“
Confidence is knowing who you are and not changing it a bit because of someone’s version of reality is not your reality.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
“
A lady must retain always her composure. Even in a rainstorm, she must appear joyous and dry. When she loses her composure, then the respect of her peers and her staff will follow in short order.
”
”
Anna Godbersen (The Luxe (Luxe, #1))
“
ABUSIVE MEN COME in every personality type, arise from good childhoods and bad ones, are macho men or gentle, “liberated” men. No psychological test can distinguish an abusive man from a respectful one. Abusiveness is not a product of a man’s emotional injuries or of deficits in his skills. In reality, abuse springs from a man’s early cultural training, his key male role models, and his peer influences. In other words, abuse is a problem of values, not of psychology. When someone challenges an abuser’s attitudes and beliefs, he tends to reveal the contemptuous and insulting personality that normally stays hidden, reserved for private attacks on his partner. An abuser tries to keep everybody—his partner, his therapist, his friends and relatives—focused on how he feels, so that they won’t focus on how he thinks, perhaps because on some level he is aware that if you grasp the true nature of his problem, you will begin to escape his domination.
”
”
Lundy Bancroft (Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men)
“
The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.
”
”
Cornel West (Race Matters)
“
The opposite of love is not hate; it is use. Use is the abuse of love; in fact, it betrays love. When we use another person, we place their needs below our own, but worse yet, we place their value and dignity below ours.
”
”
Leah Darrow (The Other Side of Beauty: Embracing God's Vision for Love and True Worth)
“
Whatever harm I would do to another, I shall do first to myself.
As I respect and am kind to myself, so shall I respect and be kind to peers, to elders, to kits.
I claim for others the freedom to live as they wish, to think and believe as they will. I claim that freedom for myself.
I shall make each choice and live each day to my highest sense of right.
”
”
Richard Bach
“
She tried to make friends, but her peers immersed themselves in frivolities that held no interest to her. She tried to respect her elders, but most adults seemed like nothing more than aging children, lacking
”
”
Dan Brown (Inferno, Illustrated Edition (Robert Langdon, #4))
“
Part of the art of creating is in discovering your own kind. They are everywhere. But don't look for them in the wrong places"
Henry Miller
As you put yourself and your work out there, you will run into your fellow knuckleballers. These are your real peers-the people who share your obsessions, the people who share a similar mission to your own, the people with whom you share a mutual respect. There will only be a handful or so of them, but they're so, so important. Do what you can to nurture your relationships with these people. Show them work before you show anybody else. Keep them as close as you can.
”
”
Austin Kleon (Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered)
“
I am bored, Darrow. I am terminally bored. I yearn for the clash. I yearn for martial sensation. So gratitude, Reaper. Gratitude, foe, for this! The ultimate honor between peers—a conversation in the language we both have mastered. Violence. Surely there can be no greater distillation of all our mutual respect, animus, and quality.” His eyelids flare back. “Gratitude for answering my summons. Gratitude for granting me this final communion.” His eyes flick to my bald head where the first sprouts of new hair are emerging. “Depilated and dilapidated though you may be.
”
”
Pierce Brown (Light Bringer (Red Rising Saga, #6))
“
A shell in the pit," said I, "if the worst comes to worst will kill them all."
The intense excitement of the events had no doubt left my perceptive powers in a state of erethism. I remember that dinner table with extraordinary vividness even now. My dear wife's sweet anxious face peering at me from under the pink lampshade, the white cloth with it silver and glass table furniture—for in those days even philosophical writers had luxuries—the crimson-purple wine in my glass, are photographically distinct. At the end of it I sat, tempering nuts with a cigarette, regretting Ogilvy's rashness, and denouncing the shortsighted timidity of the Martians.
So some respectable dodo in the Mauritius might have lorded it in his nest, and discussed the arrival of that shipful of pitiless sailors in want of animal food. "We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear.
”
”
H.G. Wells (The War of the Worlds)
“
What an abundance of leisure the person gains who is not looking over at what his neighbor is saying, doing, or thinking, but only at what he himself is doing, in order that he does what is just and respectful of the gods. As Agathon4 said, do not peer into the darkness of another’s character, but run straight toward the finish line without straying from your path.
”
”
Jacob Needleman (The Essential Marcus Aurelius (Tarcher Cornerstone Editions))
“
But in view of the constitution, in the eye of the law, there is in this country no superior, dominant, ruling class of citizens. There is no caste here. Our constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful. The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guarantied by the supreme law of the land are involved.
”
”
John Marshall Harlan
“
When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn’t understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what. Sometimes the systems don’t work. Families spend their weekend afternoons at animal shelters, even when they’re not looking for a pet. They come to see the unwanted and unloved. The cats and dogs who don’t understand why they are these things. They are petted and combed, walked and fed, cooed over and kissed. Then they go back in their cages and sometimes tears are shed. Fuzzy faces peering through bars can be unbearable for many. Change the face to a human one and the reaction changes. The reason why is because people should know better. But our logic is skewed in this respect. A dog that bites is a dead dog. First day at the shelter and I already saw one put to sleep, which in itself is a misleading phrase. Sleep implies that you have the option of waking up. Once their bodies pass unconsciousness to something deeper where systems start to fail, they revolt a little bit, put up a fight on a molecular level. They kick. They cry. They don’t want to go. And this happens because their jaws closed over a human hand, ever so briefly. Maybe even just the once. But people, they get chances. They get the benefit of the doubt. Even though they have the higher logic functioning and they knew when they did it THEY KNEW it was a bad thing.
”
”
Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species)
“
A young lady is supposed to be classy, kind, generous, and respectful. She is told she should not display any anger and/or badmouth her peers. A young lady is told to think ‘inside the box’ and to limit her expectations because her husband will provide for her in the future.
A young lady is taught to never fuss or complain and to always keep a smile on her face. When a young lady speaks her mind, she is told that she is not acting “ladylike”.
When a young lady steps out of her comfort zone to challenge herself to fight for what she wants, she is told she is not acting “ladylike”.
When a young lady plays a sport, and at times she may be aggressive, she is told that she is not acting “ladylike”
When a young lady is bossy, she is told to humble herself, because that is not acting “ladylike”. Maybe she isn’t bossy, maybe she is confident within herself, has high self-esteem and knows she can dare to be different.
”
”
Charlena E. Jackson (A Woman's Love Is Never Good Enough)
“
It’s just how it is. Not everybody was born to be inherently ‘good’. The world is going to be filled with different characters, different flavours, different levels of respectability and whatnot, and Louis just so happens to be on the lower ranks. He’s not good, he’s not brave, and he’s not out to save anyone except himself. Even fairytales have their villains — it’s a part of life. And it’s always been that way. Louis’ always been a bit harsher around the edges. He certainly isn’t going to be winning any “Humanitarian of the Year” awards, that’s for sure. And he doesn’t mind it so much, being thoroughly unaffected by anything and everything and totally removed from his peers and their very trivial lives. Because he’s not like the rest of them. That’s the thing. They’re all the fucking same. With their money and their uppity attitudes and twattiness and their preconceived notions and recycled sentences that disappear as quickly as they come. The same.
”
”
Velvetoscar
“
It is not simply the brightest who have the best ideas; it is those who are best at harvesting ideas from others. It is not only the most determined who drive change; it is those who most fully engage with like-minded people. And it is not wealth or prestige that best motivates people; it is respect and help from peers.
”
”
Alex Pentland (Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter)
“
He was rowed down from the north in a leather skiff manned by a crew of trolls. His fur cape was caked with candle wax, his brow stained blue by wine - though the latter was seldom noticed due to the fox mask he wore at-all times. A quill in his teeth, a solitary teardrop a-squirm in his palm, he was the young poet prince of Montreal, handsome, immaculate, searching for sturdier doors to nail his poignant verses on.
In Manhattan, grit drifted into his ink bottle. In Vienna, his spice box exploded. On the Greek island of Hydra, Orpheus came to him at dawn astride a transparent donkey and restrung his cheap guitar. From that moment on, he shamelessly and willingly exposed himself to the contagion of music. To the secretly religious curiosity of the traveler was added the openly foolhardy dignity of the troubadour. By the time he returned to America, songs were working in him like bees in an attic. Connoisseurs developed cravings for his nocturnal honey, despite the fact that hearts were occasionally stung.
Now, thirty years later, as society staggers towards the millennium - nailing and screeching at the while, like an orangutan with a steak knife in its side - Leonard Cohen, his vision, his gift, his perseverance, are finally getting their due. It may be because he speaks to this wounded zeitgeist with particular eloquence and accuracy, it may be merely cultural time-lag, another example of the slow-to-catch-on many opening their ears belatedly to what the few have been hearing all along. In any case, the sparkle curtain has shredded, the boogie-woogie gate has rocked loose from its hinges, and here sits L. Cohen at an altar in the garden, solemnly enjoying new-found popularity and expanded respect.
From the beginning, his musical peers have recognized Cohen´s ability to establish succinct analogies among life´s realities, his talent for creating intimate relationships between the interior world of longing and language and the exterior world of trains and violins. Even those performers who have neither "covered" his compositions nor been overtly influenced by them have professed to admire their artfulness: the darkly delicious melodies - aural bouquets of gardenia and thistle - that bring to mind an electrified, de-Germanized Kurt Weill; the playfully (and therefore dangerously) mournful lyrics that can peel the apple of love and the peach of lust with a knife that cuts all the way to the mystery, a layer Cole Porter just could`t expose. It is their desire to honor L. Cohen, songwriter, that has prompted a delegation of our brightest artists to climb, one by one, joss sticks smoldering, the steep and salty staircase in the Tower of Song.
”
”
Tom Robbins
“
I believe in Chipotle. They have great tasting and nutritious food. And they're also a great case study for business efficiency and business resiliency. The company has no long term debt, a loyal customer base, it owns and operates all of it's stores, it has a clear business model and a clear growth path. They've got good company culture and they live by a set of values that earn the respect of their customers. In so many ways Chipotle is superior to it's peers in the restaurant industry.
”
”
Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.
“
Still, China was not a missionary society in the Western sense of the term. It sought to induce respect, not conversion; that subtle line could never be crossed. Its mission was its performance, which foreign societies were expected to recognize and acknowledge. It was possible for another country to become a friend, even an old friend, but it could never be treated as China’s peer.
”
”
Henry Kissinger (World Order)
“
No matter what I study, I can see patterns. I see the gestalt, the melody within the notes, in everything: mathematics and science, art and music, psychology and sociology. As I read the texts, I can think only that the authors are plodding along from one point to the next, groping for connections that they can’t see. They’re like a crowd of people unable to read music, peering at the score for a Bach sonata, trying to explain how one note leads to another. As glorious as these patterns are, they also whet my appetite for more. There are other patterns waiting to be discovered, gestalts of another scale entirely. With respect to those, I’m blind myself; all my sonatas are just isolated data points by comparison. I have no idea what form such gestalts might assume, but that’ll come in time. I want to find them, and comprehend them. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before.
”
”
Ted Chiang
“
books standing up and other books lying down on top of them; plump, resplendent foreign books stretching themselves comfortably, and other wretched books that peered at you from cramped and crowded conditions, lying like illegal immigrants crowded on bunks aboard ship. Heavy, respectable books in gold-tooled leather bindings, and thin books bound in flimsy paper, splendid portly gentlemen and ragged, shabby beggars, and all around and among and behind them was a sweaty mass of booklets, leaflets, pamphlets, offprints, periodicals, journals, and magazines, that noisy crowd that always congregates around any public square or marketplace.
”
”
Amos Oz (A Tale of Love and Darkness)
“
Sure enough the goldfish was swimming upside down, its boggle eyes wide and staring, its fins flapping madly at its sides. Brandon felt like the fish looked. He was anxious over how Lewis
knew he was a vet and the address of the practice he worked at.
"I don't think it has vertigo, Lewis." A professional approach was all he could think of. "Has it ever done this before?"
"He. He's not an 'it' and his name is Fluffles. I'd appreciate it if you referred to Fluffles by his name rather than a generic term demeaning him into nothing more than an object devoid of gender." Lewis cocked his head, staring unblinking. "Fluffles is a beloved pet. I demand you show him respect!"
"Ooookaaaay." Brandon pressed his lips together and released them with a loud pop. "Has Fluffles ever done this before?"
"Don't know." Lewis peered into the bag. "I've only had him forty-five minutes.
”
”
Zathyn Priest (Left of Centre)
“
We are expected to support white male supremacy in order to get a promotion, to be respected by our peers, for our children to succeed in school.
”
”
Ijeoma Oluo (Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy of White Male America)
“
It’s one thing to have the respect of your peers in the business. Their opinions are not always verbalized but if you are doing the right thing you don’t need validation.
”
”
Carlos Wallace
“
Freedom? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Happiness? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Respect of your peers? That too is in the choices you make.
”
”
Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic Journal: 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living)
“
Freedom in Christ produces a healthy independence from peer pressure, people-pleasing, and the bondage of human respect.
”
”
Brennan Manning (The Ragamuffin Gospel: Good News for the Bedraggled, Beat-Up, and Burnt Out)
“
Time and time again, they all say the same thing. The worst punishment is losing your respect and disappointing you and taking away their ability to communicate with their peers.
”
”
Rosalind Wiseman (Queen Bees and Wannabes)
“
Generous people are likely to receive more respect from their peers.
”
”
Arthur P. Ciaramicoli (The Stress Solution: Using Empathy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Reduce Anxiety and Develop Resilience)
“
All humans share a deep desire to be treated as something of value. Everyone wants to be seen, heard, listened to, and treated fairly.
”
”
Jessica Speer (Middle School - Safety Goggles Advised: Exploring the WEIRD Stuff from Gossip to Grades, Cliques to Crushes and Popularity to Peer Pressure)
“
I have raised you to respect every human being as singular. And you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman whose mind is as active as your own, whose range of feelings as vast as your own, who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddys in the nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks to loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dress making, and knows inside herself that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone.
Slavery is the same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and describes this world in essential texts. A world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave. Hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave.
And when this woman peers back into the generations, all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can imagine some future for her grandchildren, but when she dies, the world, which is really the only world she can really know, ends. For this woman enslavement is not a parable, it is damnation, it is the never ending night, and the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains, whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
”
”
Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
The fear of man is no respecter of persons. It might be called codependency by adults, peer pressure with teens, and shyness with children, but whatever it is called, it all betrays the same idolatrous heart.
”
”
Edward T. Welch (When People Are Big and God is Small: Overcoming Peer Pressure, Codependency, and the Fear of Man (Resources for Changing Lives))
“
To many successful, achievement-oriented children of the affluent, accumulating money is not the superordinate goal. Instead, they want to be well educated, to be respected by their peers, and to occupy a high-status position. For
”
”
Thomas J. Stanley (The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy)
“
Kristin comes down the stairs, and the pressure on my chest snaps. I take a moment to turn away, inhaling deeply, blinking away tears. She sets the plate on a table behind the couch, and half tiptoes back up the stairs.
Thank god. I don’t think I could have handled maternal attention right this second. My body feels like it’s on a hair trigger.
I need to get it together. This is why people avoid me. Someone asks if I want a drink and I have a panic attack.
“You’re okay.” Declan is beside me, and his voice is low and soft, the way it was in the foyer. He’s so hard all the time, and that softness takes me by surprise. I blink up at him.
“You’re okay,” he says again.
I like that, how he’s so sure. Not Are you okay? No question about it.
You’re okay.
He lifts one shoulder in a half shrug. “But if you’re going to lose it, this is a pretty safe place to fall apart.” He takes two cookies from the plate, then holds one out to me. “Here. Eat your feelings.”
I’m about to turn him down, but then I look at the cookie. I was expecting something basic, like sugar or chocolate chip. This looks like a miniature pie, and sugar glistens across the top. “What . . . is that?”
“Pecan pie cookies,” says Rev. He’s taken about five of them, and I think he might have shoved two in his mouth at once. “I could live on them for days.”
I take the one Declan offered and nibble a bit from the side. It is awesome.
I peer up at him sideways. “How did you know?”
He hesitates, but he doesn’t ask me what I mean. “I know the signs.”
“I’m going to get some sodas,” Rev says slowly, deliberately. “I’m going to bring you one. Blink once if that’s okay.”
I smile, but it feels watery around the edges. He’s teasing me, but it’s gentle teasing. Friendly. I blink once.
This is okay. I’m okay. Declan was right.
“Take it out on the punching bag,” calls Rev. “That’s what I do.”
My eyes go wide. “Really?”
“Do whatever you want,” says Declan. “As soon as we do anything meaningful, the baby will wake up.”
Rev returns with three sodas. “We’re doing something meaningful right now.”
“We are?” I say.
He meets my eyes. “Every moment is meaningful.”
The words could be cheesy—should be cheesy, in fact—but he says them with enough weight that I know he means them. I think of The Dark and all our talk of paths and loss and guilt.
Declan sighs and pops the cap on his soda. “This is where Rev starts to freak people out.”
“No,” I say, feeling like this afternoon could not be more surreal. Something about Rev’s statement steals some of my earlier guilt, to think that being here could carry as much weight as paying respects to my mother. I wish I knew how to tell whether this is a path I’m supposed to be on. “No, I like it. Can I really punch the bag?”
Rev shrugs and takes a sip of his soda. “It’s either that or we can break out the Play-Doh
”
”
Brigid Kemmerer (Letters to the Lost (Letters to the Lost, #1))
“
So what," the Chelgrian asked, "is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?"
The avatar raised its brows in surprise. "Well, for one thing, you do it, it's you who gets the feeling of achievement."
"Ignoring the subjective. What would be the point for those listening to it?"
"They'd know it was one of their own species, not a Mind, who created it."
"Ignoring that, too; suppose they weren't told it was by an AI, or didn't care."
"If they hadn't been told then the comparison isn't complete; information is being concealed. If they don't care, then they're unlike any group of humans I've ever encountered."
"But if you can—"
"Ziller, are concerned that Minds—AIs, if you like—can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?"
"Frankly, when they're the sort of original works of art that I create, yes."
"Ziller, it doesn't matter. You have to think like a mountain climber."
"Oh, do I?"
"Yes. Some people take days, sweat buckets, endure pain and cold and risk injury and—in some cases—permanent death to achieve the summit of a mountain only to discover there a party of their peers freshly arrived by aircraft and enjoying a light picnic."
"If I was one of those climbers I'd be pretty damned annoyed."
"Well, it is considered rather impolite to land an aircraft on a summit which people are at that moment struggling up to the hard way, but it can and does happen. Good manners indicate that the picnic ought to be shared and that those who arrived by aircraft express awe and respect for the accomplishment of the climbers.
"The point, of course, is that the people who spent days and sweated buckets could also have taken an aircraft to the summit if all they'd wanted was to absorb the view. It is the struggle that they crave. The sense of achievement is produced by the route to and from the peak, not by the peak itself. It is just the fold between the pages." The avatar hesitated. It put its head a little to one side and narrowed its eyes. "How far do I have to take this analogy, Cr. Ziller?
”
”
Iain M. Banks (Look to Windward (Culture, #7))
“
The most effective and efficient means of maintaining high standards of performance on a team is peer pressure. More than any policy or system, there is nothing like the fear of letting down respected teammates to motivate people to improve their performance.
”
”
Patrick Lencioni (The Five Dysfunctions of a team Summarized for Busy People)
“
Many adults have not attained maturity — have not mastered being independent, self-motivated individuals capable of tending their own emotional needs and of respecting the needs of others. Among the several reasons why maturity is less and less prevalent today, peer orientation is probably the main culprit. Immaturity and peer orientation go hand in hand. The earlier the onset of peer orientation in a child's life and the more intense the preoccupation with peers, the greater the likelihood of being destined to perpetual childishness.
”
”
Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
“
At the same time, however, the collective behavior of Reserve Police Battalion 101 has deeply disturbing implications. There are many societies afflicted by traditions of racism and caught in the siege mentality of war or threat of war. Everywhere society conditions people to respect and defer to authority, and indeed could scarcely function otherwise. Everywhere people seek career advancement. In every modern society, the complexity of life and the resulting bureaucratization and specialization attenuate the sense of personal responsibility of those implementing official policy. Within virtually every social collective, the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. If the men of Reserve Battalion 101 could become killers under such circumstances, what group of men cannot?
”
”
Christopher R. Browning (Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland)
“
In the valley, Faye tried to stop her ears against the constant gossip of a small town, whose opinions pushed in through the windows and crept under the doors. Mother often described herself as a pleaser: she said she couldn’t stop herself from speculating what people wanted her to be, and from contorting herself, compulsively, unwillingly, into whatever it was. Living in her respectable house in the center of town, crowded by four other houses, each so near anyone could peer through the windows and whisper a judgment, Faye felt trapped.
”
”
Tara Westover (Educated)
“
In an aggressive culture, non-HSPs are favored, and that fact will be obvious everywhere. Even in the study of pumpkinseed sunfish described above, the U.S. biologists writing the article described the sunfish that went into the traps as the “bold” fish, who behaved “normally.” The others were “shy.” But were the untrapped fish really feeling shy? Why not smug? After all, one could as easily describe them as the smart sunfish, the others as the stupid ones. No one knows what the sunfish felt, but the biologists were certain because their culture had taught them to be. Those who hesitate are afraid; those who do not are normal. (Science is always filtered through culture—the true image is not lost but sure can be tinted.) Here’s a good study to remember: Research comparing elementary school children in Shanghai to those in Canada found that sensitive, quiet children in China were among the most respected by their peers, and in Canada they were among the least respected. HSPs growing up in cultures in which they are not respected have to be affected by this lack of respect.
”
”
Elaine N. Aron (The Highly Sensitive Person in Love: Understanding and Managing Relationships When the World Overwhelms You)
“
He joined with his peers in sneering at the New Bushido as a code for faggots, but an ancient vein of honor in the young Kassad’s soul secretly resonated to the thought of a samurai class whose life and work revolved around duty, self-respect, and the ultimate value of one’s word.
”
”
Dan Simmons (Hyperion (Hyperion Cantos, #1))
“
Work in the Federation is not a matter of compulsion or survival. Federation citizens need not perform tasks or exercise professions that do not suit their inclinations just so that they can afford to put food on the table and enjoy the respect of their peers. … What makes the Federation so appealing … It is the nature and meaning of work. It is almost a paradox to state it this way, but in a society where nothing is scarce and consequently where work is no longer a prerequisite for survival, finding good reasons to work becomes paramount, the defining existential question that everyone has to ask themselves. Why work at all if it’s not necessary? Because learning, making, and sharing is what makes life in the Federation worth living. Work, no longer a necessary burden, is the glue that holds the Federation together. It is the social bond and the social contract that impart substance and significance to life.
”
”
Manu Saadia (Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek)
“
Luxury beliefs’ are the latest status symbol for rich Americans” by Rob Henderson
New York Post, August 3, 2022
In the past, upper-class Americans used to display their social status with luxury goods. Today, they do it with luxury beliefs.
People care a lot about social status. In fact, research indicates that respect and admiration from our peers are even more important than money for our sense of well-being.
...as trendy clothes and other products become more accessible and affordable, there is increasingly less status attached to luxury goods.
The upper classes have found a clever solution to this problem: luxury beliefs. These are ideas and opinions that confer status on the rich at very little cost, while taking a toll on the lower class.
‘Upper-class people don a luxury belief to separate themselves from the lower class’ ...
White privilege is the luxury belief that took me the longest to understand, because I grew up around poor whites. Often members of the upper-class claim that racial disparities stem from inherent advantages held by whites. Yet Asian Americans are more educated, have higher earnings and live longer than whites. Affluent whites are the most enthusiastic about the idea of white privilege, yet they are the least likely to incur any costs for promoting that belief. Rather, they raise their social standing by talking about their privilege.
In other words, upper-class whites gain status by talking about their high status. When laws are enacted to combat white privilege, it won’t be the privileged whites who are harmed. Poor whites will bear the brunt.
... like with diamond rings or designer clothes of old, upper-class people don a luxury belief to separate themselves from the lower class. These beliefs, in turn, produce real, tangible consequences for disadvantaged people, further widening the divide.
”
”
Rob Henderson
“
people are insecure, they’re not at their best. If they don’t feel like they have the respect of their peers or their boss, they try to boost themselves through self-promotion. Instead of focusing on their work and feeling good about what they produce, they get sidetracked worrying about what other people think.
”
”
Tom Kelley (Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All)
“
when people are insecure, they’re not at their best. If they don’t feel like they have the respect of their peers or their boss, they try to boost themselves through self-promotion. Instead of focusing on their work and feeling good about what they produce, they get sidetracked worrying about what other people think.
”
”
Tom Kelley (Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All)
“
Bucket had started his criminal career in Braas, not far from when Allan and his new friends now found themselves. There he had gotten together with some like-minded peers and started the motorcycle club called The Violence. Bucket was the leader; he decided which newsstand was to be robbed of cigarettes next. He was the one who has chosen the name- The Violence, in English, not swedish. And he was the one who unfortunately asked his girlfriend Isabella to sew the name of the motorcycle club onto ten newly stolen leather jackets. Isabella had never really learned to spell properly at school, not in Swedish, and certainly not in English.
The result was that Isabella sewed The Violins on the jackets instead. As the rest of the club members had had similar academic success, nobody in the group noticed the mistake.
So everyone was very surprised when one day a letter arrived for The Violins in Braas from the people in charge of the concert hall in Vaxjo. The letter suggested that, since the club obviously concerned itself with classical music, they might like to put in am appearance at a concert with the city’s prestigious chamber orchestra, Musica Viate.
Bucket felt provoked; somebody was clearly making fun of him. One night he skipped the newsstand, and instead went into Vaxjo to throw a brick through the glass door of the concert hall. This was intended to teach the people responsible lesson in respect. It all went well, except that Bucket’s leather glove happened to follow the stone into the lobby. Since the alarm went off immediately, Bucket felt it would be unwise to try to retrieve the personal item in question.
Losing the glove was not good. Bucket had traveled to Vaxjo by motorbike and one hand was extremely cold all the way home to Braas that night. Even worse was the fact that Bucket’s luckless girlfriend had written Bucket’s name and adress inside the glove, in case he lost it."
For more quotes from the novel visit my blog: frommybooks.wordpress.com
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Jonas Jonasson (The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared (The Hundred-Year-Old Man, #1))
“
The whole point of being a token is that you exchange your rage at inequality for the respect and admiration of your peers. You trade in your right to be angry, to be dissatisfied, for the right to be hugged and affirmed by those around you. You stop pointing out the ways in which people are hurting you or making your identity feel impossible, and unless it is self-serving, you stop pointing out the fact that you are the only one like you. You take the fact that there is only one of you (or, in my case, that there are very few like you), and instead of treating that fact as what it is—damning evidence of exclusion and discrimination—you treat it as evidence that you are special.
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Jacob Tobia (Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story)
“
Significantly, in future feminist movement we will spend less time critiquing patriarchal marriage bonds and expend more effort showing alternatives, showing the value of peer relationships which are founded on principles of equality, respect, and the belief that mutual satisfaction and growth are needed for partnerships to be fulfilling and lasting.
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bell hooks
“
Gor," she breathed when she picked up the nearly empty tureen. "Someone done eat the soup!"
"Never!" Angus said, his eyes as wide as saucers.
"All of it," she said, holding the tureen toward Angus.
He peered into it as if expecting to see a hole in the bottom. "Well, I'll be."
"It was excellent," Dougal said.
Angus sent Dougal a look of respect. "Ye must have an iron stomach."
"Indeed," Mary said, a worried look on her face. "I beg yer pardon, me lord, but do ye feel well? There was a bit of pepper in that soup."
Dougal shrugged. "I'm fine. And I must get that recipe to give to my own chef."
"Gor!" Mary blinked at him, unable to look away.
Angus did the same.
Dougal smiled inquiringly at Sophia. "I feel as if I've become an exhibit at the British Museum.
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Karen Hawkins (To Catch a Highlander (MacLean Curse, #3))
“
Whatever any of us may have thought about Hatsumomo, she was like an empress in our okiya since she earned the income be which we all lived. And being an empress she would have been very displeased, upon returning late at night, to find her palace dark and all the servants asleep. That is to say, when she came home too drunk to unbutton her socks, someone had to unbutton them for her; and if she felt hungry, she certainly wasn't going to stroll into the kitchen and prepare something by herself--such as an umeboshi ochazuke, which was a favorite snack of hers, made with leftover rice and pickled sour plums, soaked in hot tea. Actually our okiya wasn't at all unusual in this respect. The job of waiting up to bow and welcome the geisha home almost always fell to the most junior of the "cocoons"--as the young geisha-in-training were often called. And from the moment I began taking lessons at the school, the most junior cocoon in our okiya was me. Long before midnight, Pumpkin and the two elderly maids were sound asleep on their futons only a meter or so away on the wood floor of the entrance hall; but I had to go on kneeling there, struggling to stay awake until sometimes as late as two o'clock in the morning. Granny's room was nearby and she slept with her light on and her door opened a crack. The bar of light that fell across my empty futon made me think of a day, not long before Satsu [Chiyo's sister] and I were taken away from our village, when I'd peered into the back room of our house to see my mother asleep there. My father had draped fishing nets across the paper screens to darken the room, but it looked so gloomy I decided to open one of the windows; and when I did, a strip of bright sunlight fell across my mother's futon and showed her hand so pale and bony. To see the yellow lights streaming from Granny's room onto my futon...I had to wonder if my mother was still alive. We ere so much alike, I felt sure I would have known if she'd died; but of course, I'd had no sign one way or the other.
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Arthur Golden (Memoirs of a Geisha)
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The absence of the father creates a hole in the center of their being, particularly for boys. Their lives become a routine of "looking for love in all the wrong places," as the song says. When a young black male cannot find love at home, he hits the streets and seeks acceptance from other young men. These boys crave the respect and acceptance they get (or perceive they get) from their peers when they sell drugs.
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Jesse Lee Peterson (Scam: How the Black Leadership Exploits Black America)
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By midway through Kindergarten- that's age five or six- they've learned from their peers to knock that stuff off, at least in public: to disconnect from feelings, shun intimacy, and become hierarchical in their behavior. The lifelong physical and mental health consequences of that gender performance are ingrained as early as ten. By fourteen boys become convinced that other guys will "lose respect" for them if they talk about problems.
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Peggy Orenstein (Boys & Sex: Young Men on Hookups, Love, Porn, Consent, and Navigating the New Masculinity)
“
These nigilistki, the nihilist women of the 1860s, were deadly serious about living their convictions. They wore their hair short and their dresses dark and plain because they didn’t want to be decorative objects. They studied and developed their minds and personalities and demanded respect from their male peers—often successfully. Preaching total freedom in love and sex, they wed their radical brethren in sham marriages to escape their parents’ control.12
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Julia Ioffe (Motherland: A Feminist History of Modern Russia, from Revolution to Autocracy – A National Book Award Finalist: Women's Stories of Idealism, War, and Sacrifice)
“
You could have chosen any number of career paths, but this one is
exciting. It’s creative. It requires deep thinking and rewards you with
a sense of being able to do something that most of the people you meet
each day can’t imagine being able to do. We may worry about progressing
to the next level, making an impact, or gaining respect from
our co-workers or our peers in the industry, but if you really stop to
think about it, we’ve got it really good.
Software development is both challenging and rewarding. It’s creative
like an art-form, but (unlike art) it provides concrete,measurable value.
Software development is fun!
Ultimately, the most important thing I’ve learned over the journey that
my career in software development has been is that it’s not what you
do for a living or what you have that’s important. It’s how you choose to
accept these things. It’s internal. Satisfaction, like our career choices, is something that should be sought after and decided upon with intention.
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Chad Fowler (The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development (Pragmatic Life))
“
I have raised you to respect every human being as singular, and you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is particular, specific enslaved woman, whose mind is active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast as your own; who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddies in a nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks too loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dressmaking and knows, inside herself, that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. 'Slavery' is this same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and inscribes this love in its essential texts, a world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when this woman peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved. she can hope for more. But when she dies, the world - which is really the only world she can ever know - ends. For this woman, enslavement is not a parable. It is damnation. It is the never-ending night. And the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains - whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains.
You must struggle to truly remember this past in all its nuance, error, and humanity. You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance - not matter how improved - as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this. Perhaps our triumphs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
“
All he had ever wanted was to tell—in the best possible words, arranged in the best possible order—the stories inside him. He had been more than willing to do the apprenticeship and the work. He had been humble with his teachers and respectful of his peers. He had acceded to the editorial notes of his agent (when he’d had one) and bowed to the red pencil of his editor (when he’d had one) without complaint. He had supported the other writers he’d known and admired (even the ones he hadn’t particularly admired) by attending their readings and actually purchasing their books (in hardcover! at independent bookstores!) and he had acquitted himself as the best teacher, mentor, cheerleader, and editor that he’d known how to be, despite the (to be frank) utter hopelessness of most of the writing he was given to work with. And where had he arrived, for all of that? He was a deck attendant on the Titanic, moving the chairs around with fifteen ungifted prose writers while somehow persuading them that additional work would help them improve.
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Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Plot (The Book Series, #1))
“
The American Revolution and its aftermath coincided with two great transformations in the late eighteenth century. In the political sphere, there had been a repudiation of royal rule, fired by a new respect for individual freedom, majority rule, and limited government. If Hamilton made distinguished contributions in this sphere, so did Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison. In contrast, when it came to the parallel economic upheavals of the period—the industrial revolution, the expansion of global trade, the growth of banks and stock exchanges—Hamilton was an American prophet without peer. No other founding father straddled both of these revolutions—only Franklin even came close—and therein lay Hamilton’s novelty and greatness. He was the clear-eyed apostle of America's economic future, setting forth a vision that many found enthralling, others unsettling, but that would ultimately prevail. He stood squarely on the modern side of a historical divide that seemed to separate him from other founders. Small wonder he aroused such fear and confusion.
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Ron Chernow (Alexander Hamilton)
“
I pledge always to demonstrate respect for myself. I pledge always to demonstrate respect for my peers. I pledge always to demonstrate respect for my teachers. I pledge always to demonstrate respect for every adult in my school. I pledge always to demonstrate respect for my parents. I pledge never to resort to fighting or uncontrollable arguing to solve my problems. I pledge never to use or sell drugs. I pledge never to join a gang. I pledge never to engage in criminal activity. I pledge always to strive to be the best young man that I can be.
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Baruti K. Kafele (Motivating Black Males to Achieve in School and in Life)
“
We wanted to be accepted by our fellows, especially the influential natural leaders among us; and the ethos of my peers was – until my last year at Oundle – anti-intellectual. You had to pretend to be working less hard than you actually were. Native ability was respected; hard work was not. It was the same on the sports field. Sportsmen were admired more than scholars in any case. But if you could achieve sporting brilliance without training, so much the better. Why is native ability more admired than hard graft? Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
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Richard Dawkins (An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of a Scientist)
“
Neurath asked Dodd whether the United States “did not have a Jewish problem” of its own. “You know, of course,” Dodd said, “that we have had difficulty now and then in the United States with Jews who had gotten too much of a hold on certain departments of intellectual and business life.” He added that some of his peers in Washington had told him confidentially that “they appreciated the difficulties of the Germans in this respect but that they did not for a moment agree with the method of solving the problem which so often ran into utter ruthlessness.
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Erik Larson (In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin)
“
Hey Pete. So why the leave from social media? You are an activist, right? It seems like this decision is counterproductive to your message and work."
A: The short answer is I’m tired of the endless narcissism inherent to the medium. In the commercial society we have, coupled with the consequential sense of insecurity people feel, as they impulsively “package themselves” for public consumption, the expression most dominant in all of this - is vanity. And I find that disheartening, annoying and dangerous. It is a form of cultural violence in many respects. However, please note the difference - that I work to promote just that – a message/idea – not myself… and I honestly loath people who today just promote themselves for the sake of themselves. A sea of humans who have been conditioned into viewing who they are – as how they are seen online. Think about that for a moment. Social identity theory run amok.
People have been conditioned to think “they are” how “others see them”. We live in an increasing fictional reality where people are now not only people – they are digital symbols. And those symbols become more important as a matter of “marketing” than people’s true personality. Now, one could argue that social perception has always had a communicative symbolism, even before the computer age. But nooooooothing like today. Social media has become a social prison and a strong means of social control, in fact.
Beyond that, as most know, social media is literally designed like a drug. And it acts like it as people get more and more addicted to being seen and addicted to molding the way they want the world to view them – no matter how false the image (If there is any word that defines peoples’ behavior here – it is pretention). Dopamine fires upon recognition and, coupled with cell phone culture, we now have a sea of people in zombie like trances looking at their phones (literally) thousands of times a day, merging their direct, true interpersonal social reality with a virtual “social media” one. No one can read anymore... they just swipe a stream of 200 character headlines/posts/tweets. understanding the world as an aggregate of those fragmented sentences. Massive loss of comprehension happening, replaced by usually agreeable, "in-bubble" views - hence an actual loss of variety.
So again, this isn’t to say non-commercial focused social media doesn’t have positive purposes, such as with activism at times. But, on the whole, it merely amplifies a general value system disorder of a “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT HOW GREAT I AM!” – rooted in systemic insecurity. People lying to themselves, drawing meaningless satisfaction from superficial responses from a sea of avatars.
And it’s no surprise. Market economics demands people self promote shamelessly, coupled with the arbitrary constructs of beauty and success that have also resulted. People see status in certain things and, directly or pathologically, use those things for their own narcissistic advantage. Think of those endless status pics of people rock climbing, or hanging out on a stunning beach or showing off their new trophy girl-friend, etc. It goes on and on and worse the general public generally likes it, seeking to imitate those images/symbols to amplify their own false status. Hence the endless feedback loop of superficiality.
And people wonder why youth suicides have risen… a young woman looking at a model of perfection set by her peers, without proper knowledge of the medium, can be made to feel inferior far more dramatically than the typical body image problems associated to traditional advertising. That is just one example of the cultural violence inherent.
The entire industry of social media is BASED on narcissistic status promotion and narrow self-interest. That is the emotion/intent that creates the billions and billions in revenue these platforms experience, as they in turn sell off people’s personal data to advertisers and governments. You are the product, of course.
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Peter Joseph
“
By my latest count, there have been 340 peer-reviewed articles published on TM,1 many of which have appeared in highly respected journals. For those unfamiliar with scientific publishing, “peer-reviewed” means that each article is subjected to scrutiny by independent reviewers who are authorities in their field. Even if the reviewers deem the article worthy, they typically suggest changes; only after these recommendations have been addressed does the paper get published. As a researcher who has been both reviewer and reviewee, I can vouch for the large amount of work that goes into this process.
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Norman E. Rosenthal (Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation)
“
He peered up at the house.
“I know you’re finished in there, Blake. May as well come out.”
I breathed a silent sigh.
Blake strolled onto the deck wearing low-slung skater shorts and flip-flops. Being shirtless must’ve been mandatory in California. I kind of wished they’d get dressed so I could focus properly when I told them about the prophecy. Blake joined us beside the pool.
“So . . . ,” said Blake, rocking back on his heels. “Lover’s quarrel over?”
“We’re not lovers,” Kaidan and I said together.
“What’s stopping you?” Blake smiled.
“What’s stopping you and Ginger?” Kaidan asked.
“An ocean, man. Fu—” He glanced at me. “Uh . . . eff you.”
“Eff me?” Kaidan asked, grinning. “No, eff you, mate.”
Blake put a fist over his mouth when he caught what must have been a seething look on my face, and he laughed, punching Kaidan in the arm.
“Told you, man! She’s pissed about the cursing thing! Ginger was right.”
I shook my head. I wouldn’t look at them. I was too humiliated to deny it.
“Girl, all you have to do is say the word, and Mr. Lusty McLust a Lot here will be happy to whisper some dirty nothings in your ear.”
Kaidan half grinned, sexuality rolling off him as wild as the Pacific below us.
I took a shaky breath.
“I don’t appreciate when people are fake with me.” I pointed this statement at Kaidan.
Okay, calling him a fake was overboard, especially if he was just being respectful. But my feelings were bruised and battered. If Kai wasn’t going to forgive me or be willing to talk, I couldn’t hang around and deal with his bad attitude. It hurt too much, and the unfairness frustrated me to no end. “If you guys will sit down and shut up for a minute, I’ll tell you what I came here to say, and then I’m out of here. You two can find someone else to make fun of.”
They both wiped the smiles from their faces. I pulled a padded lawn chair over and sat. They moved a couple of chairs closer, giving me their attention.
”
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Wendy Higgins (Sweet Peril (Sweet, #2))
“
He’s happy, and that’s all I ever wanted for him.” Dex noticed the way Sloane peered at Lou. Did he not believe Lou? Then again, he didn’t know Lou and therefore had no reason to. “You were flirting with him.” “Before he told me he was seeing someone. Look, I know you’re probably expecting me to be the evil ex who comes swooping in trying to dig my claws into him, take back what I think is mine, and all that campy drama, but I’m not. I respect him, and I would never come between him and someone he cares about. I had my chance, and I blew it. So take it from me. Don’t blow it. I would, however, like to be his friend. Would that be acceptable to you?” Dex
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Charlie Cochet (Blood & Thunder (THIRDS, #2))
“
Hello, Gwyn,' he said warmly. 'Good to see you again.'
Gwyn blushed, shaking herself out of her stupor and bowed low. 'My lord.'
Nesta rolled her eyes, and found Rhys watching her. That casual smile sharpened as he met her stare. 'Nesta.'
'Rhysand.'
The other two women were glancing between them, the bouncing of their stares almost comical. Cassian just strode to Nesta's side and slung an arm around her shoulders before drawling to Rhys, 'These ladies are going to hand your ass to you in combat soon enough.'
Nesta made to step out from under the heavy, sweaty weight of his arm, but Cassian clamped a too-friendly hand on her shoulder, his grin unfaltering. Rhys's gaze slid between them, little warmth to be found in his eyes. But plenty of wariness.
Little princeling didn't like her with his friend.
Nesta leaned into Cassian. Not much, but enough for a trained warrior like Rhysand to note.
A dark, silken hand brushed inside her mind. A request.
She debated ignoring it, but found herself opening a small door through the steel, spiked barrier she kept around herself day and night. The door was essentially a peephole, and she allowed what she supposed was the equivalent of her mental face to peer through it to the dark, sparkling plane beyond. What?
You are to treat Gwyn with kindness and respect.
The thing that stood beyond the fortress of her mind was a creature of claws, scales and teeth. It was veiled from sight beneath writhing shadows and the occasional passing star glinting in the darkness, but every now and then, a glimpse of a wing or talon shone.
Mind your own business. Nesta slammed the small viewing hole shut.
She blinked, slowly registering Emerie asking Cassian about tomorrow morning's lesson, and what she'd miss today by leaving an hour early.
Rhysand's eyes glimmered.
Cassian's arm remained around Nesta, and his thumb moved over her shoulder in an idle, reassuring caress. Whether he knew of or sensed her silent conversation with his High Lord, he didn't let on.
”
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #5))
“
There is a foolproof way to distinguish peer-distorted counterwill from the genuine drive for autonomy: the maturing, individuating child resists coercion whatever the source may be, including pressure from peers. In healthy rebellion, true independence is the goal. One does not seek freedom from one person only to succumb to the influence and will of another. When counterwill is the result of skewed attachments, the liberty that the child strives for is not the liberty to be his true self but the opportunity to conform to his peers. To do so, he will suppress his own feelings and camouflage his own opinions, should they differ from those of his peers.
Are we saying that it may not be natural, for example, that a teenager may want to stay out late with his friends? No, the teen may want to hang out with his pals not because he is driven by peer orientation, but simply because on occasion that's just what he feels like doing. The question is, is he willing to discuss the matter with his parents? Is he respectful of their perspective? Is he able to say no to his friends when he has other responsibilities or family events or when he simply may prefer being on his own? The peer-oriented teenager will brook no obstacle and experiences intense frustration when his need for peer contact is thwarted. He is unable to assert himself in the face of peer expectations and will, proportionately, resent and oppose his parents’ desires.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
“
In this view of the problem, regulations that limit exposure to ionizing radiation are not really contrary to the will of those affected by them. Dworkin and others are arguing, in effect, that with the wisdom of hindsight, people would often resent not having been prevented from behaving in self-destructive ways when they were younger. Regulators who respect Mill’s plea must still decide whose will deserves greater weight—that of the current self or that of the future self? To rule in favor of the future self is to limit the current self’s freedom of action, yes. But failure to restrict the current self ignores the future self’s well-considered wish to be protected against being harmed by his current self’s myopic choices.
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Robert H. Frank (Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work)
“
He was a very private person, unemotional and undemonstrative in public. To a great degree he was unconcerned about his image, caring little for “glory” in the conventional sense. His gods were logic and reason. The character of Mr. Spock in the popular science-fiction series“Star Trek” could easily have been patterned after Spruance. The admiral competed not with others but with his own impossibly high selfexpectations, and that is the way he judged his successes and failures. A man who relied on deeds rather than words to make his mark, Spruance seemed oblivious to what posterity would think of him. He did not like to speak publicly, nor did he do much writing if he could avoid it. He authored no wordy, self-justifying memoirs. His achievements, intellect, and integrity were responsible for the great respect accorded him by his peers.
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Robert Timberg (The Nightingale’s Song)
“
In 2021 the respected journal Nature Medicine published a peer-reviewed, placebo-controlled trial on psychedelic assisted treatment of trauma. The results were impressive. With just three, medically supervised sessions using MDMA, 67 per cent no longer had PTSD – more than double the placebo group. There was no increased risk of abuse and, crucially, those with dissociation responded as well as those without.3 Given the special skills otherwise required to navigate dissociation, this latter finding was a big deal. There are currently over a hundred psychedelic-assisted therapy trials being conducted worldwide. It would appear that these drugs allow a resetting of a part of the brain known as the ‘Default Mode Network’ (DMN) that otherwise holds on to recurring, distressing thoughts – especially around guilt and shame. During REM/dreaming sleep the DMN fires up, but the normal resetting process fails with overwhelming trauma.
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Jeni Haynes (The Girl in the Green Dress)
“
had prepared myself for the likelihood that I would fail. In fact, the entire field of theoretical physics prepares you to cope with disappointments and failure. For theoretical physicists, a best-case scenario is one where only nine out of ten of your ideas are wrong—and even then, most of us never know that we were correct one-tenth of the time, because opportunities for theoretical physicists to test their new ideas observationally are rare. But where observations fail, the scrutiny of peers comes to the rescue. The theoretical physics community operates like an extended family. The bond among its members is based not on blood but on a deep respect for one another’s views. Of course, as in any family, respect has to be earned the hard way—in our case, by contributing to groundbreaking ideas and advancing knowledge. To that end, we scrutinize, criticize, and work hard to pinpoint logical flaws in the ideas of our colleagues as well as in our own. Even if we rip apart each other’s reasoning, we remain united by our shared pursuit of the same goal: to learn the true answer to the mysteries of nature.
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Laura Mersini-Houghton (Before the Big Bang: The Origin of the Universe and What Lies Beyond)
“
Violent atrocities by teenagers against one another have become the stuff of headlines: at Columbine High School in Colorado; in Tabor, Alberta; in Liverpool, England. But to focus on the grim statistics and media stories of bloody violence is to miss the full impact of children's aggression in our society. The most telling signs of the groundswell of aggression and violence are not in the headlines but in the peer culture — the language, the music, the games, the art, and the entertainment of choice.
A culture reflects the dynamics of its participants, and the culture of peer-oriented children is increasingly a culture of aggression and violence. The appetite for violence is reflected in the vicarious enjoyment of it not only in music and movies but in the schoolyards and school halls. Children fuel hostilities among their peers rather than defuse them, encourage others to fight rather than dissuade them from violence. The perpetrators are only the tip of the iceberg.
In one schoolyard study, researchers found that most schoolchildren were likely to passively support or actively encourage acts of bullying and aggression; fewer than one in eight attempted to intervene. So ingrained have the culture and psychology of violence become that peers in general expressed more respect and liking for the bullies than for the victims.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
“
We are nobler. Loyalty, magnanimity, care for one's reputation: these three united in a single disposition we call noble, and in this quality we excel the Greeks. Let us not abandon it, as we might be tempted to do as a result of feeling that the ancient objects of these virtues have lost in estimation (and rightly), but see to it that this precious inherited drive is applied to new objects. To grasp how, from the viewpoint of our own aristocracy, which is still chivalrous and feudal in nature, the disposition of even the noblest Greeks has to seem of a lower sort and, indeed, hardly decent, one should recall the words with which Odysseus comforted himself in ignominious situations: 'Endure it, my dear heart! you have already endured the lowest things!' And, as a practical application of this mythical model, one should add the story of the Athenian officer who, threatened with a stick by another officer in the presence of the entire general staff, shook this disgrace from himself with the words: 'Hit me! But also hear me!' (This was Themistocles, that dextrous Odysseus of the classical age, who was certainly the man to send down to his 'dear heart' those lines of consolation at so shameful a moment.) The Greeks were far from making as light of life and death on account of an insult as we do under the impress of inherited chivalrous adventurousness and desire for self-sacrifice; or from Seeking out opportunities for risking both in a game of honour, as we do in duels; or from valuing a good name (honour) more highly than the acquisition of a bad name if the latter is compatible with fame and the feeling of power; or from remaining loyal to their class prejudices and articles of faith if these could hinder them from becoming tyrants. For this is the ignoble secret of every good Greek aristocrat: out of the profoundest jealousy he considers each of his peers to stand on an equal footing with him, but is prepared at any moment to leap like a tiger upon his prey, which is rule over them all: what are lies, murder, treachery, selling his native city, to him then! This species of man found justice extraordinarily difficult and regarded it as something nearly incredible; 'the just man' sounded to the Greeks like 'the saint' does among Christians. But when Socrates went so far as to say: 'the virtuous man is the happiest man' they did not believe their ears and fancied they had heard something insane. For when he pictures the happiest man, every man of noble origin included in the picture the perfect ruthlessness and devilry of the tyrant who sacrifices everyone and everything to his arrogance and pleasure. Among people who secretly revelled in fantasies of this kind of happiness, respect for the state could, to be sure, not be implanted deeply enough but I think that people whose lust for power no longer rages as blindly as that of those noble Greeks also no longer require the idolisation of the concept of the state with which that lust was formerly kept in check.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality)
“
Nesta, it should not have come out as it did.'
'Did Cassian tell you that?' He'd gone to Feyre, rather than here?
'No, but I can guess as much. He didn't want to keep anything from you.'
'My issue isn't with Cassian.' Nesta levelled her stare at Amren. 'I trusted you to have my back.'
'I stopped having your back the moment you decided to use that loyalty as a shield against everyone else.'
Nesta snarled, but Feyre stepped between them, hands raised. 'This conversation ends now. Nesta, go back to the House. Amren, you...' She hesitated, as if considering the wisdom of ordering Amren around. Feyre finished carefully, 'You stay here.'
Nesta let out a low laugh. 'You are her High Lady. You don't need to cater to her. Not when she now has less power than any of you.'
Feyre's eyes blazed. 'Amren is my friend, and has been a member of this court for centuries. I offer her respect.'
'Is it respect that she offers you?' Nesta spat. 'It is respect that your mate offers you?'
Feyre went still.
Amren warned, 'Don't you say one more fucking word, Nesta Archeron.'
Feyre asked, 'What do you mean?'
And Nesta didn't care. Couldn't think around the roaring. 'Have any of them told you, their respected High lady, that the babe in your womb will kill you?'
Amren barked, 'Shut your mouth!'
But her order was confirmation enough. Face paling, Feyre whispered again, 'What do you mean?'
'The wings,' Nesta seethed. 'The boy's Illyrian wings will get stuck in your Fae body during the labour, and it will kill you both.'
Silence rippled through the room, the world.
Feyre breathed, 'Madja just said that the labour would be risky. But the Bone Carver... The son he showed me didn't have wings.' Her voice broke. 'Did he only show me what I wanted to see.'
'I don't know,' Nesta said. 'But I do know that your mate ordered everyone not to inform you of the truth.' She turned to Amren. 'Did you all vote on that, too? Did you talk about her, judge her, and deem her unworthy of the truth? What was your vote, Amren? To let Feyre die in ignorance?' Before Amren could reply, Nesta turned back to her sister. 'Didn't you question why your precious, perfect Rhysand has been a moody bastard for weeks? Because he knows you will die. He knows, and yet he still didn't tell you.'
Feyre began shaking. 'If I die...' Her gaze drifted to one of her tattooed arms. She lifted her head, eyes bright with tears as she asked Amren, 'You... all of you knew this?'
Amren threw a withering glare in Nesta's direction, but said, 'We did not wish to alarm you. Fear can be as deadly as any physical threat.'
'Rhys knew?' Tears spilled down Feyre's cheeks, smearing the paint splattered there. 'About the threat to our lives?' She peered down at herself, at the tattooed hand cradling her abdomen.
And Nesta knew then that she had not once in her life been loved by her mother as much as Feyre already loved the boy growing within her.
It broke something in Nesta- broke that rage, that roaring- seeing those tears begin to fall, the fear crumpling Feyre's paint-smeared face.
She had gone too far. She... Oh, gods.
Amren said, 'I think it is best, girl, if you speak to Rhysand about this.'
Nesta couldn't bear it- the pain and fear and love on Feyre's face as she caressed her stomach.
Amren growled at Nesta, 'I hope you're content now.'
Nesta didn't respond. Didn't know what to say or do with herself. She simply turned on her heel and ran from the apartment.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #5))
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The belief in oneself, pride in oneself, a fundamental hostility and irony against “selflessness” belong to noble morality, just as much as an easy contempt and caution before feelings of pity and the “warm heart.” Powerful men are the ones who understand how to honour; that is their art, their realm of invention. The profound reverence for age and for ancestral tradition — all justice stands on this double reverence — the belief and the prejudice favouring forefathers and working against newcomers are typical in the morality of the powerful, and when, by contrast, the men of “modern ideas” believe almost instinctively in “progress” and the “future” and increasingly lack any respect for age, then in that attitude the ignoble origin of these “ideas” already reveals itself well enough.
However, a morality of the rulers is most alien and embarrassing to present taste because of the severity of its basic principle that man has duties only with respect to those like him, that man should act towards those beings of lower rank, towards everything foreign, at his own discretion, or “as his heart dictates,” and, in any case, “beyond good and evil.” Here pity and things like that may belong. The capacity for and obligation to a long gratitude and a long revenge — both only within the circle of one’s peers — the sophistication in paying back again, the refined idea in friendship, a certain necessity to have enemies (as, so to speak, drainage ditches for the feelings of envy, quarrelsomeness, and high spirits — basically in order to be capable of being a good friend): all those are typical characteristics of a noble morality, which, as indicated, is not the morality of “modern ideas” and which is thus nowadays difficult to sympathize with, as well as difficult to dig up and expose.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Beyond Good and Evil)
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So it’s not the sight of stromatolites that makes them exciting. It’s the idea of them – and in this respect they are peerless. Well, imagine it. You are looking at living rocks – quietly functioning replicas of the very first organic structures ever to appear on earth. You are experiencing the world as it was 3.5 billion years ago – more than three-quarters of the way back to the moment of terrestrial creation. Now if that is not an exciting thought, I don’t know what is. As the aforementioned palaeontologist Richard Fortey has put it: ‘This is truly time travelling, and if the world were attuned to its real wonders this sight would be as well-known as the pyramids of Giza.’ Quite right. Stromatolites are rather like corals in that all of their life is on the surface, and that most of what you are looking at is the dead mass of earlier generations. If you peer, you can sometimes see tiny bubbles of oxygen rising in streams from the formations. This is the stromatolite’s only trick and it isn’t much, but it is what made life as we know it possible. The bubbles are produced by primitive algae-like micro-organisms called cyanobacteria, which live on the surface of the rocks – about three billion of them to the square yard, to save you counting – each of them capturing a molecule of carbon dioxide and a tiny beat of energy from the sun and combining them to fuel its unimaginably modest ambitions to exist, to live. The byproduct of this very simple process is the faintest puff of oxygen. But get enough stromatolites respiring away over a long enough period and you can change the world. For two billion years this is all the life there was on earth, but in that time the stromatolites raised the oxygen level in the atmosphere to 20 per cent – enough to allow the development of other, more complex life forms: me, for instance. My gratitude was real. The
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Bill Bryson (In a Sunburned Country)
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Baron, Baroness
Originally, the term baron signified a person who owned land as a direct gift from the monarchy or as a descendant of a baron. Now it is an honorary title. The wife of a baron is a baroness.
Duke, Duchess, Duchy, Dukedom
Originally, a man could become a duke in one of two ways. He could be recognized for owning a lot of land. Or he could be a victorious military commander. Now a man can become a duke simply by being appointed by a monarch. Queen Elizabeth II appointed her husband Philip the Duke of Edinburgh and her son Charles the Duke of Wales. A duchess is the wife or widow of a duke. The territory ruled by a duke is a duchy or a dukedom.
Earl, Earldom
Earl is the oldest title in the English nobility. It originally signified a chieftan or leader of a tribe. Each earl is identified with a certain area called an earldom. Today the monarchy sometimes confers an earldom on a retiring prime minister. For example, former Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is the Earl of Stockton.
King
A king is a ruling monarch. He inherits this position and retains it until he abdicates or dies. Formerly, a king was an absolute ruler. Today the role of King of England is largely symbolic. The wife of a king is a queen.
Knight
Originally a knight was a man who performed devoted military service. The title is not hereditary. A king or queen may award a citizen with knighthood. The criterion for the award is devoted service to the country.
Lady
One may use Lady to refer to the wife of a knight, baron, count, or viscount. It may also be used for the daughter of a duke, marquis, or earl.
Marquis, also spelled Marquess.
A marquis ranks above an earl and below a duke. Originally marquis signified military men who stood guard on the border of a territory. Now it is a hereditary title.
Lord
Lord is a general term denoting nobility. It may be used to address any peer (see below) except a duke. The House of Lords is the upper house of the British Parliament. It is a nonelective body with limited powers. The presiding officer for the House of Lords is the Lord Chancellor or Lord High Chancellor. Sometimes a mayor is called lord, such as the Lord Mayor of London. The term lord may also be used informally to show respect.
Peer, Peerage
A peer is a titled member of the British nobility who may sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. Peers are ranked in order of their importance. A duke is most important; the others follow in this order: marquis, earl, viscount, baron. A group of peers is called a peerage.
Prince, Princess
Princes and princesses are sons and daughters of a reigning king and queen. The first-born son of a royal family is first in line for the throne, the second born son is second in line. A princess may become a queen if there is no prince at the time of abdication or death of a king. The wife of a prince is also called a princess.
Queen
A queen may be the ruler of a monarchy, the wife—or widow—of a king.
Viscount, Viscountess
The title Viscount originally meant deputy to a count. It has been used most recently to honor British soldiers in World War II. Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery was named a viscount. The title may also be hereditary. The wife of a viscount is a viscountess. (In pronunciation the initial s is silent.)
House of Windsor
The British royal family has been called the House of Windsor since 1917. Before then, the royal family name was Wettin, a German name derived from Queen Victoria’s husband. In 1917, England was at war with Germany. King George V announced that the royal family name would become the House of Windsor, a name derived from Windsor Castle, a royal residence. The House of Windsor has included Kings George V, Edward VII, George VI, and Queen Elizabeth II.
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Nancy Whitelaw (Lady Diana Spencer: Princess of Wales)
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Then there were those who were thrilling to Senator Sanders, who believed that Bernie would be the one to give them free college, to solve climate change, and even to bring peace to the Middle East, though that was not an issue most people associated with him. On a trip to Michigan, I met with a group of young Muslims, most of them college students, for whom this was the first election in which they planned to participate. I was excited that they had come to hear more about HRC's campaign. One young woman, speaking for her peers, said she really wanted to be excited about the first woman president, but she had to support Bernie because she believed he would be more effective at finally brokering a peace treaty in the Middle East. Everyone around her nodded. I asked the group why they doubted Hillary Clinton's ability to do the same.
"Well, she has done nothing to help the Palestinians."
Taking a deep breath, I asked them if they knew that she was the first U.S. official to ever call the territories "Palestine" in the nineties, that she advocated for Palestinian sovereignty back when no other official would. They did not. I then asked them if they were aware that she brought together the last round of direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians? That she personally negotiated a cease-fire to stop the latest war in Gaza when she was secretary of state? They shook their heads. Had they known that she announced $600 million in assistance to the Palestinian Authority and $300 million in humanitarian aid to Gaza in her first year at State? They began to steal glances at one another. Did they know that she pushed Israel to invest in the West Bank and announced an education program to make college more affordable for Palestinian students? More head shaking. They simply had no idea.
"So," I continued, "respectfully, what is it about Senator Sander's twenty-seven-year record in Congress that suggests to you that the Middle East is a priority for him?"
The young woman's response encapsulated some what we were up against.
"I don't know," she replied. "I just feel it.
”
”
Huma Abedin (Both/And: A Memoir)
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Keep Your Ego at Bay; Stay Humble Have you felt that urgent desire to feel important, to feel special and to feel way above over other people? As a graduate, do you think you have the best education and do you think you deserve that job opening more over the other guy? Do you think you have accomplished so much in life that you deserve better than your peers? If so, maybe your ego is getting the best of you. When you act based on your ego, there is a great chance that you will be at odds with the world and the people around you. You feel that you are more special than others because of your accomplishments, your education, your work and your possession. Because of that, you are failing to see others’ worth and importance. You only act based on what you think, because your opinion is the only one that matters. You barely admit mistakes; hence, you are depriving yourself of the opportunity to grow because you believe that you got everything you need. You are tarnishing your relationship with others by alienating them with your attitude. Ultimately, you are missing a lot in life! Dr. Dryer preaches about a life of humility and respect for one’s self and others. He always reminds his readers, students and followers to keep their ego at bay and stay humble. He believes in the universal truth that individuals are more common than different with each other; that no one is above someone or more special than others. He believes in the perfect being, the invisible force that created all of us, and so we are one and the same, just performing our own duty in this universe. Our ego stems from our desire to gain recognition from our achievements and hard work. There is nothing wrong with that. Humans crave to be recognized because it is one of the best feelings in the world. However, when you become overly attached to that idea and your entitlement, that is where ego comes in and it does more bad than good to you. The best way to be recognized is to stay humble and modest of your accomplishments. Your achievements sound the loudest when you are not telling it to everyone. You can only earn the highest of respect when you give the same amount of respect to others and to yourself. You can only feel truly special when you are not trying to be over someone else’s head, but rather carry others on your back to lift them up. That is what matters the most.
”
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Karen Harris (Wayne Dyer: Wayne Dyer Best Quotes and Greatest Life Lessons (dr wayne, dr wayne dyer, dr dyer))
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Cultivate Spiritual Allies One of the most significant things you learn from the life of Paul is that the self-made man is incomplete. Paul believed that mature manhood was forged in the body of Christ In his letters, Paul talks often about the people he was serving and being served by in the body of Christ. As you live in the body of Christ, you should be intentional about cultivating at least three key relationships based on Paul’s example: 1. Paul: You need a mentor, a coach, or shepherd who is further along in their walk with Christ. You need the accountability and counsel of more mature men. Unfortunately, this is often easier said than done. Typically there’s more demand than supply for mentors. Some churches try to meet this need with complicated mentoring matchmaker type programs. Typically, you can find a mentor more naturally than that. Think of who is already in your life. Is there an elder, a pastor, a professor, a businessman, or other person that you already respect? Seek that man out; let him know that you respect the way he lives his life and ask if you can take him out for coffee or lunch to ask him some questions — and then see where it goes from there. Don’t be surprised if that one person isn’t able to mentor you in everything. While he may be a great spiritual mentor, you may need other mentors in the areas of marriage, fathering, money, and so on. 2. Timothy: You need to be a Paul to another man (or men). God calls us to make disciples (Matthew 28:19). The books of 1st and 2nd Timothy demonstrate some of the investment that Paul made in Timothy as a younger brother (and rising leader) in the faith. It’s your job to reproduce in others the things you learn from the Paul(s) in your life. This kind of relationship should also be organic. You don’t need to approach strangers to offer your mentoring services. As you lead and serve in your spheres of influence, you’ll attract other men who want your input. Don’t be surprised if they don’t quite know what to ask of you. One practical way to engage with someone who asks for your input is to suggest that they come up with three questions that you can answer over coffee or lunch and then see where it goes from there. 3. Barnabas: You need a go-to friend who is a peer. One of Paul’s most faithful ministry companions was named Barnabas. Acts 4:36 tells us that Barnabas’s name means “son of encouragement.” Have you found an encouraging companion in your walk with Christ? Don’t take that friendship for granted. Enjoy the blessing of friendship, of someone to walk through life with. Make it a priority to build each other up in the faith. Be a source of sharpening iron (Proverbs 27:17) and friendly wounds (Proverbs 27:6) for each other. But also look for ways to work together to be disruptive — in the good sense of that word. Challenge each other in breaking the patterns of the world around you in order to interrupt it with the Gospel. Consider all the risky situations Paul and Barnabas got themselves into and ask each other, “what are we doing that’s risky for the Gospel?
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Randy Stinson (A Guide To Biblical Manhood)
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I have raised you to respect every human being as singular, and you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman, whose mind is active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast your own; who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddies in a nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks too loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dressmaking and knows, inside herself, that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. "Slavery" is this same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and inscribes this love in its essential texts, a world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when this woman peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can imagine some future for her grandchildren. But when she dies, the world - which is really the only world she can ever know - ends. For this woman, enslavement is not a parable, It is damnation. It is the never-ending night. And the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born in to chains - whole generations followed by more generations that knew nothing but chains.
You must struggle to remember this past in all its nuance, error, and humanity. You must resist the common urge toward the comforting narrative of divine law, toward fairy tales that imply some irrepressible justice. The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance - no matter how improved - as the redemption for the lives of the people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children. Our triumphs can never compensate for this. Perhaps our triumphs are not even the point. Perhaps struggle is all we have because the god of history is an atheist, and nothing about his world is meant to be. So you must wake up every morning knowing that no promise is unbreakable, least of all the promise of waking up at all. This is not despair. These are the preferences of the universe itself: verbs over nouns, actions over states, struggle over hope.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me)
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There are two things that could survive a nuclear war: cockroaches and the myth of the gender pay gap.
