Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become "naturally numb" as they swelled and stre...tched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into "manageable discomfort." This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In general the newly sighted see the world as a dazzle of color-patches. They are pleased by the sensation of color, and learn qui...ckly to name the colors, but the rest of seeing is tormentingly difficult.... It oppresses them to realize, if they ever do at all, the tremendous size of the world, which they had previously conceived of as something touchingly manageable. It oppresses them to realize that they have been visible to people all along, perhaps unattractively so, without their knowledge or consent. A disheartening number of them refuse to use their new vision, continuing to go over objects with their tongues, and lapsing into apathy and despair.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Physical force has no value, where there is nothing else. Snow in snow-banks, fire in volcanoes and solfataras is cheap. The luxur...y of ice is in tropical countries, and midsummer days. The luxury of fire is, to have a little on our hearth; and of electricity, not the volleys of the charged cloud, but the manageable stream on the battery-wires. So of spirit, or energy; the rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the cannibals in the Pacific.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
To offer the complexities of life as an excuse for not addressing oneself to the simpler, more manageable (trivial) aspects of dai...ly existence is a perversity often indulged in by artists, husbands, intellectuals--and critics of the Women's Movement.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In most modern instances, interpretation amounts to the philistine refusal to leave the work of art alone. Real art has the capaci...ty to make us nervous. By reducing the work of art to its content and then interpreting that, one tames the work of art. Interpretation makes art manageable, conformable.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The widespread fear among today's parents that their manageable children will turn overnight into dope fiends, school dropouts, or... voracious sexual voluptuaries reflects a certain anger and animosity towards the young, a fear and loathing that helps turn the myth into a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, there were "bad" children and uncontrolled teenagers in the past; nevertheless, parents expected their own children to be good, to grow up well. . . . The fact that today's parents are amazed if their children do not turn into black sheep makes it clear that a less than optimistic, indeed a deeply distrustful and negative, attitude towards children exists today.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »