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Margaret Mead

Margaret Mead Quotes

Cultural Anthropologist

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Famous Margaret Mead Quotes

“Orientation in time, space, and status are the essentials of social existence, and the Balinese, although they make very strong spirits for ceremonial occasions, with a few startling exceptions resist alcohol, because if one drinks one loses one's orientation. Orientation is felt as a protection rather than as a strait jacket and its loss provokes extreme anxiety.”

IfsSpiritStrongSocialFeltLosesLossSpaceExistenceDrinkEssentialsAnxietyExtremesProtectionAlcoholOccasionsExceptionVery StrongProvokingJacketsOrientationStrong SpiritBalinese
Book:Balinese Character: A Photographic Analysis
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“Those social behaviors which automatically preclude the building of a democratic world must go - every social limitation of human beings in terms of heredity, whether it be of race, or sex, or class. Every social institution which teaches human beings to cringe to those above and step on those below must be replaced by institutions which teach people to look each other straight in the face.”

PeopleWorldHumansLooksFacesSocialSexTermHuman BeingsRaceStepsClassTeachBuildingBehaviorInstitutionsDemocraticEqualityLimitationReplacedCringeHereditySocial InstitutionsSocial Behavior
Book:And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America
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“The protection of a ten-year-old girl from her father's advances is a necessary condition of social order, but the protection of the father from temptation is a necessary condition of his continued social adjustment. The protections that are built up in the child against desire for the parent become the essential counterpart to the attitudes in the parent that protect the child.”

YearsChildrenDesireOrderGirlFatherSocialParentAttitudeConditionsProtectTenEssentialsBuiltProtectionTemptationAdjustmentSocial OrderCounterparts
Book:Male and female: a study of the sexes in a changing world
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“In contrast to our own social environment which brings out different aspects of human nature and often demonstrated that behavior which occurs almost invariably in individuals within our society is nevertheless due not to original nature but to social environment; and a homogeneous and simple development of the individual may be studied.”

HumansMayDifferentIndividualSocialSimpleEnvironmentHuman NatureDevelopmentBehaviorAspectOriginalsDuesOur SocietyContrastNeverthelessHomogeneousSocial Environment
Book:Growing Up in New Guinea: A Comparative Study of Primitive Education
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“If we are to achieve a richer culture, rich in contrasting values, we must recognize the whole gamut of human potentialities, and so weave a less arbitrary social fabric, one in which each diverse human gift will find a fitting place.”

IfsHumansWholeValuesCultureSocialWomenHistoryRichAchieveDiversitySocial JusticeToleranceDiverseFabricArbitraryFittingUnity In DiversityHuman ValuesI Am WomanInspirational DiversityDiversity Of LifeHuman DiversitySamoaDiverse CulturesFitting Together
Author:Margaret Mead
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“The suffering of either sex - of the male who is unable, because of the way in which he was reared, to take the strong initiating or patriarchal role that is still demanded of him, or of the female who has been given too much freedom of movement as a child to stay placidly within the house as an adult - this suffering, this discrepancy, this sense of failure in an enjoined role, is the point of leverage for social change.”

WayChildrenHas BeensStillsSufferingHouseStrongGivenSocialSexRolesToo MuchFeminismMovementAdultsFemaleMalesSocial ChangeDiscrepancies
Author:Margaret Mead
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