… young women who don’t have kids are outearning their male peers. According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey, unmarried, childless females under age 30 who live in cities earn 8 percent more than their male peers in 147 of 150 U.S. cities. In Atlanta and Memphis, the figure is approximately 20 percent more, while young women in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Diego make 17 percent, 12 percent, and 15 percent more, respectively. Besides, even if men and women do earn different sums, statistical disparity doesn’t always mean discrimination—sometimes they are the reward for life choices, which is fair. This is good news, unless you crave victimhood.
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Dave Rubin (Don’t Burn This Book: Thinking for Yourself in an Age of Unreason)
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But there’s only so much your peers can say to help. It’s the people above you, the people you fear and respect and want to please, who have power over you. Maybe it’s not fair, but what they say matters more. You can destroy someone with that kind of power.
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Lindsay Buroker (Planet Killer (Star Kingdom, #6))
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In the absence of clear contextual teleconferencing rules, one way to look at this might be to not ask the question of how you should look.
Rather, put yourself in place of the person or people that have to look at you during the teleconference, and ask these three questions:
1) Does it demonstrate personal respect for the position you hold?
2) Does it demonstrate respect for your peers?
3) Does it demonstrate respect for the institution of which you are a part?
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Cindy Ann Peterson (My Style, My Way: Top Experts Reveal How to Create Yours Today)
“
Valley of the Damned. Valkyrie Kari tells of the great warrior Crazy Horse (abridged)
’Twas written of those of long ago,
That honor should be “as long as grass shall grow.”
In battle honor is a fearsome beast, none can contain, In the strength of heart, it brings only shame.
A mighty warrior of the plains was he,
Crazy Horse of Sioux battle creed.
Given to the ravages of noble, savage war,
Against his enemies, he vaulted fore.
Peering down from lofty mountain hold,
The Horse in dream; the warrior was of olde.
The promises they were broken one by one,
Until only war unbridled could be hardtily done.
Understanding and honor was not for those weak,
Only the evil Long-knives now he eagerly did seek.
The Knives came to steal, to plunder their land,
To kill sacred mother with marauding, guilty hands.
They had no regard for their own swelling words,
With lust in their eyes, their greed greatly stirred.
From southern lands came noise that Longhair did kill, Black Kettle’s camp, their blood he had spilled.
Longhair destroyed all; dastard agent of evil strife,
Deprived them of children and their bountiful life.
Yet this lone, brave holy man stood in Longhair’s way, Crazy Horse, vision man, his plans were well framed.
His command rode north hard to that destined battle, To meet wicked Longhair—to dash him from the saddle.
Fate led him on to Little Bighorn,
Where warriors of the sun met with sacred horn.
A hellish dry place of calamitous battle,
Found many a soul hearing death’s final rattle.
The Long-snakes scouted for the great camp,
That morn’ they set their fateful, forked-tongue attack.
They raised their sabers, waved them strong,
Entered eternity, their deaths foresaw.
A sea of pilfered blue engulfed in crimson red,
Amidst swirls of feathers sacred of the motherland.
Through carnage, The Horse did lead his men,
Beyond the battle, to the place where legend began.
Up hill rode the bold Crazy Horse,
With a thousand others to show determined force.
To engage Long-knives at their last stand,
Striking them down until dead was every man.
Great Gall and Crazy Horse led that righteous attack,
Against forceful Custer, whose plans did not lack, For ’twas he himself who boasted, wantonly said, “I will become a great chief, if my enemies I fill with lead.”
With righteous honor as their sacred ally,
Holy arrows that day swiftly let fly.
Horse met Longhair in battle forever stayed,
Defeated mighty Custer; his corpse on the field in state.
Upon that fateful day, on sage choked sandy plain,
Spirits clashed with spirits, for the sacred domain.
Unconquerable, indomitable this sacred warrior heart,
Leads many against the evil now, for this righteous court.
Thus, Horse brought the valiants into stark raved battle,
Battle scarred by holy wounds delivered by blue devils.
Yet he would not relent, this honorable man of gifted vision, But peace came through the lie; his life ended by steel incision.
Breathing his last, quiet honor came his way,
“Bring my heart home, the Great Spirit will find my way.”
Thus ˊtis with all whose understanding shows what may, Honor leads righteousness to death, ask they of that claim.
War spirit vigilant with mighty spear and bow in hand,
Leads Great Plains spirits, under his gallant command.
His spirit never conquered lives it to this good day,
Among the heroic mighty, let us his spirit proclaim.
In the hour of travail, honor can be finely seen,
Leading multitudes unto battle, their hearts boundlessly free.
Cowards can never know the freedom of the plains and wind,
Or how she musters a soul and the courage found within.
Born in deep commune of Earth and Great Spirit above,
Understanding and honor flow from hearts of great love.
One without understanding is a fool at best,
One without honor is a spirit that ne’er rests.
O’ majestic One of the relentless plain,
The mountains ring joyous with thy name.
”
”
douglas laurent
“
The degree to which a person experiences feelings of shame depends on two variables: the way other people are treating him (with admiration and respect, or with contempt and disdain), and the degree to which he himself already feels proud or ashamed. The more a person is shamed by others, from childhood by parents or peers who ridicule or reject him, the more he is likely to feel chronically shamed, and hypersensitive to feelings and experiences of being shamed, sometimes to the point of feeling that others are treating him with contempt or disdain even when they are not. For such people, and they are the rule among the violent, even a minor sign of real or imagined disrespect can trigger a homicidal reaction.
The purpose of violence is to force respect from other people. The less self-respect people feel, the more they are dependent on respect from others; for without a certain minimal amount of respect, from others or the self, the self begins to feel dead inside, numb and empty. That is how the most violent criminals told me they felt, and it is clear that it is the most intolerable of all feelings (though it is actually an absence of feeling, lack of the feeling of pride, or self-love). When people lack self-respect, and feel they are incapable of eliciting respect from others in the form of admiration for their achievements or their personalities, they may see no way to get respect except in the form of fear, which I think of as a kind of ersatz substitute for admiration; and violence does elicit fear, as it is intended to. For example, I have spoken to many violent criminals who spoke of how gratifying it was to see fear in the eyes of their victims.
Feelings of shame and self-contempt are often overlooked by others, because the people who experience them do their best to conceal such feelings behind a defensive mask of bravado and boasting. There is nothing more shameful than to feel ashamed — it reveals that a person has something to feel ashamed about. Why are these feelings of shame and self-contempt so bottomless, chronic, and almost ineradicable in the most violent men? Because, in the men I knew, they had been subjected to a degree of child abuse that was off the scale of anything I had previously thought of describing with that term. Many had been beaten nearly to death, raped repeatedly or prostituted, or neglected to a life-threatening degree by parents too disabled themselves to care for their child.
And of those who had not experienced those extremes of physical abuse and neglect, my colleagues and I found that they had experienced a degree of emotional abuse that had been just as damaging: being focused on as the parents' emotional "whipping boy," in which they served as the scapegoat for whatever feelings of shame and humiliation their parents had suffered and then attempted to rid themselves of by transferring them onto their child, by subjecting him to systematic and chronic shaming and humiliation, taunting and ridicule.
”
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James Gilligan (Preventing Violence (Prospects for Tomorrow))
“
We will know when we act—or fail to act—as Christians when to be faithful costs us something. It may be a small thing at first—a place on a sports team because we won’t play on Sunday mornings, or the respect of our peers when we will not march in a parade for a political cause. But the demands made on us will grow greater, and the consequences for failing to submit to the world’s demands will grow more severe.
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Rod Dreher (Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents)
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William Thelin is a noted academic, teaching English, specifically rhetoric, composition, and linguistics, at the college level for decades. He's spoken at over 100 academic conferences and is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English and the College Composition and Communication. He's well-respected among his peers.
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William H. Thelin
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Most slaves achieved status within the black community by winning the respect of their fellow slaves, not their owners. Indeed, slave leaders generally secured their high standing by virtue of opposing their owners, not collaborating with them. Many were connected with the new religiosity in the quarter, as preachers, shamen, and conjurers - men and women who could join the natural and unnatural worlds together, whether through African folk rituals or biblical injunctions. Others were healers and midwives, and still others earned the respect of their peers in the field or workshop. A few secured a bit of book learning and were able to read the Bible. All were enmeshed in the expanding web of kinship and spirituality - connections of blood, marriage, and belief - that bound slaves together. While they may have exhibited some personal quality, such as courage, intelligence, honesty, or piety, that their compatriots found attractive, it was kinship - a sense of belonging to a common family, on this earth or in heaven hereafter - that carried them to the top of black society and provided the basis for solidarity.
Whether their social position rested on knowledge of the cosmos or the key to the corn crib, whether their authority derived from the Big House or the quarter, it was to these men and women - not their owners - that slaves turned first in moments of distress. And few crises shook slave society as deeply as the transfer from the seaboard to the interior. Annealed in the furnace of the Second Middle Passage and the cotton and sugar revolutions, a new generation of leaders struggled to express the collective aspirations of a people who were often divided by their multiple origins, diverse expectations, and increasingly differential wealth.
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Ira Berlin (Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves)
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Generally speaking, those who, at age thirteen, expected to be treated well by friends and were able to respectfully stand up for themselves when necessary. And those who, at ages fifteen and sixteen, were able to establish close friendships and get along with peers. And those who, at seventeen and eighteen, were able to maintain close friendships over a two-year period. Keeping an eye on these benchmarks will help you know that your teen is coming along in developing the skills needed for healthy romances down the line.
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Lisa Damour (The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescents)
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MURRAY CONTINUED TO RAISE the issue of sex discrimination in her writings and presentations to academic and civic groups. On June 19, 1970, at a hearing held by the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, she described the multilayered discrimination black women faced, using an impressive array of charts to compare salary and unemployment rates by race, sex, and age to supplement her testimony. From her days as a restaurant worker in college to her career as an attorney and educa-tor, she had been paid less than, and denied the respect accorded to, her male peers. She had spent the first half of her life fighting for equal rights as an African American, only to discover that she would have to spend the second half fighting for equal rights as a woman. 'If anyone should ask a Negro woman what is her greatest achievement, her honest answer would be,' Murray told the committee, her voice laden with emotion, 'I survived.' Three months later, she would testify before the New York City Commission on Human Rights, headed by fellow Yale Law School alumna Eleanor Holmes Norton. Unable to hold back the tears, Murray openly wept as she recounted the opportunities she had been denied.
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Patricia Bell-Scott (The Firebrand and the First Lady: Portrait of a Friendship: Pauli Murray, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Struggle for Social Justice)
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The evidence that sleep is important is irrefutable. Some strategies you might use in your consultant role include: Often when the advice comes from a third, nonparental party, kids are more willing to take it seriously. With a school-aged child, tell her that you want to get her pediatrician’s advice about sleep—or the advice of another adult the child respects. If you have a teenager, ask her if she would be open to your sharing articles about sleep with her. With school-aged kids and younger, you can enforce an agreed-upon lights-out time. Remind them that as a responsible parent, it’s right for you to enforce limits on bedtime and technology use in the evening (more on this later). Because technology and peer pressure can make it very difficult for teens to go to bed early, say, “I know this is hard for you. I’m not trying to control you. But if you’d like to get to bed earlier and need help doing it, I’m happy to give you an incentive.” An incentive is okay in this case because you’re not offering it as a means to get her to do what you want her to do, but to help her do what she wants to do on her own but finds challenging. It’s a subtle but important distinction.26 For older kids, make privileges like driving contingent on getting enough sleep—since driving while sleep deprived is so dangerous. How to chart their sleep is more complicated. Reliable tools for assessing when a child falls asleep and how long he stays asleep, such as the actigraph, require extensive training and are not something parents can use at home to track their kids’ sleep. Moreover, Fitbits are unfortunately unreliable in gathering data. But you can ask your child to keep a sleep log where she records what time she turned out the lights, and (in the morning) how long she thinks it took her to fall asleep, and whether she was up during the night. She may not know how long it took her to fall asleep; that’s okay. Just ask, “Was it easier to fall asleep than last night or harder?” Helping kids figure out if they’ve gotten enough rest is a process, and trust, communication, and collaborative problem solving are key to that process. Encourage your child to do screen-time homework earlier and save reading homework for later so she gets less late light exposure. Ask questions such as “If you knew you’d be better at everything you do if you slept an extra hour and a half, would that change your sense of how important sleep is?” And “If you knew you’d be at risk for developing depression if you didn’t sleep enough, would that change your mind?” Talk to her about your own attempts to get to bed earlier. Ask, “Would you be open to us supporting each other in getting the sleep we need? I’ll remind you and you remind me?
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William Stixrud (The Self-Driven Child: The Science and Sense of Giving Your Kids More Control Over Their Lives)
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Nelson Family Values CLEAN thoughts, words, bodies SMART church, books, decisions POSITIVE attitude, actions, influence RESPECTFUL family, elders, peers LOVING children of God … And TOUGH
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Scott M. O'Neil (Be Where Your Feet Are: Seven Principles to Keep You Present, Grounded, and Thriving)
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If you spend the next five years taking responsibility for the challenges or deficiencies in your career, rather than trying to change your employer, the economy, or some politician, you’ll win. You’ll learn more, gain more respect and trust, and stand out from your peers.
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Evan Thomsen (Don’t Chase The Dream Job, Build It: The unconventional guide to inventing your career and getting any job you want)
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I would trade everything I have—my rank and position, my fortune, the respect and admiration of my peers. All of it, just to have Robin back.” He shut his eyes so he wouldn’t have to see the pity on Mrs. Allenby’s face. He only realized the next morning, when he woke up in his own bed with a clear head, how much forbearance it must have required for her to refrain from pointing out that Alistair’s father had made precisely that trade. The late marquess had given up money and respect in order to have a life with the woman he loved.
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Cat Sebastian (Unmasked by the Marquess (Regency Imposters #1))
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In a professional software engineering environment, criticism is almost never personal - it’s usually just part of the process of making a better project. The trick is to make sure you (and those around you) understand the difference between a constructive criticism of someone’s creative output and a flat-out assault against someone’s character.
The latter is useless - it’s petty and nearly impossible to act on. The former can (and should!) be helpful and give guidance on how to improve. And, most important, it’s imbued with respect: the person giving the constructive criticism genuinely cares about the other person and wants them to improve themselves or their work. Learn to respect your peers and give constructive criticism politely. If you truly respect someone, you’ll be motivated to choose tactful, helpful phrasing—a skill acquired with much practice.
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Titus Winters (Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time)
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The club was started lang ago by a professional boxer. His daughter married the Duke of Kingston, who owns the place now."
Keir, who couldn't have cared less about some doddering old aristocrat, responded with an indifferent shrug. "'Tis no' unusual for a duke to own prime London real estate."
"Aye, but the interesting part is, Kingston ran the club himself for a time." To make sure Keir understood the significance, Catach added, "Noblemen never work. To their minds it lowers them, ye ken, and costs them the respect of the common folk as well as their peers."
"He must have had no choice," Keir mused.
"To be sure. But the duke made Jenner's what it is, and enriched himself in the process." Catach had shaken his head with a mixture of admiration and envy. "A charmed life, that one's had. They say in his youth, Kingston was as wicked as the devil himself. The bane of every man with a pretty wife. Then he married a rich woman and settled into a respectable middle age. For Kingston, the wages of sin have been nothing but gold and treasure."
"He sounds like a selfish pult," Keir said flatly.
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Lisa Kleypas (Devil in Disguise (The Ravenels, #7))
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This may be the fundamental problem with caring a lot about what others think: It can put you on the established path—the my-isn’t-that-impressive path—and keep you there for a long time. Maybe it stops you from swerving, from ever even considering a swerve, because what you risk losing in terms of other people’s high regard can feel too costly. Maybe you spend three years in Massachusetts, studying constitutional law and discussing the relative merits of exclusionary vertical agreements in antitrust cases. For some, this might be truly interesting, but for you it is not. Maybe during those three years you make friends you’ll love and respect forever, people who seem genuinely called to the bloodless intricacies of the law, but you yourself are not called. Your passion stays low, yet under no circumstance will you underperform. You live, as you always have, by the code of effort/result, and with it you keep achieving until you think you know the answers to all the questions—including the most important one. Am I good enough? Yes, in fact I am. What happens next is that the rewards get real. You reach for the next rung of the ladder, and this time it’s a job with a salary in the Chicago offices of a high-end law firm called Sidley & Austin. You’re back where you started, in the city where you were born, only now you go to work on the forty-seventh floor in a downtown building with a wide plaza and a sculpture out front. You used to pass by it as a South Side kid riding the bus to high school, peering mutely out the window at the people who strode like titans to their jobs. Now you’re one of them. You’ve worked yourself out of that bus and across the plaza and onto an upward-moving elevator so silent it seems to glide. You’ve joined the tribe. At the age of twenty-five, you have an assistant. You make more money than your parents ever have. Your co-workers are polite, educated, and mostly white. You wear an Armani suit and sign up for a subscription wine service. You make monthly payments on your law school loans and go to step aerobics after work. Because you can, you buy yourself a Saab. Is there anything to question? It
doesn’t seem that way. You’re a lawyer now. You’ve taken everything ever given to you—the love of your parents, the faith of your teachers, the music from Southside and Robbie, the meals from Aunt Sis, the vocabulary words drilled into you by Dandy—and converted it to this. You’ve climbed the mountain. And part of your job, aside from parsing abstract intellectual property issues for big corporations, is to help cultivate the next set of young lawyers being courted by the firm. A senior partner asks if you’ll mentor an incoming summer associate, and the answer is easy: Of course you will. You have yet to understand the altering force of a simple yes. You don’t know that when a memo arrives to confirm the assignment, some deep and unseen fault line in your life has begun to tremble, that some hold is already starting to slip. Next to your name is another name, that of
some hotshot law student who’s busy climbing his own ladder. Like you, he’s black and from Harvard. Other than that, you know nothing—just the name, and it’s an odd one. Barack.
