In a circle of
friends, and in relation to close associates or competitors, there is
no shortcut through, and no substitute for, an individualized
understanding. Those whom we love and admire most are the men and
women whose consciousness is peopled thickly with persons rather than
with types, who know us rather than the classification into which we
might fit. For even without phrasing it to ourselves, we feel
intuitively that all classification is in relation to some purpose not
necessarily our own; that between two human beings no association has
final dignity in which each does not take the other as an end in
himself. There is a taint on any contact between two people which does
not affirm as an axiom the personal inviolability of both.
But modern life is hurried and multifarious, above all physical
distance separates men who are often in vital contact with each other,
such as employer and employee, official and voter. There is neither
time nor opportunity for intimate acquaintance. Instead we notice a
trait which marks a well known type, and fill in the rest of the
picture by means of the stereotypes we carry about in our heads. He is
an agitator. That much we notice, or are told. Well, an agitator is
this sort of person, and so _he_ is this sort of person. He is an
intellectual. He is a plutocrat. He is a foreigner. He is a "South
European." He is from Back Bay.
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