Quality under dissolution is the residual capacity to maintain the higher form when the environment no longer supports it. Traditional quality was sustained by a living hierarchy of ranks and functions. Residual quality must be sustained by the individual who still recognizes the difference between higher and lower. The recognition itself is already an act against the leveling current of the age.
The age systematically confuses quality with quantity, intensity with height, novelty with superiority. The differentiated individual refuses the confusion. He continues to discriminate according to the permanent measure. That discrimination is the residual form of the traditional sense of rank. It does not require collective recognition in order to remain valid.
Young men are trained from the beginning to treat all differences as equal or as matters of preference. The residual path requires the recovery of the capacity to see qualitative difference. The recovery is difficult because the surrounding language has been emptied of the necessary distinctions. The difficulty does not cancel the requirement. It clarifies the residual character of the work.
Maintain quality under residual conditions. Do not allow the dissolving environment to redefine the higher as merely another option among options. The man who continues to discriminate according to the permanent measure is already living the residual form of the hierarchical sense.