Perceptions of liberal society as uniform are frequently distorted,but the distortion itself is interesting because it is resonant with romanticclaims that society is monolithically bourgeois, philistine, orlegalistic. This sense of being surrounded by demanding, controlling,intrusive publics, and the reactions of revulsion and fear for individuality,are familiar features of romanticism. They are the reverse ofanother distorted perception shared by romantics and some critics ofliberalism—that liberal society is hopelessly fragmented and atomistic,and that individuals in such a society are fragmented too. Whetherreal social complexity is masked by an exaggerated picture of conformityor magnified so that it appears as an irrational splinteringthat splinters individuals as well, the true private self is lost. In onecase it is homogenized; in the other it is dissolved.