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Becoming
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you should have a running list of three people that you’re always watching: someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did . . . better than you did it.
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Chris Mamula (Choose FI: Your Blueprint to Financial Independence)
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In addition to awakening feelings of respect and affection, maintaining strong eye contact gives you the impression of being an intelligent and abstract thinker. Because abstract thinkers integrate incoming data more easily than concrete thinkers, they can continue looking into someone's eyes even during the silences. Their thought processes are not distracted by peering into their partner's peepers.6
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Leil Lowndes (How to Talk to Anyone: 92 Little Tricks for Big Success in Relationships)
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Nesta pulled away—not harshly, but with enough intent that Cassian peered at where she and Amren focused on the map. “The Bog of Oorid?” Feyre frowned at the spot in the Middle. “The Mask is in a bog?” “Oorid was once a sacred place,” Amren said. “Warriors were laid to rest in its night-black waters. But Oorid changed to a place of darkness—don’t give me that look, Rhysand, you know what I mean—a long time ago. Filled with such evil that no one will venture there, and only the worst of the faeries are drawn to it. They say the water there flows to Under the Mountain, and the creatures who live in the bog have long used its underground waterways to travel through the Middle, even into the mountains of the surrounding courts.” Feyre frowned. “It can’t be more specific, though?” She asked Rhys, “Do we have a detailed map of the Middle?” Rhys shook his head. “It’s forbidden to map the Middle beyond vague landmarks.” He pointed to the sacred mountain in its center, where he’d been held for nearly fifty years. “The Mountain, the woods, the bog … All can be seen from land and air. But its secrets, those discovered on foot—those are forbidden.” Feyre’s frown didn’t lighten. “By whom?” “An ancient council of the High Lords. The Middle is a place where wild magic still dwells and thrives and feeds. We respect it as its own entity, and do not wish to provoke its wrath by revealing its mysteries.
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Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Silver Flames (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #4))
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If you were raised in an interdependent group, then family and community are more likely to hold a high priority for you and your peers. If you were raised in a group that valued independence, then leadership, self-reliance, and achievement are likely to be more important to you and to the people who you care about. In one group, a person gains respect and friendship by helping others. In the other, a person gains respect and friendship by helping themselves and not relying on others. It is not hard to see, then, how people from one social orientation or the other could view the other group in a negative light. To the independent-minded, those with interdependent beliefs appear to lack ambition, vision, and work ethic, and care too much about what other people think and feel. From the interdependent view, self-reliant people lack in compassion, empathy, and helpfulness, and are overly concerned with status and power.
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Sarah Newcomb (Loaded: Money, Psychology, and How to Get Ahead without Leaving Your Values Behind)
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Forget what the onlookers think, for a man’s thoughts die with him. Remember instead that the children of tomorrow will view today with the clarity of hindsight. All lies will be revealed and all truths will emerge. So jettison your preoccupations with the respect of your peers in favour of a promise to do right by generations unborn. The present has passed before we can touch it, but the future is ours to shape. Serve posterity, not power, and hold legacy before ego.
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Craig A. Falconer (Second Contact (Not Alone #2; The Contact Trilogy #2))
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During the first part of this stage, the encouragement and support of parents and teachers was crucial to the child’s progress, but eventually the students began to experience some of the rewards of their hard work and became increasingly self-motivated. A piano student performed for others and appreciated the applause. A swimmer basked in the approval and respect of peers. These students became more vested in the process, and their self-image started to include those abilities that were setting them apart from their peers. In the case of team sports, like swimming, the students often relished being part of a group of like-minded people. But whatever the reasons, the motivation started to shift from external to internal in origin.
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Anders Ericsson (Peak: How all of us can achieve extraordinary things)
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In the end, if you make it, you're left with the greatest prizes of all: the quiet respect of your peers and the knowledge that you have nothing left to prove to anyone but yourself. pg.88
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Dan Hampton (Viper Pilot: A Memoir of Air Combat)
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In one study, researchers asked hundreds of middle school students to rank the values their parents prioritized. Half of the values centered on achievement, such as attending a good college, excelling academically, and having a successful career. The other half focused on character traits, such as being respectful, helpful, and kind. Adolescents who reported that their parents valued character traits as much as or more than their performance exhibited greater mental health, enjoyed higher levels of achievement, and engaged in less rule-breaking behavior than peers who believed their parents were primarily focused on how they were performing
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Jennifer Breheny Wallace (Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It)
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career, and the respect of his peers. Her life was entirely different with Josh now, younger and more active, more like what it had been in her thirties and forties, and she loved it. The morning after the Academy Awards, they went for a run together.
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Danielle Steel (Upside Down)
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It doesn’t always have to be that way, however. Later friendships can offer a second chance to finally get those old needs met. I often ask adults in therapy how they managed to cope with the terrible traumas they endured. The ones who coped best, even ones with horrendous histories of abuse and neglect, were those who found a friend or supporter. Somehow, even through the betrayals and abandonments, these individuals managed to connect with someone, usually a very special person who saw through the child’s surface layer of aggressiveness, withdrawal, or fear and persisted in offering a helping hand. For some survivors of abuse, this connection came from a peer, perhaps someone whose own suffering made them especially empathic. Others were supported by an adult, someone who didn’t abuse or neglect them, but treated them with respect and dignity. Still others were shut out of human connection but managed to find a friend by connecting with a pet, a doll, a character in a favorite book or an imaginary friend.
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Michael G. Thompson (Best Friends, Worst Enemies: Understanding the Social Lives of Children)
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Dissent in children looks like “disobedience” or a lack of cooperation. Our tendency is to double down on persuasion. In the old days, parents talked about a child’s obligation to obey parents, even when they didn’t understand the command. The child was literally taught that they were safer abandoning their critical thinking faculties in favor of trusting an adult authority. This kind of framework sets up a child for peer pressure in their teen years when a new authority emerges: the slightly older teenager! Today’s parents often believe they’re doing a better job than their parents. These parents don’t require obedience. They explain to the child why they, the parents, require cooperation from the child. I call this style of parenting “manipulative obedience.” The old and new parenting styles share the same goal: cooperation with a parent’s instruction. The difference now is that rather than cooperating for the sake of respecting authority, the child is also expected to agree with the parent’s reasoning. The space just got much smaller for critical thinking!
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Julie Bogart (Raising Critical Thinkers: A Parent's Guide to Growing Wise Kids in the Digital Age)
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Who do you think of when you hear the word “successful”? CHRIS: “I’ll answer it this way, and I don’t know if this gets to the exact point. I had a great mentor early on in my career give me advice that I’ve heeded until now, which is that you should have a running list of three people that you’re always watching: someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did—one, two, or three years ago—better than you did it. If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of, and you’re constantly learning from them, you’re going to be exponentially better than you are.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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The higher in rank you rose, it seemed, the more your peers and fellow officers disguised their true intentions behind thinly-veiled smiles and curt public displays of respect.
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Michael J. Martinez (The Enceladus Crisis (Daedalus #2))
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Indeed, when we think honestly about human affairs, both past and present, we find that they are all similar in one respect: that reason has always been the weakest factor. It seems as if all histories were written simply to show—what everyone sees in their own day—that force has always prevailed since the first appearance of human beings...This kind of conduct is equally apparent in every society. If men act that way in relation to their peers, it is most likely that each of them did the same thing initially, and with more reason, in relation to their wives.
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François Poullain de la Barre (The Equality of the Sexes (Classics of Philosophy and Science))
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Preamble
The Klassik Era was a cultural and musical revolution that swept through Kenya and East Africa in the early 2010s. It was a time of bold experimentation, fearless expression, and unapologetic individuality that challenged the norms of mainstream music and culture. For the first time, young people from the ghettos and slums of Nairobi, Mombasa, and Kisumu could see themselves represented and celebrated in the music and arts scene, and their voices and stories were given a platform like never before.
The Klassik Era was characterized by a fusion of different musical genres and styles, from hip-hop and reggae to dancehall and afro-pop, to create a sound that was uniquely Kenyan and African. It was a time when young artists and producers like Blame It On Don (DON SANTO), Kingpheezle, Jilly Beatz, Tonnie Tosh, Kenny Rush, and many others came together under Klassik Nation, a record label that would change the face of Kenyan music forever.
The Klassik Era was also marked by a sense of community and camaraderie, with young people from all walks of life coming together to support each other's art and creativity. It was a time when collaborations and features were the norm, and when artists and producers worked together to create something new and exciting.
But the Klassik Era was not without its challenges and controversies. It was a time when the Kenyan music industry was dominated by a few powerful players who controlled the airwaves and the mainstream narrative, and who were resistant to change and innovation. It was a time when artists and producers had to fight tooth and nail to get their music played on the radio and to gain recognition and respect from their peers.
Despite these challenges, the Klassik Era left an indelible mark on the Kenyan music industry and on the cultural landscape of Africa. It was a time of creativity, passion, and rebellion that inspired a generation of young people to dream big and to believe that anything was possible. This book is a tribute to that era and to the artists and producers who made it all possible.
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Don Santo (Klassik Era: The Genesis)
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If there are people in your life who put you down – kids, siblings, inconsiderate peers, a colleague with a grudge and a snappy attitude to go with it, a boyfriend or husband always forgetting things – talk to them. Let them know you won’t be a doormat any longer. Self-respect begets respect. Mutual respect equals amity. Amity is peace. Peace is happiness. Happiness is the root of true elegance.
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Eliza Chamber (Style: The Modern Lady’s Guide to Elegance and Charm)
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We earn the respect of our peers by laboring to quell our critics’ justified disapproval. We earn self-respectability by schooling the wisdom to ignore unfair condemnation. We learn goodness by witnessing other person’s lives and by performing unsolicited acts of kindnesses.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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While it is beneficial for a child to feel bad when anticipating a loss of connection with those who are devoted to him and his well-being and development, it is crucially important for parents to understand that it is unwise to ever exploit this conscience. We must never intentionally make a child feel bad, guilty, or ashamed in order to get him to be good. Abusing the attachment conscience evokes deep insecurities in the child and may induce him to shut it right down for fear of being hurt. The consequences are not worth any short-term gains in behavioral goals.
If we find ourselves shocked by the behavioral changes that come in the wake of peer orientation, it is because what is acceptable to peers is vastly different from what is acceptable to parents. Likewise, what alienates peers is a far cry from what alienates parents. The attachment conscience is serving a new master. When a child tries to find favor with peers instead of parents, the motivation to be good for the parents drops significantly. If the values of the peers differ from those of the parents, the child's behavior will also change accordingly. This change in behavior reveals that the values of the parents had never been truly internalized, genuinely made the child's own. They functioned mostly as instruments of finding favor.
Children do not internalize values — make them their own — until adolescence. Thus the changes in a peer-oriented child's behavior do not mean that his values have changed, only that the direction of his attachment instinct has altered course. Parental values such as studying, working toward a goal, the pursuit of excellence, respect for society, the realization of potential, the development of talent, the pursuit of a passion, the appreciation of culture are often replaced with peer values that are much more immediate and short term.
Appearance, entertainment, peer loyalty, spending time together, fitting into the subculture, and getting along with each other will be prized above education and the realization of personal potential. Parents often find themselves arguing about values, not realizing that for their peer-oriented children values are nothing more than the standards that they, the children, must meet in order to gain the acceptance of the peer group.
So it happens that we lose our influence just at the time in our children's lives when it is most appropriate and necessary for us to articulate our values to them and to encourage the internalization of what we believe in. The nurturing of values takes time and discourse. Peer orientation robs parents of that opportunity. In this way peer orientation arrests moral development.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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Children displaced from their families, unconnected to their teachers, and not yet mature enough to relate to one another as separate beings, automatically regroup to satisfy their instinctive drive for attachment. The culture of the group is either invented or borrowed from the peer culture at large. It does not take children very long to know what tribe they belong to, what the rules are, whom they can talk to, and whom they must keep at a distance.
Despite our attempts to teach our children respect for individual differences and to instill in them a sense of belonging to a cohesive civilization, we are fragmenting at an alarming rate into tribal chaos. Our very own children are leading the way. The time we as parents and educators spend trying to teach our children social tolerance, acceptance, and etiquette would be much better invested in cultivating a connection with them. Children nurtured in traditional hierarchies of attachment are not nearly as susceptible to the spontaneous forces of tribalization.
The social values we wish to inculcate can be transmitted only across existing lines of attachment. The culture created by peer orientation does not mix well with other cultures. Because peer orientation exists unto itself, so does the culture it creates. It operates much more like a cult than a culture. Immature beings who embrace the culture generated by peer orientation become cut off from people of other cultures. Peer-oriented youth actually glory in excluding traditional values and historical connections.
People from differing cultures that have been transmitted vertically retain the capacity to relate to one another respectfully, even if in practice that capacity is often overwhelmed by the historical or political conflicts in which human beings become caught up. Beneath the particular cultural expressions they can mutually recognize the universality of human values and cherish the richness of diversity. Peer-oriented kids are, however, inclined to hang out with one another exclusively. They set themselves apart from those not like them.
As our peer-oriented children reach adolescence, many parents find themselves feeling as if their very own children are barely recognizable with their tribal music, clothing, language, rituals, and body decorations. “Tattooing and piercing, once shocking, are now merely generational signposts in a culture that constantly redraws the line between acceptable and disallowed behavior,” a Canadian journalist pointed out in 2003.
Many of our children are growing up bereft of the universal culture that produced the timeless creations of humankind: The Bhagavad Gita; the writings of Rumi and Dante, Shakespeare and Cervantes and Faulkner, or of the best and most innovative of living authors; the music of Beethoven and Mahler; or even the great translations of the Bible. They know only what is
current and popular, appreciate only what they can share with their peers.
True universality in the positive sense of mutual respect, curiosity, and shared human values does not require a globalized culture created by peer-orientation. It requires psychological maturity — a maturity that cannot result from didactic education, only from healthy development. Only adults can help children grow up in this way. And only in healthy relationships with adult mentors — parents, teachers, elders, artistic, musical and intellectual creators — can children receive their birthright, the universal and age-honored cultural legacy of humankind. Only in such relationships can they fully develop their own capacities for free and individual and fresh cultural expression.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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streaking in front of her peers. Raj McKenna clearly respected power. That’s what he really wanted from Gray—to strip her of her most prized spell and make it his own. Let’s how fast he’d ditch her once he’d gotten what he wanted. Gray pushed her bowl of oatmeal aside and stared across the dining table at her mother.
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Nikki Jefford (Entangled (Spellbound, #1))
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Gray couldn’t help hating her just a little and Charlene had been happy to join in. Worse than losing her spot at the top, Gray hadn’t been able to perform magic without freezing up after streaking in front of her peers. Raj McKenna clearly respected power. That’s what he really wanted from Gray—to strip her of her most prized spell and make it his own. Let’s how fast he’d ditch her once he’d gotten what he wanted. Gray pushed her
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Nikki Jefford (Entangled (Spellbound, #1))
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Nowadays it often takes two parents working full-time to secure the same standard of living one wage earner could provide thirty or forty years ago. Deepening social stresses and the growing sense of economic insecurity even in the midst of relative wealth have all combined to create a milieu in which calm, connected parenting is increasingly difficult. Precisely when parents and other adults need to form stronger attachment bonds with their children than ever before, they have less time and energy to do so.
Robert Bly notes that “in 1935 the average working man had forty hours a week free, including Saturday. By 1990, it was down to seventeen hours. The twenty-three lost hours of free time a week since 1935 are the very hours in which the father could be a nurturing father, and find some center in himself, and the very hours in which the mother could feel she actually has a husband.” These patterns characterize not only the early years of parenting but entire childhoods. Although many fathers today are more conscientious in taking a share of parenting responsibility, the stresses of modern life and the chronic lack of time subvert their best intentions.
