Word: elicitation
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...film's steady injection of 1958's versionof deviant sex, drug use and rock and roll furtherprovokes the dirty feelings of disgust. Thesethreats to the blissful uniformity of Americanpost-war culture, being perhaps more immediate tothe general audience, elicit the gut response thatthen highlights the more latent tension presentedby the fear of foreign infiltration. Welles, asboth actor and director, effectively uses thenational border to comment on the relationship ofindividual security to larger systems. As much aswe, especially as an American audience, would liketo believe in our absolute ability to choose weare often structured by our identification withsome cause or other...
...speech had to do four difficult things. First, it had to both be forthcoming and seem forthcoming. Second, it had to elicit from the audience sympathy, empathy, a desire on the part of Americans to make the collective leap from the pursuit of justice to the bestowing of mercy. Third, it had to answer more questions than it raised. And fourth, it had to make the case that it is in our interests as a great nation to move on; it had to end this story by taking the steam...
...speech did not elicit sympathy because he was not tough on himself. He was, instead, tough on the independent prosecutor. His demeanor was not that of a strong man in a moment of contrition but that of a defensive man in a moment of aggression. There was no trust in his speech, no sense that he knew he could trust the compassion of the people he leads. When you fail to trust the people, they notice and are not warmed. More to the point, they are left uninclined to give you what you don't give them...
...Cleveland Clinic and my internist for the day. With unexpected deliberation, given the harried pace of American medicine, he spends the next hour questioning me--work, family, stresses, satisfactions, diet, diseases, sex life--progressing from the general to the specific. The goal of his detective work is to elicit hints of any underlying conditions. "Most of my patients are male executives," he explains. "They don't share; they don't ventilate. This is an opportunity for them to get out a lot of health issues that worry them...
Rather than with Bridget, curl up with Nuala O'Faolain (Are You Somebody: The Accidental Memoir of a Dublin Woman) and Julia Scully (Outside Passages), who elicit a hundred now-isn't-that-the-truth moments. O'Faolain, a celebrated columnist at the Irish Times, is more than a female Frank McCourt. While she's no slouch at depicting old-sod poverty--sleeping with a scrap of sheet to keep her father's overcoat from scratching her chin and dreaming of a place to hang her ragged clothes--her real strength is in her close-to-the-bone rendering...