Keyword: «the mass of the people»

The paper deals with the detailed analysis of the essential (invariant) characteristics of (antagonistic) personality types primarily based on up-to-date concept of cultural theorist, talented anthropologist of the twentieth century Jose Ortega y Gasset. Special attention is paid to the identification of anthropological characteristics of the individual in the phenomenology of art: the “aristocracy” in the elitist art, the “average person” in mass art. The authors view the causes of decline (traditional) culture (its washout due the processes of mass culture). They cause increasing existential angst intellectuals, theorists, concerned with the fate of modern (Western) civilization.