Esteemed Behavior

Jane Jacobs admits compiling her two lists of “esteemed behavior”, or syndromes, over 15 years:

Commercial Syndrome

• Shun force
• Come to voluntary agreements
• Be honest
• Collaborate easily with strangers and aliens
• Compete
• Respect contracts
• Use initiative and enterprise
• Be open to inventiveness and novelty
• Promote comfort and convenience
• Dissent for the sake of the task
• Invest for productive purposes
• Be industrious
• Be thrifty
• Be optimistic

Guardian Syndrome

• Shun trading
• Exert prowess
• Be obedient and disciplined
• Adhere to tradition
• Respect hierarchy
• Be loyal
• Take vengeance
• Deceive for the sake of the task
• Make rich use of leisure
• Be ostentatious
• Dispense largesse
• Be exclusive
• Show fortitude
• Be fatalistic
• Treasure honor

The fact that these lists hang together so well is a bit difficult to explain without various examples and illustrations. Jacobs compiled 15 years’ worth, if not more. It all appears so remarkably basic. That is, as noted last week, these differences are so easily taken as a given. Because of this, I’m caught explaining the contrast, rather than the syndromes themselves. I’ll try and do both.

I’ll be linking back to this post just so I won’t have to clog up my future posts by typing both lists. If you want to read ahead, I think I’ll be using guilds as an example of the commercial syndrome, among others.