The rare, the unique, the excellent, cannot be syndicated and drops out of consideration. The standards which prevail are those of undifferentiated men. Mass appeal asserts the equal importance of all individuals, as if a man’s worth consisted in his mere “number-oneness.” This is the democratic dogma of equality. Critics of the dogma frequently say that it represents the foolish attempt to declare all men equal in all respects. I doubt this. It seems to me that this dogma is perfectly correct so far as it goes. It declares all men to be equal _before the law_. And law is no respecter of persons, hence all men are equal before that which does not respect their personalities. Which is to say that all men are equal in one respect--that each is a numerical unit when he is considered as a member of the mass. It is not denied that men may be unequal in other respects. The point is that these “other respects” do not get a hearing. But the only recognition of the individual that amounts to anything is that which recognizes the differences of one from another. When we emphasize excellence, good workmanship, sincerity, ability, virtue, wisdom, we have in mind matters concerning which the differences among men are the differences between superiority and inferiority. Hence discrimination of value is recognition of distinctions of worth among men. Lose sight of distinctions of worth--of the very desirability of distinction as a social good--and all values decline to the level of mediocrity. In the supremacy of man as mass the mediocre man, he who in all things corresponds to type, and is most reducible to average, is King. For him books and journals are published; clergymen and editors speak for him and say what they think he believes; laws are made in his interest. Programs for the radio and motion pictures are made to please him. His dilemmas are held up as the dilemmas of every one. His goods become the standards to which all are expected to conform. He has purchasing power and he has votes. He can make and unmake heroes. He determines the direction of the course of events in his day and generation. Society moves in the direction of the type of man about whom there is most general concern, the man whose preferences set the pace.