Here is a text by Henri-Frédéric Amiel, taken from his “The Journal Intime” published in 1870 which seems very interesting to me:
“The masses will always be below the average. Besides, the age of the majority will be lowered, the barriers of sex will be swept away, and democracy will finally make itself absurd. The foolish man from the self-judgment, the foolish man from that of self-judgment, who is there is no need for him to become a man, and the good-for-nothing that self-improvement is of no account.
Public law, founded upon virtual equality, will destroy itself by its consequences. It will recognize the inequalities of worth, of merit, and of experience; in a word, it ignores individual labor, and it will end in the triumph of platitude and the residuum. ”
I find it very current and I fear that the Swiss philosopher has really got it right. Because it seems to me that the one described is really the world of today and it gives me goose bumps!