DEGREES OF IMPORTANCE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 20 June 1931, Page 7

DEGREES OF IMPORTANCE

A WRONG IDEA “One way or another the feeling has taken hold of the average man that he is not important. The only important people are those who do "the unusual and the spectacular thing. This idea is cutting the nerve out of a lot of our living. The idea itself needs to be killed down to the roots,” says the “Inquirer.” “Modem civilisation has sadly inverted the real values. It has failed to see the importance of the average. There is something them to challenge our thinking. We do not get as good work done in the world as we ought to get done, simply because wo treat the average people as being of no importance. To mass all mankind together in a single lump ns though one life were the exact reproduction of another—this is the groat modern heresy. To be fluent in talking about humanity and to be averse to talking with men is where we err. A working man once said to William James, ‘After all, there is very little difference between one man and another, hut what there is is very important.’ It is just that jittlo difference between one man and another that makes all the difference in the world. It is that difference which makes life worth living, work worth doing, and gives to everything a new meaning.”