THE WORLD OF YESTERDAY, THE UNDERSTANDING OF OUR LIMITS AND THE DEPRAVITY OF THE ELITES

Abstract

The essay tries to detect (and exhibit) some promising and progressive aspects which
were embodied in the so-called premodern order and in the time previous to the
First World War. Among those factors we can mention a solid familiar structure,
the existence of strong individualities with firm conceptions about the daily sphere
of ethics and a high culture, which was still very distant from the actual and
extreme relativism of values. That time of classical liberalism was very different in
comparison with the actual “volatile capitalism”, which is characterized by selfrefering narcissism and technocratic tendencies. A contribution to the positive
aspects of the world of yesterday was done by an aristocracy (with some premodern
traits), which acknowledged the limits fixed upon us by the natural environment and
the human failures.