The masculine imagination lives in a state of perpetual revolt against the limitations of human life. In theological terms, one mi...ght say that all men, left to themselves, become gnostics. They may swagger like peacocks, but in their heart of hearts they all think sex an indignity and wish they could beget themselves on themselves. Hence the aggressive hostility toward women so manifest in most club-car stories.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The Japanese are, to the highest degree, both aggressive and unaggressive, both militaristic and aesthetic, both insolent and poli...te, rigid and adaptable, submissive and resentful of being pushed around, loyal and treacherous, brave and timid, conservative and hospitable to new ways.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
During the fifties, for example, the American character appeared with some consistency that became a model of manhood adopted by m...any men: the Fifties male. He got to work early, labored responsibly, supported his wife and children and admired discipline. Reagan is a sort of mummified version of this dogged type. This sort of man didn't see women's souls well, but he appreciated their bodies; and his view of culture and America's part in it was boyish and optimistic. Many of his qualities were strong and positive, but underneath the charm and bluff there was, and there remains, much isolation, deprivation, and passivity. Unless he has an enemy, he isn't sure that he is alive. The Fifties man was supposed to like football, be aggressive, stick up for the United States, never cry, and always provide.... During the sixties, another sort of man appeared. The waste and violence of the Vietnam war made men question whether they knew what an adult male really was. If manhood meant Vietnam, did they want any part of it? Meanwhile, the feminist movement encouraged men to actually look at women, forcing them to become conscious of concerns and sufferings that the Fifties male labored to avoid.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
... in a capitalist society a man is expected to be an aggressive, uncompromising, factual, lusty, intelligent provider of goods, ...and the woman, a retiring, gracious, emotional, intuitive, attractive consumer of goods.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If I were asked what are the greatest obstacles to the speedy enfranchisement of women I should answer: There are three; the first... is militarism.... The second obstacle is the unconscious, unmeasured influence upon the estimate in which women as a whole are held that emanates from that most debasing of our evil institutions, prostitution.... [ellipsis in source] The third great cause is the inertia in the growth of democracy which has come as a reaction following the aggressive movements that with possibly ill-advised haste enfranchised the foreigner, the Negro and the Indian. Perilous conditions, seeming to follow from the introduction into the body politic of vast numbers of irresponsible citizens, have made the nation timid.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Freud makes much of the distinction between jokes which just barely make sense, and those whose main value lies in the sense they ...make. He calls the first kind "jests," and thinks them radically distinct from wit. In jests our motive is the mere pleasure that children have in talking nonsense, a pleasure that he thinks is not of itself comic. The fact that our nonsense does just barely, in another sense, make sense, serves only to appease our critical judgment and release us from our adult task of inhibiting these childish proclivities. The energy which we had been employing in this task, however, being thus liberated, not only greatly increases our pleasure in the nonsense, but, in some manner which Freud does not even try to explain, makes it a comic pleasure. When, however, besides barely making sense, a piece of nonsense actually "says a mouthful" on some subject of current interest, or taps our deeper reservoirs of sexual and aggressive passion, then the pleasure is still greater--and still more comic, I suppose--and the jest is properly called wit.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Machinery is aggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If you do not use the tools, they use you. All tools a...re in one sense edge-tools, and dangerous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We must learn to differentiate between fears and anxieties. Fears are states of apprehension which focus on isolated and recogniza...ble dangers so that they may be judiciously appraised and realistically countered. Anxieties are diffuse states of tension (caused by a loss of mutual regulation and a consequent upset in libidinal and aggressive controls) which magnify and even cause the illusion of an outer danger, without pointing to appropriate avenues of defense or mastery. These two forms of apprehension obviously often occur together, and we can insist on a strict separation only for the sake of the present argument. If, in an economic depression, a man is afraid that he may lose his money, his fear may be justified. But if the idea of having to live on an income only ten times, instead of twenty-five times as large as that of his average fellow-citizen causes him to lose his nerve and to commit suicide, then we must consult our clinical formulas.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »