This is an important point: culture directs individuals outward. It is greater than, prior to, and formative of the individual. We learn who we are by learning how to conform ourselves to the purposes of the larger community to which we belong. This is of great significance for understanding Rieff, since it is this emphasis on culture as that which directs the individual outward toward communal purposes that underlies his schematization of human history in terms of representative types, figures whom he regards as embodying the spirit of their age.
