Horizons of Liberalism in the Crisis of the Restoration: from Ortega to María Zambrano

Abstract

This paper analyzes the liberal thinking of Ortega y Gasset and María Zambrano before the crisis of the 30s and its theoretical-practical developmests until the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. In the first section, Ortega’s reflection on Restoration is framed within the European cycle of the development of the “mass-man” and the need to raise a governing elite of culture and life. In a second moment, it reflects on the proposals for fascist overcoming of the dictatorship, to present Ortega’s analysis of fascism, as the culmination of the process of revolt of the masses. Ortega, in the face of the situation of the Spanish monarchy, would follow the idea of organizing national decency. In this context, the ‘Agrupación al Servicio de la República’ plays a decisive role, as an effort to revitalize a certain liberalism of a republican nature. For her part, Zambrano, more committed, will bet on a liberalism with socialist and communitarian influences, with the ability to tackle the social question under the mandate of a spiritual aristocracy. In this context, Ortega’s inability to establish himself as a intelectual leader of a generation, to lead some of his most exalted disciples to found the ‘Frente Español’, a national party, far beyond the class division. Other disciples will take more radical ways.