Word: automatonism
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...inaugural speech showed moments of eloquence: "The danger for modern man is that he would reduce the earth to a desert, the person to an automaton, brotherly love to planned collectivization. The church, admiringly yet lovingly protesting against such 'achievements,' intends, rather, to safeguard the world that thirsts for a life of love from dangers that would attack...
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, Richard Nixon remained a singularly bloodless character, an automaton with a five-o'clock shadow and an unerring ability to capitalize on the strong emotions he provoked but apparently could not feel. The classic opportunist, he was always running, always chasing after an Alger Hiss or running away from the Checkers mess, pursuing the phanton of "peace with honor" or retreating from the very real brown manila envelopes loaded with cash that his vice president used to collect every two weeks or so. As long as he was on the move-to China, to Russia...
This is the case with all fascist communities?Nazi or Communist?where man's value is always determined by social needs. People may be reduced to serfs or elevated to demigods: man may be turned into an automaton, obeying orders and doing his work without thinking. A man's humanity is inevitably lost as he ceases to be an individual worthy of the Responsibility and the vocation entrusted to him by God. The holy torch which he was created to bear and to use in lighting the way both for his fellow men and for posterity is extinguished...
...traveling show of mechanical marvels. His treasures included an automated trumpet player, a device called the panharmonicon that could duplicate the sound of a 40-piece orchestra (playing Beethoven) and an elaborate diorama showing the burning of Moscow. But Maelzel's star attraction was a hoax: a chess automaton nicknamed the Turk that took on all comers-and was every bit as talented as the human player cleverly concealed within it. That role was filled by William Schlumberger, an Alsatian hunchback who, until hitching up with Maelzel, was the second best chess player...
...witty, terse dialogue. One masterful confrontation occurs in Celeste's apartment, when she tries to seduce Leo (or rather, to encourage him to seduce her) with the help of wine and her pocket Freud. Berger shows the calculations and machinations of his characters. If Leo acts like a sexual automaton (he places his hand on Celeste's leg; she asks sharply, "What is that?"), Celeste reacts coldly with banal psychology in her analysis of Leo's childhood. Employing a more experimental approach, Berger tries his hand at Joyce an stream of consciousness in the sexual encounter between Todd and Lynnette...