The systems of stereotypes may be the core of our personal
tradition, the defenses of our position in society.
They are an ordered, more or less consistent picture of the world, to
which our habits, our tastes, our capacities, our comforts and our
hopes have adjusted themselves. They may not be a complete picture of
the world, but they are a picture of a possible world to which we are
adapted. In that world people and things have their well-known places,
and do certain expected things. We feel at home there. We fit in. We
are members. We know the way around. There we find the charm of the
familiar, the normal, the dependable; its grooves and shapes are where
we are accustomed to find them. And though we have abandoned much that
might have tempted us before we creased ourselves into that mould,
once we are firmly in, it fits as snugly as an old shoe.
No wonder, then, that any disturbance of the stereotypes seems like an
attack upon the foundations of the universe. It is an attack upon the
foundations of _our_ universe, and, where big things are at
stake, we do not readily admit that there is any distinction between
our universe and the universe. A world which turns out to be one in
which those we honor are unworthy, and those we despise are noble, is
nerve-racking. There is anarchy if our order of precedence is not the
only possible one. For if the meek should indeed inherit the earth, if
the first should be last, if those who are without sin alone may cast
a stone, if to Caesar you render only the things that are Caesar's,
then the foundations of self-respect would be shaken for those who
have arranged their lives as if these maxims were not true.
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