“One reason I can be more tolerant than most is that as a therapist I have the advantage of information about my patients that most people are not privy to. And I discover that we rarely if ever see the totality of another in ordinary social intercourse. When an individual appears mean and lazy, we are only seeing one part of the person, elicited by a particular set of circumstances on a particular day, and we do well to wait a while before concluding that what we see is the whole person.” PeopleIfsWellsMeanPersonsI CanReasonWholeIndividualSocialWaitingSeeingInformationParticularPerspectiveCircumstancesOrdinaryAdvantagePatientLazyIntercourseTherapistsTotalityWhole PersonConcluding Author:Alan Loy McGinnis
“I am not [...] asserting that humans are either genial or aggressive by inborn biological necessity. Obviously, both kindness and violence lie within the bounds of our nature because we perpetrate both, in spades. I only advance a structural claim that social stability rules nearly all the time and must be based on an overwhelmingly predominant (but tragically ignored) frequency of genial acts, and that geniality is therefore our usual and preferred response nearly all the time. [...] [T]he center of human nature is rooted in ten thousand ordinary acts of kindness that define our days.” HumansLyingSocialKindnessViolenceHuman NatureThousandTenOrdinaryClaimsResponseBoundsStabilityAggressiveUsualRootedIgnoredFrequencyActs Of KindnessSpadesGeniality Author:Stephen Jay Gould
“Democracy does not require perfect equality, but it does require that citizens share a common life. What matters is that people of different backgrounds and social positions encounter one another, and bump up against one another, in the course of ordinary life.” PeopleDoeDifferentMatterCoursesSocialPerfectCommonDemocracySharePositionCitizensOrdinaryBackgroundsEncountersWhat MattersBumpsOrdinary LifeDifferent BackgroundsCommon Life Author:Michael Sandel
“As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.” PeopleBelieveHumansCharacterCertainEvilSocialPsychologyConditionsOrdinaryTransformationPressureHistoricalCommitInquiryOrdinary PeopleUnthinkableBanalitySocial Pressure Author:Philip Zimbardo
“We want to believe we are good, we are different, we are better, or we are superior. But this body of social-psychological research--and there are obviously many more experiments in addition to mine and Milgram's--shows that the majority of good, ordinary, normal people can be easily seduced, tempted, or initiated into behaving in ways that they say they never would. In 30 minutes we got them stepping across that line.” PeopleWayWantBelieveDifferentShowsBodySocialLinesMinutesMinesNormalResearchOrdinaryMajorityExperimentsSuperiorsPsychologicalTemptedPsychological Research Author:Philip Zimbardo
“The "Lucifer Effect" describes the point in time when an ordinary, normal person first crosses the boundary between good and evil to engage in an evil action. It represents a transformation of human character that is significant in its consequences. Such transformations are more likely to occur in novel settings, in "total situations," where social situational forces are sufficiently powerful to overwhelm, or set aside temporally, personal attributes of morality, compassion, or sense of justice and fair play.” FirstsHumansPersonsPlayCharacterActionEvilForceSocialJusticePowerfulCompassionSituationNovelEffectsMoralityNormalOrdinaryConsequenceFairsCrossesTransformationSignificantBoundariesSettingSettingsGood And EvilAttributesLuciferFair Play Author:Philip Zimbardo
“The naturalist is a civilized hunter. He goes alone into the field or woodland and closes his mind to everything but that time and place, so that life around him presses in on all the senses and small details grow in significance. He begins the scanning search for which cognition was engineered. His mind becomes unfocused, it focuses on everything, no longer directed toward any ordinary task or social pleasantry.” MindSocialGrowsFieldsOrdinaryTasksPressesDetailsSensesSignificanceCivilizedHuntersCognitionNaturalistWoodlandSmall DetailsScanningPleasantries Author:E. O. Wilson
“Like many works of literature, Hollywood chooses for its villains people who strive for social dominance through the pursuit of wealth, prestige, and power. But the ordinary business of capitalism is much more egalitarian: It's about finding meaning and enjoyment in work and production.” PeopleLiteratureSocialWealthFindingsOrdinaryCapitalismHollywoodStriveProductionsPursuitEnjoymentVillainDominancePrestigeEgalitarianismPursuit Of Wealth Author:Alex Tabarrok
“Life's so ordinary that literature has to deal with the exceptional. Exceptional talent, power, social position, wealth.... Dramabegins where there's freedom of choice. And freedom of choice begins when social or psychological conditions are exceptional. That's why the inhabitants of imaginative literature have always been recruited from the pages of Who's Who.” ArtRealityArtistChoicesLiteratureSocialWealthDealsConditionsTalentPositionPagesOrdinaryPsychologicalRealismExceptionalImaginativeFreedom Of Choice Book:The collected works of Aldous Huxley Source: The collected works of Aldous Huxley