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Du Bois, W. E. B. (William Edward Burghardt), 1868-1963

"The Souls of Black Folk"


In the civilized life of to-day the contact of men and their
relations to each other fall in a few main lines of action and
communication: there is, first, the physical proximity of home
and dwelling-places, the way in which neighborhoods group
themselves, and the contiguity of neighborhoods. Secondly,
and in our age chiefest, there are the economic relations,
--the methods by which individuals cooperate for earning a
living, for the mutual satisfaction of wants, for the production
of wealth. Next, there are the political relations, the cooperation
in social control, in group government, in laying and paying
the burden of taxation. In the fourth place there are the less
tangible but highly important forms of intellectual contact and
commerce, the interchange of ideas through conversation and
conference, through periodicals and libraries; and, above all,
the gradual formation for each community of that curious
tertium quid which we call public opinion. Closely allied with
this come the various forms of social contact in everyday life,
in travel, in theatres, in house gatherings, in marrying and
giving in marriage.


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