The orientation of the bourgeois world:

The phase of dissolution that follows that of ethical rationalism is defined by utilitarian or “social” ethics. Renouncing any intrinsic or absolute basis for “good” and “evil,” the justification proposed for what is left of moral norms is whatever suits the individual for his own advantage and for his material tranquility in social life. But nihilism is already visible behind this morality. When there is no longer any internal restraint, every action and behavior appears licit so long as the outer sanctions of society’s laws can be avoided, or if one is indifferent to them. Nothing any longer has an intrinsic norm and an imperative character. It is just a matter of adjusting to society’s codes, which take the place of the superseded laws of religion. After Puritanism and ethical rigorism, this is the orientation of the bourgeois world: toward social idols and conformism founded on convenience, cowardice, hypocrisy, or inertia. But the individualism of the end of the nineteenth century marked in its turn the beginning of an anarchic dissolution that rapidly spread and intensified. It had already prepared the chaos hiding behind the façade of apparent orderliness.