“The dignity that I have observed has to do with the harmony of commitment, knowledge, and work. Commitment involves a clear sense of what a person is devoted to, how one believes a life should be lived. The simplest way to indignity is the acquiescent confusion that draws the current creed from the day’s broadcast signals. A person with this uncritical receptivity can hardly even be present to another; when we cannot sense another’s orienting commitments, we begin to suspect that we are not talking to anyone at all”
