But precisely because all is oriented about them, the personalities must not emphasize themselves too individually. Where real interests, co-operating or clashing, determine the social form, they provide of themselves that the individual shall not present his peculiarities and individuality with too much abandon and aggressiveness. But where this restraint is wanting, if association is to be possible at all, there must prevail another restriction of personal pushing, a restriction springing solely out of the form of the association. It is for this reason that the sense of tact is of such special significance in society, for it guides the self-regulation of the individual in his personal relations to others where no outer or directly egoistic interests provide regulation.

DEFINE: Simmel defines tact as self-regulation arising from the form of the association itself, distinct from restraint imposed by real interests.

XREF: Relates to the sociological dynamics of groups and individual expression — a social psychology principle that crowds both depersonalize and liberate.

Georg Simmel, on individuality and social…, loc. 375