Word: enthusiasm
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...basic cause of this position is the characteristic Eastern antipathy toward enthusiasm. The current Ivy ideal is the casual man who pursues a line of conduct corresponding to a preconceived code, directed by an unalterable mental outlook in which spontaneous emotions play a miniscule role. If enthusiasm is allowed to creep in, it is carefully controlled and channelled toward "safe" objects such as Humphrey Bogart or the Kingston Trio; it is never casual to display enthusiasm or emotion toward anything more serious than these...
Without judging casualness as a standard of action, one can notice its effects when applied with rigor as an intellectual guide. The resolute determination to avoid enthusiasm in criticism can easily turn into a consistent refusal to be pleased. While the student avoids a potentially embarassing epousal of a cause, he is amply protected when on the attack, being free to concentrate on the weaknesses which can be found even in geniuses. The technique of isolating certain elements for criticism is never used to praise an author or defend a position, but is common when breaking down a work...
...proper time for this kind of sympathetic attitude; it is the time for scepticism. But scepticism need not be hostile; nor must selfconscious awareness of subjectivity prevent emotional involvement. Nothing would be more absurd than to strive for an artificial warmth or some sort of reinfused provincialism. Kindness and enthusiasm are natural qualities; the problem is to preserve them through college. Harvard offers a challenge to the student to maintain his intellectual intergrity in the face of the fashionable consensus, and to observe, while at college, the standards by which he intends to lead the rest of his life
PITTSBURGH, Pa., Feb. 27--David J. McDonald, president of the United Steelworkers Union, talked with enthusiasm today about workers spending less time in mills. But he said the USW policy makers must decide if reduced work schedules will be an issue in forthcoming contract negotiations with the basic steel firms...
...sneers and jeers were caused by the worst scandal in the temple's 300-year history. Last June Photographer Mikio Tsuchiya got permission to record life in the temple, planned impressive exhibits in the U.S., where enthusiasm for Zen's ego-smashing techniques has become a semi-religious phenomenon (TIME, Feb. 4, 1957 et seg.). Tsuchiya expected to find the temple's 30 pate-shaven novices undergoing the most Spartan life imaginable, for Zen is the harshest branch of Buddhism, and Shofukuji itself has a reputation as one of Zen's most austere temples...