Laudator Temporis Acti

Jonathan Z. Smith (1938-2017), Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (1978; rpt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 241-242:

Robert Redfield, in his important essay, "Primitive World View," suggested that a world view of any people consisted essentially of two pairs of binary oppositions: MAN/NOT-MAN and WE/THEY.⁵ Both of these pairs imply comparison; it is the latter which underlies most forms of cultural comparison. When one encounters another, a place must be found for the other within or without one's cosmos. Four specifications of the WE/THEY duality have been employed: (1) They are LIKE-US, (2) They are NOT-LIKE-US, (3) They are TOO-MUCH-LIKE-US (Robert Frost's "Good fences make good neighbors"), or (4) We are NOT-LIKE-THEM (expressions and polemics concerning "uniqueness"). This primary sense of comparison depends upon the living contact between two peoples, whether this contact be through travel, invasion, or trade. It is the attempt to "place" one another.

⁵ R. Redfield, "Primitive World View," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, XCVI (1952), 30-36, reprinted in Redfield, The Primitive World and its Transformations (Ithaca, 1953), pp. 84-110. Passage quotcd, p. 92.