Word: callousness
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...Monroe episodes constitute a precious document in the history of psychology; they provide the explanation by one knowledgeable, sensitive, and articulate observer for the inevitability of the suicide of one of the most celebrated international personalities of our time. Still, the truth is--though it may sound callous--that the raison d'etre of many people is to furnish fodder for works of art. A great work of art is often worth more than a human life. And it is not impossible that history will remember Marilyn Monroe chiefly through Miller's play...
...come to my main point. Mr. Brackman's reporting of my opinions on pregnany is irresponsible and contemptible. He says some garbage about my "callous lack of concern for the plight of the unloved illegitimate child and the unwed mother." These words are entirely out of his own mind or heart. Let me review the dialogue as it occurred. In my presentation, I quoted Alex Comfort's two commandments; "Do not exploit another's feelings, and do not cause an unwanted birth," I cautioned, however, that often middle-class people put off having children, or even compel abortions...
...today! This is what I have called callous. Dr. Blaine is wrong in falling to join Goodman in condemnation of society's hostility to bastardy and the unwed mother. Goodman is wrong in pooh-poohing Blaine's recognition of this unhappy attitude as social fact. Properly, we should work towards changing the situation without minimizing the damage to people caught in the wake of social change. To Goodman, these are expendable and unimportant droplets in a great wave. To Blaine, they are miserable individuals who seek his therapy...
Certainly the President's assassination jolted the overwhelming majority of Dallas citizens just as it did the rest of the nation. But the reactions of a few belied the deep strain of callous self interest that resides not far below the city's civic league surface. An audience of 1800 packed the Dallas City Opera the evening after the assassination to to applaud Verdi's Masked Ball. Citizens held indignant meetings to decide what to do about ministers who issued malicious statements about the city. The school board fired--later rehired--the teacher who reported her student's applause...
...emphasis on non-exploitation, Goodman is astonishingly callous in his lack of concern for the plight of the unloved, illegitimate child and the unwed mother. Of course society is wrong to regard them as something dirty, but in his desire for social revolution Goodman loses compassion for those who must suffer in its wake. And in spite of his insistence on interpersonal values, he speakes as if his major responsibility in marriage is to inconvenience himself by "making it home in time for five thirty dinner every night...