calculating business man who used this principle at every turn, 
in production and distribution, fought its logic of centralism 
with anarchic bitterness. So Lowenthal observes in Literature  
and the Image of Man  (pp. 41­2):

          Very quickly after the downfall of feudalism, the 
     literary artist developed a liking for figures who look at 
     society not from the viewpoint of a participant but from 
     the vantage point of an outsider. The further these 
     figures are removed from the affairs of society, the 
     greater is likely to be their social failure (which is almost, 
     but not quite, a tautology); they are also more prone, as 
     a result, to display unspoiled, uninhibited, and highly 
     individual characteristics. The conditions—whatever they 
     may be—that remove them from the affairs of society are 
     viewed as the conditions that bring them closer to their