Continuity of the differentiated man is the residual capacity to remain distinct after every collective form of differentiation has been dissolved. The residual man continues to stand as the higher type even though the age offers no confirming distinction. The differentiation itself remains intact. Only the collective forms that once made its presence public have disappeared.
Young men who still feel the demand of a higher distinction often look for residual ranks or residual hierarchies that will keep the difference alive around them. Most of those hierarchies have already been emptied by the horizontal forces that dominate the age. The residual path does not wait for external distinction. It continues as the permanent type from the interior center that still holds the vertical measure.
This solitary continuity is the residual form of the older traditional knowledge of rank. The man who continues to stand as the differentiated type already performs the residual act. That act does not require collective forms to remain real.
Remain differentiated. Do not wait for the age to restore conditions in which higher rank is publicly structured. The residual act is to keep the permanent measure decisive in every concrete decision. That decisiveness is the continuity of the higher type under residual conditions.