Word: matter-of-fact
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...same time outlining his own belief that Levi-Strauss may indeed have fudged in certain cases. But Leach's primary objection to structuralism is more profound. In Levi-Strauss's eagerness to find the universal determinants of human society Leach fears he has "over-looked the plain, matter-of-fact world we see all around us." The noble savage has become in Levi-Strauss's hands a "reduced model...
...primitive society long enough to form intimate associations. But maybe this kind of distance is necessary to an examination that insists on finding unconscious structures. For the moment all we can say is that Levi-Strauss has made complexity revealing instead of confusing. Losing the "plain, matter-of-fact world" doesn't seem like too much...
Nevertheless, A Guest of Honour is an unusually honest and serious book. In his own matter-of-fact way, Bray meets the dilemma of whether to be a lip servant or a participant in a manner that does not betray himself or those he cares for. He is an old-fashioned man of private conscience and good will who is doomed in a world of arrogant passions and ruthless compromise. Miss Gordimer sympathetically brackets him between two quotations. The first is from the genteel self-exile Ivan Turgenev: "An honourable man will end by not knowing where to live...
Yovicsin has earned much of the derision he's received in the last year or so. It seems that the talented players he has helped make so matter-of-fact around here have helped cover up some of his other failings in recent years. But Yovicsin's probably gotten more criticism than he deserves...
...lady's matter-of-fact self-assessment: "I am a bitch." Many in Israel agree. The late Levi Eshkol called her a shrew. Yitzhak Raphael, a National Religious Party leader, labeled her a liar. She has been threatened with murder and having acid thrown in her eyes. She is sometimes tailed by thugs, and she gets more hate mail than an Arab sympathizer. Says former Education Minister Zalman Aranne: "She leaves scorched people and scorched earth behind...