"Acceptance of prevailing standards often means we have no standards of our own"
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Toomer’s line lands like a polite accusation: if you’re perfectly at home in “prevailing standards,” you might not be principled so much as properly socialized. The wording is surgical. “Acceptance” sounds benign, even virtuous, yet he pairs it with an unsettling payoff: the surrender of “standards of our own.” Not morality as rulebook, but morality as authorship. The real target isn’t conformity in the abstract; it’s the ease with which borrowed judgments start to feel like character.
The subtext is about how culture launders power into common sense. “Prevailing” doesn’t just mean popular; it implies dominant, sanctioned, ambient. Standards aren’t neutral measurements here, they’re tools that decide who counts as refined, employable, respectable, safe. Toomer, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote across (and against) rigid racial categories, had intimate reasons to distrust any consensus that pretended to be universal. In early-20th-century America, “standards” were often code for assimilation: speak this way, love this way, live this way, and you may be granted conditional belonging.
What makes the sentence work is its quiet reversal. We tend to treat standards as something society gives us and we responsibly adopt. Toomer flips it: a standard worth having is one you’ve tested, chosen, and can defend even when it costs you. The sting is personal. If your values never put you at odds with the room, you may not be virtuous; you may just be well-trained.
The subtext is about how culture launders power into common sense. “Prevailing” doesn’t just mean popular; it implies dominant, sanctioned, ambient. Standards aren’t neutral measurements here, they’re tools that decide who counts as refined, employable, respectable, safe. Toomer, a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote across (and against) rigid racial categories, had intimate reasons to distrust any consensus that pretended to be universal. In early-20th-century America, “standards” were often code for assimilation: speak this way, love this way, live this way, and you may be granted conditional belonging.
What makes the sentence work is its quiet reversal. We tend to treat standards as something society gives us and we responsibly adopt. Toomer flips it: a standard worth having is one you’ve tested, chosen, and can defend even when it costs you. The sting is personal. If your values never put you at odds with the room, you may not be virtuous; you may just be well-trained.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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