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Centers of Congeniality
“The Gentler View,” Harper’s Weekly (March 30, 1912) : 23
Purdue copy/scan (hathitrust) : link
archive.org : link
 

      There is no form of intoxication more common than that of outlining the future. We each do it according to our individual obliquity of mind, but do it we must. The Socialists — and Socialism having suffered much from misconceptions and erratic adherents, it is necessary to say that the Socialists spoken of are the calm leaders of the movement who see it with greatest clarity — make an economic statement, and at once one is gleefully agog with its logical offshoots. When Ramsay MacDonald (1866-1937), Labour Party leader, Prime Minister (1924, 1929-35), pacifist... wikipedia Mr. Ramsay MacDonald says that there will be great decentralization, so that instead of a congested and appalling bureaucracy at the head there will be local administration and municipal control, one races ahead on numerous suppositions with one big “if” looming above all others. If justice to the majority is to be the ruling spirit of each locality, it would be extremely uncomfortable to be a minority of one. If your view on the manipulation of milk by the municipal milk company or on other more complex matters were the sole idea of the kind in your vicinity you would speedily move to where most people were of your way of thinking. So that, by the most natural process, people with opposing viewpoints would separate and those who are more or less agreed would live in a sufficiently close proximity to see their ideas take effect in the rulings of their particular locality.
      Precisely as now all the piano-makers have congregated on lower Fifth Avenue, and the motor-car agencies line Broadway above Forty-fifth Street, and the only two manufacturers of fireworks in New York are situated side by side, and all this in response to a law which it is difficult to explain in any other way than an instinctive desire to be among one’s own kind, so, on Mr. MacDonald’s premise, all those people of the same general color of mind would congregate in the days of the time to come. By the desire to count, to be of the governing body in the matters that concern the society of which one is a part, one would migrate instinctively toward the very people with whom one could live on the terms of greatest harmony. It is a possibility capable of such soothing and stimulating elaborations that it seems doubtful, while one is in the full glow of it, whether a more delightful idea was ever thought of.
      Fancy looking out of one’s window and over one’s garden wall and not marveling that nice people so seldom bump into each other, or mourning that neighbors are invariably Philistines whom one is grateful not to know, but beaming happily in all directions, or even being so pleased and attuned that one does not trouble to beam, but lives busily knowing that there is no cause for irritation for miles around! And all because one is conscious of being surrounded by diverting people, if that is what one is oneself, or respectable people, if that is what, by some chance, one happens principally to be. And all because one is conscious of being surrounded by diverting people, if that is what one is oneself, or respectable people, if that is what, by some chance, one happens principally to be. We are continually regretting now that our friends, by some unhappy fate, always live at the other side of the city. Real tragedies arise from there being at present no sufficient reason for a person living out of his natural milieu. But concrete things, things all would recognize, could then be exhibited as reasons and sisters would say of sisters, “Oh yes, Fanny has moved to East Sandwich because she believes in their administration and her vote was needed.” And Fanny, who to-day would stay at home and grow bad-tempered from the waste of being considered queer, would race off to where she naturally belonged and be happy ever after.
      The tendency would not be so much for members of the same profession, craft, or industry to live near one another, for no one is as great a nuisance as those people who do what you do but do it in a different way. The tendency would be a far more charming thing. It would be for the viewpoint, the general quirk of the mind on a number of subjects, to be the same, so that the spirit of the locality would be your spirit and you would add to it. Of course that exquisite solace of feeling that one is rare, lonely, and unappreciated in the midst of canaille — this would be kept up with difficulty. One could, if one were a determined minor poet, make a point of living among grocers, but there would always be the danger that in the midst of one’s martyrdom some one would suggest one’s moving. The regret felt that national characteristics are leveling and peoples are becoming tamely alike is, after all, but an unwilling farewell to disappearing national costumes, and emphasis of individuality is on the increase. Personality is more and more recognized as of value and if one’s plea is a general one for the interest of sharp contrasts, what could give more promise of fulfilment than the prospect of living where one’s particular bent was taken into account and made way for? Strong individualities would thrive like babies on a side street. Is there any one who at this point does not feel the intoxication of outlining the future?
      Of course that exquisite solace of feeling that one is rare, lonely, and unappreciated in the midst of canaille — the common people, the masses; from Italian canaglia, “a pack of dogs,”
see etymonline canaille — this would be kept up with difficulty. One could, if one were a determined minor poet, make a point of living among grocers, but there would always be the danger that in the midst of one’s martyrdom some one would suggest one’s moving.

      The way in which a person misunderstands is the most illuminating line to be had on his character. He may understand and still give no sure clew to his general make-up. Comprehension may be fragmentary, though genuine; it may not correlate with anything else in him; but a single misinterpretation and you see the precise angle at which his path crosses yours, and it is even possible to glance along his line of march and catch his general direction. Perhaps this is true because we all misunderstand so much more frequently than we understand, or perhaps it is true because we understand uncertainly, the very fact that we see making us step carefully, but when we misunderstand we do it with such reckless assurance. We elaborate and quickly and loudly substantiate our mistake by narrating our past actions and present views. The hobgoblins we harbor, believing them to be woman’s suffrage, Socialism, or some other movement of the times, are lights on us, because these hobgoblins are built up entirely out of ourselves, having little to do with the subjects we take them as truly representing. According to our misconceptions shall we be known According to our misconceptions shall we be known, for when we understand clearly we state a truth, but when we misunderstand our laziness, prejudices, ignorances, and fears are fused in the heat of disturbed lethargy and we stand revealed at our worst.
 

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