In the Native American tradition ... a man, if he's a mature adult, nurtures life. He does rituals that will help things grow, he ...helps raise the kids, and he protects the people. His entire life is toward balance and cooperativeness. The ideal of manhood is the same as the ideal of womanhood. You are autonomous, self-directing, and responsible for the spiritual, social and material life of all those with whom you live.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A machine is characterized by sustained, autonomous action. It is set up by human hands and then is more or less set loose from hu...man control. It is designed to come between man and nature, to affect the natural world without requiring or indeed allowing humans to come into contact with it. Such is the clock, which abstracts the measurement of time from the sun and the stars: such is the steam engine, which turns coal into power to move ships or pump water without the intervention of human muscles. A tool, unlike a machine, is not self-sufficient or autonomous in action. It requires the skill of a craftsman and, when handled with skill, permits him to reshape the world in his way.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The modern world needs people with a complex identity who are intellectually autonomous and prepared to cope with uncertainty; who... are able to tolerate ambiguity and not be driven by fear into a rigid, single-solution approach to problems, who are rational, foresightful and who look for facts; who can draw inferences and can control their behavior in the light of foreseen consequences, who are altruistic and enjoy doing for others, and who understand social forces and trends.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A central theme in the speculative writing on technology of the past century is that forms of technics, like forms of biological l...ife, undergo a process of evolution. With the passage of time, newer and more sophisticated varieties of apparatus, organization, and technique rise to replace older, simpler varieties. New technologies enter into areas of social existence where they had not been previously. Just as Darwin observes that the various species of life on the Galapagos Islands tend to specialize and diversify into particular biological niches, so it is that forms of technology continually spread into fresh areas of social utility. In both number and diversity the kinds of technical artifice available to human societies increase.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a sma...ll one.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it... earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time--this one, for instance--as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
There is a totalitarian regime inside every one of us. We are ruled by a ruthless politburo which sets ours norms and drives us fr...om one five-year plan to another. The autonomous individual who has to justify his existence by his own efforts is in eternal bondage to himself.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Wise Draco comes, deep in the midnight roll Of black artillery; he comes, though late;... In code corroborating Calvin's creed And cynic tyrannies of honest kings; He comes, nor parlies; and the Town, redeemed, Gives thanks devout; nor, being thankful, heeds The grimy slur on the Republic's faith implied, Which holds that Man is naturally good, And--more--is Nature's Roman, never to be scourged.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
From the standpoint of the typical modern, Protestantism and Renaissance are merely two different movements in the direction of in...dividual freedom, the only difference between them being that the latter is a little more congenial to the modern spirit than the former. The real significance of the two movements lies in the fact that one represents the final development of individuality within terms of the Christian religion and the other an even further development of individuality beyond the limits set in the Christian religion, that is, the development of the "autonomous" individual. It is this autonomous individual who really ushers in modern civilization and who is completely annihilated in the final stages of that civilization.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The process of becoming an empathetic, autonomous adult--through all the wondrous and exhilarating and challenging, even painful, ...transitions of emotional growth in childhood--is not unlike learning to walk; each step makes you stronger for the next one. But if your parent is doing the walking for you, you do not have the muscles even to support your own emotional weight. You cannot stand alone.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »