[The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thorstein Veblen]@TWC D-Link bookThe Theory of the Leisure Class CHAPTER Nine ~~ The Conservation of Archaic Traits 15/45
At his best he is "a clever, good-for-nothing fellow." The shortcomings of this presumptively primitive type of character are weakness, inefficiency, lack of initiative and ingenuity, and a yielding and indolent amiability, together with a lively but inconsequential animistic sense. Along with these traits go certain others which have some value for the collective life process, in the sense that they further the facility of life in the group.
These traits are truthfulness, peaceableness, good-will, and a non-emulative, non-invidious interest in men and things. With the advent of the predatory stage of life there comes a change in the requirements of the successful human character.
Men's habits of life are required to adapt themselves to new exigencies under a new scheme of human relations.
The same unfolding of energy, which had previously found expression in the traits of savage life recited above, is now required to find expression along a new line of action, in a new group of habitual responses to altered stimuli.
The methods which, as counted in terms of facility of life, answered measurably under the earlier conditions, are no longer adequate under the new conditions.
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