Every person is perceived as both unique individual and general type

Evidence

All relations among men are determined by the varying degrees of this incompleteness. Whatever the cause of this incompleteness, its consequence is a generalization of the psychological picture that we have of another, a generalization that results in a blurring of contours which adds a relation to other pictures to the uniqueness of this one. … We think of him in terms not only of his singularity but also in terms of a general category. This category, of course, does not fully cover him, nor does he fully cover it. It is this peculiarly incomplete coincidence which distinguishes the relation between a human category and a human singularity from the relation which usually exists between a general concept and the particular instance it covers. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 174

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: The insight that the category-individual relation is unique in its ‘peculiar incomplete coincidence’ — a type never fully covers the person nor the person the type — is a dense, paradigm-shifting observation about the way perception fundamentally works.
• XREF: This is the direct theoretical seed of Lofland’s civil inattention / categorizing-strangers framework and Simmel’s own stranger essay — the blasé attitude generalizes the urban other into a type in exactly this way. — connects to: Shared universal traits make the stranger simultaneously near and far — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 397; Strangers are perceived by type rather than as individuals — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 401; Every person fuses social inheritance with free individual autonomy — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 520 (+17 more)

Related

• People inevitably perceive others through generalization because full individual knowledge is impossible (similarity 0.89)
• Each person is a fragment even of their own singular type (similarity 0.86)
• Social types can embody an all-dominating orientation to the world (similarity 0.85)
• Clique-dominated society demands self-representation as a type rather than as an individual. (similarity 0.84)
• Strangers are perceived by type rather than as individuals (similarity 0.84)
• Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once (similarity 0.83)
• Every person fuses social inheritance with free individual autonomy (similarity 0.82)
• Social generalization, though distorting, is what makes social relations possible (similarity 0.82)
• Each person holds a constant ratio of individual to social factors (similarity 0.80)
• Complex categorical placement depends on personal biographical knowledge (similarity 0.80)
• Ethnicity discursively enables self-enunciation for everyone, including dominant groups (similarity 0.80)
• Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract (similarity 0.79)
• The individual’s inner mental relations mirror social relations among persons (similarity 0.79)
• A stranger is someone personally unknown yet visually available (similarity 0.79)
• Shared universal traits make the stranger simultaneously near and far (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Human life must be understood under both individual and social attributes at once #corroborates (0.85) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 213
• Individuality emerges from the layering and clash of overlapping social types #expands (0.60) — Janet Burroway; Elizabeth Stuckey-French; Ned Stuckey-French, Writing Fiction, Tenth Edition, 284
• People inevitably perceive others through generalization because full individual knowledge is impossible #corroborates (0.60) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 173
• Society is a concrete generality neither reducible to individuals nor abstract #expands (0.55) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 274