Elias Canetti(1) would describe his concept of the “masses” in such a technological, warmongering and at the same time, exterminating age as ours. He says that mass society exists in the mind of human beings before it materially expresses itself. If ancient societies chose certain social and economic forms of mere subsistence, it was because they deliberately chose not to use bureaucratic or authoritarian methods: they foresaw their dangers. Our ancestors, therefore, were perfect political animals, aware and active observers of the community’s social life.