Most advice on child-rearing is sought in the hope that it will confirm our prior convictions. If the parent had wished to proceed... in a certain way but was made insecure by opposing opinions of neighbors, friends, or relatives, then it gives him great comfort to find his ideas seconded by an expert.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
While girls [age 9ââ¬â12] appear to have much more social know-how, they are characteristically cliquey, disloyal, cruel..., insecure, and a bit bitchy now. Today's best friend becomes tomorrow's discard. Parents watch in horror at what seem to be total personality changes in previously lovely, upright little girls. Sometimes girls are just as unsettled by their behavior as the disapproving elders who watch them. Sometimes they are unregenerate, relishing their freewheeling and dealing.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The romantic temper, so often and so grievously misinterpreted and not more by others than by its own, is an insecure, unsatisfied..., and impatient temper which sees no fit abode here for its ideals and chooses therefore to behold them under insensible figures. As a result of this choice it comes to disregard certain limitations. Its figures are blown to wild adventures, lacking the gravity of solid bodies, and the mind that has conceived them ends by disowning them.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Successful democratic politicians are insecure and intimidated men. They advance politically only as they placate, appease, bribe,... seduce, bamboozle, or otherwise manage to manipulate the demanding and threatening elements in their constituencies. The decisive consideration is not whether the proposition is good but whether it is popular--not whether it will work well and prove itself but whether the active talking constituents like it immediately. Politicians rationalize this servitude by saying that in a democracy public men are the servants of the people.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
People who feel insecure in social situations never miss a chance to exhibit their dominance over close, submissive friends, whom ...they put down publicly, in front of everyone--by teasing, for example.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Despite popular opinion, there are no important parallels between Madonna and Monroe, who was a virtuoso comedienne but who was in...secure, depressive, passive-aggressive, and infuriatingly obstructionist in her career habits. Madonna is manic, perfectionist, workaholic. Monroe abused alcohol and drugs, while Madonna shuns them. Monroe had a tentative, melting, dreamy solipsism; Madonna has Judy Holliday's wisecracking smart mouth and Joan Crawford's steel will and bossy, circusmaster managerial competence.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Since good fathers aren't' so insecure about their sexuality, they aren't preoccupied with the gender division of parental labor......Their children reap the benefits of Dad's warmth and flexibility, including academically; androgynous fathers do not have preconceptions, say, that boys alone excel in science and girls alone are good at English. Rather they encourage their children's gender-neutral talents.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
As photographs give people an imaginary possession of a past that is unreal, they also help people to take possession of space in ...which they are insecure.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Ours has been called a culture of narcissism. The label is apt but can be misleading. It reads colloquially as selfishness and sel...f-absorption. But these images do not capture the anxiety behind our search for mirrors. We are insecure in our understanding of ourselves, and this insecurity breeds a new preoccupation with the question of who we are. We search for ways to see ourselves. The computer is a new mirror, the first psychological machine. Beyond its nature as an analytical engine lies its second nature as an evocative object.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If "heavy metal" was the Anglo-American contribution to low culture, then "rap" was the African-American donation. And if "metal" ...came from the garage where Junior had been sent with his guitar and extension cord, then rap came from the street where young blacks played the only instruments they could afford--the mouth organ and the foot drum. Rap is performed in street clothes; metal in elaborate costumes of leather and fringe. In metal, the volume carries the aggression; in rap it is the words. Both are rife with adolescent misogyny, homophobia, and threats of violence. They are rude, bawdy, boastful, with a kind of "in your face" aggression (called "attitude") characteristic of insecure masculinity. Both musical forms were unique, however, in that they produced platinum records with little radio exposure. They found their audience on MTV.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »