Word: behavioural
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...from those who are heterosexual. Another member of H.G.S.A., Matt, remembers: "When I was in high school there were rumors going around that I was queer. (He says the word with loathing.) The other kids would persecute me by whispering 'Fag!' as I walked by, or by imitating the behaviour of what they conceived a homosexual to be. They were cruel, yes, but a large part of it stemmed from ignorance. That's why re-education is so important." And Peter, who, in his own words, "just came out of the closet," says: "Anybody who thinks that name calling...
Their reconciliation with the poor people of the region takes place surprisingly quickly, given the youths' inexplicable behaviour and the resentment they engender as sons of the rich. When they are joined by the prissy prettiness of the future Ste. Clare Judi Bowker), who has accompanied St. Francis on many an interminable nature-walk, any tenuous suspension of disbelief crumbles. Although Zeffirelli spares us cinematic tricks of visions and revelations, his harping on a band of post-adolescent outcasts of society, in search of their lost youth and a Rousseauian utopia, mars the simplicity of the tale just as badly...
...escapes Andreski's critical eye. He believes that experimental psychologists like Harvard's B.F. Skinner are seriously misinterpreting human nature: "When the psychologists refuse to study anything but the most mechanical forms of behaviour-often so mechanical that even rats have no chance to show their higher faculties-and then present their most trivial findings as the true picture of the human mind, they prompt people to regard themselves as automata, devoid of responsibility or worth, which can hardly remain without effect upon the tenor of social life." Freud, Adler and Jung? Although psychoanalysts "offer many fundamental insights...
Andreski is convinced that "much of what passes as scientific study of human behaviour boils down to sorcery," and suggests that the lay reader learn to differentiate between the mumbo jumbo and the occasional work that is valuable. How? By testing his brainpower on a few hard books like Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy and J.H. Woodger's Biological Principles. If these volumes are comprehensible but the work of a particular social scientist seems obscure, "then you can justifiably suspect that it might all be nonsense...
...that no alcoholic can learn to drink in moderation. In fact, a few recent experiments have indicated that some alcoholics might learn to become social drinkers (TIME, March 15, 1971). Now further evidence comes from the Alcoholism Research Unit in Baltimore City Hospitals. There, according to a report in Behaviour Research and Therapy, alcoholics who were promised a reward for moderation were able to stop after five drinks or fewer...