It is for economic reasons that parenting does not get the respect it should. That we live where we do rather than where our natural supporting cast is — friends, the extended family, our communities of origin — has come about for economic reasons, often beyond the control of individual parents, as, for example, when whole industries are shut down or relocated. It is for economic reasons that we build schools too large for connection to happen and that we have classes too large for children to receive individual attention.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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Recognizing that parental responsibility is insufficient for successful child-rearing, but still not conscious of the role of attachment, many experts assume the problem must be in the parenting know-how. If parenting is not going well, it is because parents are not doing things right. According to this way of thinking, it is not enough to don the role; a parent needs some skill to be effective. The parental role has to be supplemented with all kinds of parenting techniques — or so many experts seem to believe. Many parents, too, reason something like this: if others can get their children to do what they want them to do but I can't, it must be because I lack the requisite skills.
Their questions all presume a simple lack of knowledge, to be corrected by “how to” types of advice for every conceivable problem situation: How do I get my child to listen? How can I get my child to do his homework? What do I need to do to get my child to clean his room? What is the secret to getting a child to do her chores? How do I get my child to sit at the table? Our predecessors would probably have been embarrassed to ask such questions or, for that matter, to show their face in a parenting course.
It seems much easier for parents today to confess incompetence rather than impotence, especially when our lack of skill can be conveniently blamed on a lack of training or a lack of appropriate models in our own childhood. The result has been a multibillion-dollar industry of parental advice-giving, from experts advocating timeouts or reward points on the fridge to all the how-to books on effective parenting. Child-rearing experts and the publishing industry give parents what they ask for instead of the insight they so desperately need. The sheer volume of the advice offered tends to reinforce the feelings of inadequacy and the sense of being unprepared for the job. The fact that these methodologies fail to work has not slowed the torrent of skill teaching.
Once we perceive parenting as a set of skills to be learned, it is difficult for us to see the process any other way. Whenever trouble is encountered the assumption is that there must be another book to be read, another course to be taken, another skill to be mastered. Meanwhile, our supporting cast continues to assume that we have the power to do the job. Teachers act as if we can still get our children to do homework. Neighbors expect us to keep our children in line. Our own parents chide us to take a firmer stand. The experts assume that compliance is just another skill away. The courts hold us responsible for our child's behavior. Nobody seems to get the fact that our hold on our children is slipping.
The reasoning behind parenting as a set of skills seemed logical enough, but in hindsight has been a dreadful mistake. It has led to an artificial reliance on experts, robbed parents of their natural confidence, and often leaves them feeling dumb and inadequate. We are quick to assume that our children don't listen because we don't know how to make them listen, that our children are not compliant because we have not yet learned the right tricks, that children are not respectful enough of authority because we, the parents, have not taught them to be respectful. We miss the essential point that what matters is not the skill of the parents but the relationship of the child to the adult who is assuming responsibility.
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Gabor Maté (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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A good general rule is that one should seek to be loved by one’s peers—one’s spouse and one’s friends are the best examples—but beyond that, one should first seek to be respected. Seeking to be loved is almost always destructive to non-peer relationships. Teachers, for example, should seek to be respected by their students, not loved. Likewise parents, when raising their children, should not seek to be loved; they need to do too much that may not elicit love in order to raise good and, ironically, loving children. In the liberal world in America, the roles of parents and teachers shifted from authority figures to peers. The results have not been good for children or for society. When one seeks to be loved by those over whom one must exercise authority, one compromises the values necessary to do a proper job.
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Dennis Prager (Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American Values to Triumph)
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Both good and evil hang from the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the problem is that they are on the wrong tree. But there is good news. There is another tree: the tree of life. Where life is received from God, rather than sought independently from him. Where all is given, nothing is earned. At the tree of life, the moralist needs the mercy of God as much as the murderer, the Pharisee as much as the philanderer, the legalist as much as the lawless. Being a good, upstanding citizen who follows all the community’s rules and earns the respect of one’s peers is not the criterion by which one enters life with God. God’s mercy is. Jesus’ cross is the life-giving tree. It is the place where our sin, rebellion, and destruction are absorbed and mercy made the basis for entrance into the life of God. Jesus invites us to let go of our independence and be bound in union with him, to stop eating off the tree of good and evil and start feasting on the tree of life: his life.
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Joshua Ryan Butler (The Skeletons in God's Closet: The Mercy of Hell, the Surprise of Judgment, the Hope of Holy War)
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With an objective eye, take an inventory of your successes and enlist the honest feedback of a trusted and respected mentor or peer. Chances are they see you in a better light than you see yourself!
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Susan C. Young (The Art of Being: 8 Ways to Optimize Your Presence & Essence for Positive Impact (The Art of First Impressions for Positive Impact, #1))
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Without allowing herself a moment to contemplate the matter further, she surged into motion, scooting around the first row of chairs and plopping to the floor directly behind Miss Griswold and right in between two young ladies, neither of whom Wilhelmina had ever been introduced to. “Pretend I’m not here,” she whispered to a young lady sporting a most unfortunate hairstyle, who looked down at her as if she’d lost her mind. The young lady blinked right before she smiled. “That might be a little difficult, Miss Radcliff, especially since you’re sitting on my feet.” “Goodness, am I really?” Wilhelmina asked, scooting off the feet in question even as she pushed aside a bit of ivory chiffon that made up the young lady’s skirt. “Shall we assume you’re hiding from someone?” the young lady pressed. “Indeed, but . . . don’t look over at the refreshment table. That might draw unwanted notice.” Unfortunately, that warning immediately had the young lady craning her neck, while the other young lady sat forward, peering over Miss Griswold’s shoulder in an apparent effort to get a better view of the refreshment table. “Who are you hiding from?” Miss Griswold asked out of the corner of her mouth, having the good sense to keep her attention front and center. “Mr. Edgar Wanamaker, the gentleman you were inquiring about,” Wilhelmina admitted. “Mr. Wanamaker’s here?” the young lady with the unfortunate hairstyle repeated as she actually stood up and edged around Wilhelmina, stepping on Wilhelmina’s hand in the process. “Is he the gentleman with the dark hair and . . . goodness . . . very broad shoulders . . . and the one now looking our way? Why, I heard earlier this evening that he’s returned to town with a fortune at his disposal—a fortune that, rumor has it, is certain to turn from respectable to impressive in the not too distant future.” “You don’t say,” Wilhelmina muttered as she tried to tug her hand out from underneath the lady’s shoe. “Miss Cadwalader, you’re grinding poor Miss Radcliff’s hand into the floor.” Looking up, Wilhelmina stopped her tugging as she met the gaze of the other young lady sitting in the second row of the wallflower section, a lady who was looking somewhat appalled by the fact she’d apparently spoken those words out loud. Without saying another word, the lady rose to her feet, shook out the folds of a gown that was several seasons out of date, whispered something regarding not wanting to be involved in any shenanigans, and then dashed straightaway. “I wasn’t aware Miss Flowerdew was even capable of speech,” the lady still standing on Wilhelmina’s hand said before she suddenly seemed to realize that she was, indeed, grinding Wilhelmina’s hand into the ground. Jumping to the left, she sent Wilhelmina a bit of a strained smile. “Do forgive me, Miss Radcliff. I fear with all the intrigue occurring at the moment, paired with hearing Miss Flowerdew string an entire sentence together, well, I evidently quite lost my head and simply didn’t notice I was standing on you.” She thrust a hand Wilhelmina’s way. “I’m Miss Gertrude Cadwalader, paid companion to Mrs. Davenport. Please do accept my apologies for practically maiming you this evening, although rest assured, it is an unusual event for me to maim a person on a frequent basis.” Taking the offered hand in hers—although she did so rather gingerly since her hand had almost been maimed by Miss Cadwalader—Wilhelmina gave it a shake, a circumstance she still found a little peculiar, but resisted when Miss Cadwalader began trying to tug her to her feet. “How fortunate for Mrs. Davenport that you don’t participate in maiming often,” she began. “But if you don’t mind, I prefer staying down here for the foreseeable future, since I have no desire for Mr. Wanamaker to take notice of me this evening.” “Ah,
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Jen Turano (At Your Request (Apart from the Crowd, #0.5))
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Indeed, I’d become convinced that the only way our minds are changed is by slow absorption, the feeling that other people we respect all believe different things than we do. The best argument is, essentially, peer pressure. Of
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Ben Lindbergh (The Only Rule Is It Has to Work: Our Wild Experiment Building a New Kind of Baseball Team)
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Justice John Marshall Harlan, who famously admonished his fellow jurists and the nation as a whole: “Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect of civil rights, all citizens are equal before the law. The humblest is the peer of the most powerful.” More than a half century later, the Supreme Court would validate Harlan’s humanity with a unanimous decision in Brown v.
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Dan Rather (What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism)
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...some adolescent survivors describe feeling special, powerful, and sometimes entitled. This is especially true of those for whom excessive attention was part of the abuse relationship by virtue any power they held over the abuser or members of the family - especially their mothers in some cases of father-daughter incest - and of any affection or sexual pleasure they experienced. All of these feelings can coexist with self-loathing and shame or might alternate with them. Some victims experience this power as personally affirming, resulting in feelings of grandiosity, whereas others believe themselves to be malignantly powerful and defective. As children, these victims may have developed the belief that they could willfully manipulate others and "make or break" the family or their peer group (or the broader community setting) with their terrible powers or the secrets they hold. In adolescence these largely implicit ideas no longer manifest mainly or only as the egocentrism associated with early childhood. A more pervasive form of narcissistic entitlement and power and an apparently callous indifference to and contempt for others can lead to conduct disturbances and the victimization of others. Many individuals with apparent sociopathic tendencies and conduct disorders were victimized as children. Such individuals at some point had the capacity for respect, empathy, and genuine social responsibility that was lost and corrupted in the struggle to survive, to make sense of, and to remove themselves from the receiving end of victimization. Identification with the perpetrator and the victimization of others is specifically included as a core feature of complex PTSD.
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Christine A. Courtois (Treatment of Complex Trauma: A Sequenced, Relationship-Based Approach)
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One of the best pieces of advice we’ve heard for spotting potentially abusive people (spouses, dates, friends etc.) is to watch how they treat waiters and waitresses. No one expects you to become friends or even chatty with your server, but a waiter or waitress is a professional too and deserves to be treated with the same respect as a peer.
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Becky Blanton (The Narcissist at Work)
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of work-related interactions. The members saw each other as peers. The passion expressed in a Braintrust meeting was never taken personally because everyone knew it was directed at solving problems. And largely because of that trust and mutual respect, its problem-solving powers were
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
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If a place can hold the memory of death, surely the badlands of Montana retained it. Labienus peered from the window the Silverbolt as it bounced over bare rusty earth and rock, trying to imagine what it had been like on that hellacious Cretaceous day when the end had come for them all: the maiasaur with its touching maternal concern, the vicious tyrannosaur no less a good mother, the little sneaking egg thieves with no shred of moral respectability whatsoever, all the rumbling honking thundering life that had held sway since forever. Even if they'd had the brains to see it coming, how could any of them have understood the End? What, for us? Rulers of the earth for the last hundred and sixty million years?
But the earth had understood, and remembered still, and offered up white bones still bedded in clay red as fresh meat for the edification of its present rulers, who utterly failed to take the hint.
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Kage Baker (The Children of the Company (The Company, #6))
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The art of serving beer is something what makes you feel respected among your peer group. So make yourself proud with a right way of serving beer with us.
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boozology
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The respect of our peers matters much more than anonymous applause. It's an anchor for an ego that wants to know it has a home.
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Richard Thieme
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When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers.
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Bill Simmons (The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy)
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When the Lakers held Jerry West Night in March 1971, Bill Russell paid his own way to be there and said during the ceremony, “Jerry, I once wrote that success is a journey, and that the greatest honor a man can have is the respect and friendship of his peers. You have that more than any man I know. Jerry, you are, in every sense of the word, truly a champion. If I could have one wish granted, it would be that you would always be happy.
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Bill Simmons (The Book of Basketball: The NBA According to The Sports Guy)
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The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.” Joseph Conrad PROLOGUE Washington, D.C. – 1945 It was one a.m. and the small pub was closing. The D.C. night was quiet and had died down, and he was spent. A long week of college classes and a part-time job in a small diner had left him purely exhausted. He slipped out of Joe’s Tavern and looked both ways down the foggy street before making his way along the sidewalk. Dim orange streetlights barely lit his way, every other one seemed to flicker, as if about to go out. The snapping of his shoes on the concrete was the only sound to keep him company. The quiet February night was cold and blustery, and the whiskey he’d consumed in the tavern was the only thing keeping him warm. He walked quickly past businesses, such as butcher shops and beauty shops. They were closed up tight for the night, and the weekend for that matter, and lay silent and dark as he passed. His breath turned to mist in the air as he hurried along. He pulled the collar of his beige trench coat up tighter around his throat as he walked with his head down. He only had five blocks to make it to his modest downtown apartment. His father was a high-ranking government official in the FBI and was paid very well for his talents. As a World War I vet, his father had seen his share of horrors and dumped every last ounce of his energy into his job at the FBI, fighting crime. He was well respected and valued amongst his civil service peers, supervisors, and subordinates. He thought about his father and how much he, too, respected him. It was hard to grow up
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C.J. Pinard (BSI: Bureau of Supernatural Investigation (Enchanted Immortals #4.5))
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you should have a running list of three people that you’re always watching: someone senior to you that you want to emulate, a peer who you think is better at the job than you are and who you respect, and someone subordinate who’s doing the job you did—one, two, or three years ago—better than you did it. If you just have those three individuals that you’re constantly measuring yourself off of, and you’re constantly learning from them, you’re going to be exponentially better than you are.
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Timothy Ferriss (Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers)
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It may be surprising to hear that parenting should be relatively easy. Getting our child to take our cues, follow directions, or respect our values should not require strain and struggle or coercion, nor even the extra leverage of rewards. If pressure tactics are required, something is amiss. Kirsten’s mother and father had come to rely on force because, unawares, they had lost the power to parent.
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Gordon Neufeld (Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers)
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When the dust settles, kids respect the kids who dare to say no to things they don't want to do.
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Jessica Speer (Middle School - Safety Goggles Advised: Exploring the WEIRD Stuff from Gossip to Grades, Cliques to Crushes and Popularity to Peer Pressure)
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Everyone's on their own timeline when it comes to crushes. If you decide to enter the world of crushes, find friends that you trust so you can share your feelings and know those feelings will be respected.
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Jessica Speer (Middle School - Safety Goggles Advised: Exploring the WEIRD Stuff from Gossip to Grades, Cliques to Crushes and Popularity to Peer Pressure)
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was certain it was punishment for something, but I was wrong. It was a gift. Couldn’t have convinced me of it at the time, but that’s what it was. By suffering more than everyone else, I grew strong, and because I didn’t complain, I gained the respect of my peers. My father forever gagged those who would point fingers and say I had it easy or that I was weak because I was born privileged. His poor treatment made me their equal. Instead of servants, my father gave me brothers. Instead of resentment, I was gifted respect. In place of doubt, I had earned confidence in myself and in the eyes of those around me. In my ignorance, what I had believed to be unwarranted cruelty was love—at least the sort showed by an Instarya to a son.
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Michael J. Sullivan (Nolyn (The Rise and Fall, #1))
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Establishing a student-centered learning culture means creating the conditions and ethos that best support every learner’s ability to master a high-challenge, standards-based curriculum. Through a variety of means—including developing high teacher expectations for each student, creating a safe and orderly learning environment, providing academic press along with meaningful academic and social supports, affording supportive peer norms, and fostering helpful and respectful relationships—teachers and principals can re-boot their school’s culture in ways that advance the likelihood of every child’s academic success.
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Leslie S. Kaplan (Culture Re-Boot: Reinvigorating School Culture to Improve Student Outcomes)
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Maeve and I were struggling to figure out how to leave the student life behind and become adults—and maybe we were a little delayed in that respect, or just cautious in the way most of our peers have been slow to embrace the big institutions of marriage and parenthood—while Ed and Steph were busy hustling their daughter to elementary school, their son to middle school, neither parent more than a step or two ahead of their children on the same developmental curve. I can’t imagine. It’d be like trying to write a guidebook to a city you’ve only just arrived at for the very first time.
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Adam White (The Midcoast)
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Are Class Captains and School Prefects managers or leaders? Schools miss it when they assign a student to discipline other students. Class captains and school prefects are leaders not managers. A Leader is on A MISSION not on A DUTY. And being a leader goes beyond expecting compliance from others, which is what managers do. If your school assigns prefect to enforce compliance in any way you are doing it all wrong. For one, seeking compliance from anyone is complicated and it comes with a position that "demands" respect and thus you are putting such children at a risk of being hated by their peers. Prefect should be examples not authority figures, plus they should be trained to act like leaders should, if you also don't train them, you are doing it too wrong. Here are some of those "things" you should train your prefect: 1. Active listening 2. How to help their peers and other students find meaning in learning 3. How to make others students wellbeing and safety their priority. 4. How to inspire others and lead by example. Charity begins from school too. Your prefects can learn people skills that can guarantee their future right from your school. Your prefects should be assets to your school because of what they can learn to do now to become better in future not because of what they can do for your school now, which obviously is very little.
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Asuni LadyZeal
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Respect yourself, others, the elders and the young ones
Respect your peers, colleagues, manager, and your clients or customers
Respect yours and other people’s partner, relationship and marriage
Respect yours and others culture, religion, faith and God.
Respect time, business meetings, appointment, agreements or contracts.
Respect life, nature, rules and the law.
Respect if you want to be respect and respect if you want to make it in life.
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D.J. Kyos
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Sudden brain growth may lead to forgetfulness. RELATIONALLY • Debate often, but argue more from emotion than logic. • Seek peer approval and conformity. • Often display worst behavior at home. • Benefit from having a same-gender best friend. • Value nonparental adult influences. • May have romantic interests and experiment with physical affection.
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Josh Shipp (The Grown-Up's Guide to Teenage Humans: How to Decode Their Behavior, Develop Unshakable Trust, and Raise a Respectable Adult)
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Our main problem over the past few days and weeks,’ he said, ‘has lain in trying to connect the various phenomena. In fact, there wasn’t any obvious connection until a jelly-like substance started to crop up. Sometimes it appeared in small quantities, sometimes in larger amounts, but always with the distinguishing characteristic that it disintegrated rapidly on contact with air. Unfortunately the discovery of the jelly only added to the mystery, given its presence in crustaceans, mussels and whales - three types of organism that could hardly be more different. Of course, it might have been some kind of fungus, a jellified version of rabies, an infectious disease like BSE or swine fever. But, if so, why would ships be disappearing or crabs transporting killer algae? There was no sign of the jelly on the worms that infested the slope. They were carrying a different kind of cargo - bacteria that break down hydrates and cause methane gas to rise. Hence the landslide and the tsunami. And what about the mutated species that have been emerging all over the world? Even fish have been behaving oddly. None of it adds up. In that respect, Jack Vanderbilt was right to discern an intelligent mind behind the chaos. But he overestimated our ability - no scientist knows anything like enough about marine ecology to be capable of manipulating it to that extent. People are fond of saying that we know more about space than we do about the oceans. It’s perfectly true, but there’s a simple reason why: we can’t see or move as well in the water as we can in outer space. The Hubble telescope peers effortlessly into different galaxies, but the world’s strongest floodlight only illuminates a dozen square metres of seabed. An astronaut in a spacesuit can move with almost total freedom, but even the most sophisticated divesuit won’t stop you being crushed to death beyond a certain depth. AUVs and ROVs are only operational if the conditions are right. We don’t have the physical constitution or the technology to deposit billions of worms on underwater hydrates, let alone the requisite knowledge to engineer them for a habitat that we barely understand. Besides, there are all the other phenomena: deep-sea cables being destroyed at the bottom of the ocean by forces other than the underwater slide; plagues of jellyfish and mussels rising from the abyssal plains. The simplest explanation would be to see these developments as part of a plan, but such a plan could only be the work of a species that knows the ocean as intimately as we do the land - a species that lives in the depths and plays the dominant role in that particular universe.
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Frank Schätzing (The Swarm: A Novel)
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I was also aware of the fact that in the black community, respectability politics was often seen as being at odds with what it meant to be "authentically black." To me, there was not such thing as being authentically black. OF course, being seen as "authentically white" wasn't something my white peers had to concern themselves with.
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Zachary Wood (Uncensored)
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matter what I study, I can see patterns. I see the gestalt, the melody within the notes, in everything: mathematics and science, art and music, psychology and sociology. As I read the texts, I can think only that the authors are plodding along from one point to the next, groping for connections that they can’t see. They’re like a crowd of people unable to read music, peering at the score for a Bach sonata, trying to explain how one note leads to another. As glorious as these patterns are, they also whet my appetite for more. There are other patterns waiting to be discovered, gestalts of another scale entirely. With respect to those, I’m blind myself; all my sonatas are just isolated data points by comparison. I have no idea what form such gestalts might assume, but that’ll come in time. I want to find them, and comprehend them. I want this more than anything I’ve ever wanted before. —
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Ted Chiang (Stories of Your Life and Others)
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Eighteen months into the COVIDcrisis, many people suddenly realized that Dr. Anthony Fauci, longstanding director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), was not the benign, selfless, fatherly protector of public health that corporate media had made him out to be. I had known for decades of his failure to follow the clinical research standards that should apply to scientists. I had lived through the consequences of his aggressive moves to gather power and money at the expense of other scientists and federal agencies. My decades of professional experience in dealing with the NIAID in the context of grant and contract peer review, combined with Jill’s PhD research project concerning the NIH peer review system, had left me with little respect for Dr. Fauci’s professional integrity.
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Robert W. Malone (Lies My Gov't Told Me: And the Better Future Coming)
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Every day your child is assaulted with the pressures of not feeling good enough, pretty enough, athletic enough, etc., to be part of a peer group. What does she get from you? Realistic encouragement, kind truth, and empathy? Or criticism, put-downs, and “you ought to know better than that”?
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Kevin Leman (Have a New Teenager by Friday: How to Establish Boundaries, Gain Respect & Turn Problem Behaviors Around in 5 Days)
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Freedom? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Happiness? That’s easy. It’s in your choices. Respect of your peers? That too is in the choices you make. And all of that is right in front of you. No need to take the long way to get there.
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Ryan Holiday (The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living)
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It’s easier to like animals than people, and there’s a reason for that. When animals make a stupid mistake, you laugh at them. A cat misjudges a leap. A dog looks overly quizzical about a simple object. These are funny things. But when a person doesn’t understand something, if they miscalculate and hit the brakes too late, blame is assigned. They are stupid. They are wrong. Teachers and cops are there to sort it out, with a trail of paperwork to illustrate the stupidity. The faults. The evidence and incidents of these things. We have entire systems in place to help decide who is what. Sometimes the systems don’t work. Families spend their weekend afternoons at animal shelters, even when they’re not looking for a pet. They come to see the unwanted and unloved. The cats and dogs who don’t understand why they are these things. They are petted and combed, walked and fed, cooed over and kissed. Then they go back in their cages and sometimes tears are shed. Fuzzy faces peering through bars can be unbearable for many. Change the face to a human one and the reaction changes. The reason why is because people should know better. But our logic is skewed in this respect. A dog that bites is a dead dog. First day at the shelter and I already saw one put to sleep, which in itself is a misleading phrase. Sleep implies that you have the option of waking up. Once their bodies pass unconsciousness to something deeper where systems start to fail, they revolt a little bit, put up a fight on a molecular level. They kick. They cry. They don’t want to go. And this happens because their jaws closed over a human hand, ever so briefly. Maybe even just the once. But people, they get chances. They get the benefit of the doubt. Even though they have the higher logic functioning and they knew when they did it THEY KNEW it was a bad thing.
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Mindy McGinnis (The Female of the Species)
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Despite such setbacks, Bowie’s brief career as a mod was crucial, for the youth movement established all the essential principles with which he outraged Britain in 1972. In most respects, glam was modernism pushed to the max, and it’s no coincidence that the founding troika of glam—Bowie, Bolan, and Bryan Ferry—were all definitive mods (the only difference in philosophy was that the mod ideal was exclusive, aimed only at peers, whereas glam was designed to be publicized—knowingly pimped, with an ironic giggle).
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Paul Trynka (David Bowie: Starman)
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Most never outgrow the influence of their schooling, rather, they remain submissive to the demands of others is various subtle ways. For example, they never stray far from the belief system imposed on them by the schooling system, their family, peer group, religious sect, the media or the government, and thus perceive reality through a worldview that is not their own. As a result of ignorance, laziness, and cowardice, they prefer the certitude of psychological chains over the the ambiguity and tension of freedom. Even when they have their own opinion, they don’t voice it in the presence of others, but out of a fear of ridicule keep it to themselves. Their desire for acceptance and the respect of others far outweighs their commitment to the truth and hunger to speak their mind. This timidity and refusal to speak what they feel to be true stunts the development of their mind and renders their character weak and scattered.
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Academy of Ideas
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Some innovations require social approval before they will be adopted. The barrier here is the risk of embarrassment or sanction. Think of fashion. This of your willingness to try a new greeting, like the fist bump or the Aerosmith gesture. Think of putting a rainbow flag on your social media profile to show support for same sex marriage. As more people you know adopt an innovation, you perceive less social risk in doing likewise. Social reinforcement from respected peers overcomes the legitimacy barrier.
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Damon Centola
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Growing up with an exceptional intellect, Sienna had spent her youth feeling like a stranger in a strange land … an alien trapped on a lonely world. She tried to make friends, but her peers immersed themselves in frivolities that held no interest to her. She tried to respect her elders, but most adults seemed like nothing more than aging children, lacking even the most basic understanding of the world around them, and, most troubling, lacking any curiosity or concern about it.
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Dan Brown (Inferno (Robert Langdon, #4))
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Connection to Others (Lifetraps: Emotional Deprivation and Social Exclusion)
To develop a sense of connection, we need love, attention, empathy, respect, affection, understanding, and guidance. We need these things from both our family and peers.
There are two forms of connection to others. The first involves intimacy. Usually, intimate relationships are those with family, lovers, and very good friends. They are our closest emotional ties. In our most intimate relationships, we feel the kind of connection that one feels with a mother or father. The second form involves our social connections. This is a sense of belonging, of fitting into the larger social world. Social relationships are those with circles of friends and with groups in the community.
Connection problems can be subtle. You can look like you fit in perfectly well. You might have a family, loved ones, or be part of the community. Yet, deep down you feel disconnected. You feel alone, and long for a kind of relationships that you do not have. Only someone astute would notice that you are not really connecting with the people around you. You keep people at a little bit of a distance. You do not let anyone come too close. Or your problems may be more extreme. You be a loner – a person who has always been alone.
If you have connection problems, then loneliness is an issue for you. You may feel that no one really knows you deeply and cares about you (the Emotional Deprivation lifetrap). Or you may feel isolated from the world, that you do not fit in anywhere (the Social Exclusion lifetrap). It is a feeling of emptiness – a hunger for connection.
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Jeffrey Young (Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior...and Feel Great Again)
“
A tall Black woman, a senior that year, peered at us all as she spoke evenly, almost disarmingly in the heat of the moment. “I just want to say that I’m having a hard time even being mad at you white people anymore. I think I’ve just been convinced that white people are innately evil. You can’t help it. You steal and kill, you enslave and lynch. You are just evil.” Then she handed the microphone back to the next person and calmly took her seat. The white students hadn’t appreciated her words, but the Black students on the bus could have kissed her feet. She had done what social convention and respectability politics said not to do—she had spoken her truth even if it meant hurting the feelings of every white person on that bus. The tension climbed. Black and white grew further and further apart with each new speaker. The white students defended their family histories as the Black students searched for the words to express how it felt to stare at ours in those photos from the museum. Then, as we pulled into a parking lot to break for lunch, another white student stood to speak. But instead of a different variation on “Please don’t make me responsible for this,” she took a deep breath and gave in to the emotion of it all. “I don’t know what to do with what I’ve learned,” she said. “I can’t fix your pain, and I can’t take it away, but I can see it. And I can work for the rest of my life to make sure your children don’t have to experience the pain of racism.
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Austin Channing Brown (I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness)
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Those who had come of age in the camps, like Muna and Monday, who had seen so many of their peers resettled abroad, lacked respect for the present: as though one's actions in the here and now had no relation to the great hereafter, abroad. Life was only a process of waiting. And this was their problem too: in such circumstances, people are more inclined to act without consequences, without limits, to be caught by a hedonism of the senses or the indulgence of emotion, or the violent righteousness of religion. Nothing had any permanence, there was no building anything, since both the people you loved or the people you hurt could soon be gone. The older refugees with a grounding in school or community had a better chance. But still, in such a situation, life can lose its meaning.
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Ben Rawlence (City of Thorns: Nine Lives in the World's Largest Refugee Camp)
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If parents do believe in enforcing a lot of regulations, the way they explain them matters a great deal. New research shows that teenagers defy rules when they’re enforced in a controlling manner, by yelling or threatening punishment. When mothers enforce many rules but offer a clear rationale for why they’re important, teenagers are substantially less likely to break them, because they internalize them. In Donald MacKinnon’s study comparing America’s most creative architects with a group of highly skilled but unoriginal peers, a factor that distinguished the creative group was that their parents exercised discipline with explanations. They outlined their standards of conduct and explained their grounding in a set of principles about right and wrong, referencing values like morality, integrity, respect, curiosity, and perseverance. But “emphasis was placed upon the development of one’s ethical code,” MacKinnon wrote. Above all, the parents who raised highly creative architects granted their children the autonomy to choose their own values.
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Adam M. Grant (Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World)
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In an age where we expect our daughters to be treated with unprecedented dignity, respect, and equality by their male peers, we have handed the sexual formation of our young people to the sex industry with its dark vision of sex and relationships.
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Jonathan Grant (Divine Sex: A Compelling Vision for Christian Relationships in a Hypersexualized Age)
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John Maxwell, in his book, 5 Levels of Leadership, outlines the five levels as: Position, Permission, Production, People Development, and Pinnacle. I wanted to help him progress from Level 1 (based on his position) to Level 5, pinnacle, which is based on earning the respect of your peers for who you are as a person.
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Brett Bartholomew (Conscious Coaching: The Art and Science of Building Buy-In)
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These dispositions include hospitality, participation, mindfulness, humility, mutuality, deliberation, appreciation, hope, and autonomy (p. 8). Hospitality makes learners feel welcome to participate and safe to express their ideas and opinions. Participation encourages contributions from all learners to add depth and subtlety to the discussion. Mindfulness encourages learners to spend time to understand the opinions of other learners and be respectful of their diversity of thought. Humility allows learners to admit the limitations of their knowledge and opinions. Mutuality encourages learners to be concerned not only about their own learning but the learning of their peers. Deliberation encourages learners to offer arguments and counterarguments supported by evidence, data, and logic in a thoughtful discussion of an issue. It includes the understanding that their views may be changed as a result of the arguments presented by peers. Learners express their appreciation to peers for their thoughtful comments and insights. Hope encourages learners to stay the course regardless of the time, effort, and roadblocks they may encounter knowing that the results will be a transforming learning experience. Autonomy allows learners to stay committed to their opinions and beliefs and argue assertively for them. Posting these dispositions at the beginning of a course can set the stage for mindful discussions and encourage respectful dialogue (Brookfield & Preskill, 2005).
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Tina Stavredes (Effective Online Teaching: Foundations and Strategies for Student Success)
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Over the years, whenever I asked how he was doing, he would nod then smile with his mouth, but his eyes were those of an animal that had been run over, its broken body and its useless legs twitching behind it. Pain is pain whatever your age and sex, but there is a particular agony when an older man loses his position, his goals, the respect of his peers - a raw bruising marinated in testosterone
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Liz Webb (The Daughter)
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What kind of protest declines dialogue with its opponent?” “A modern one,” Francine said dryly. “These kids are not like we were. You were,” she corrected. “Interaction across the battle lines isn’t what they’re after. They want to build their own constituencies. They want to represent something to their peers more than they want to gain respect from their opponents.
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Jean Hanff Korelitz (The Devil and Webster)
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Fired by historical grievances and a sense of civilizational destiny, Xi’s China is brash but brittle, intrepid yet insecure. It is a would-be superpower in a hurry, eager to take on the world while wary of what may come. It demands to be seen, heard, and respected, but obstructs outsiders who try to peer past the pomp and propaganda. It exerts a global reach with economic and military might, even as its ruling party retreats into an ideological cocoon. Its choices are reshaping the world, and it behooves us to grasp why and how. Understanding this powerful, opaque, and restless China has become harder than ever, but this is why we must try.
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Chun Han Wong (Party of One: The Rise of Xi Jinping and China's Superpower Future)
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I choose you,” I said, leaning toward him, and his mouth met mine with such ardor that my senses reeled all over again. He lay down with me on top of him, and it took all my strength of will to pull away.
“But we have to be married.”
He studied me, concluding that I truly believed in what I said.
“Then let’s go get married.”
“Now?” I blurted, eyes wide.
“Is now a problem?”
“The banns need to be published six weeks in advance of the wedding!”
“Banns?” He rolled me sideways off him so that we lay facing each other, his voice dubious.
“The banns announce our betrothal,” I elaborated, hoping not to dampen his enthusiasm or his readiness to tolerate Hytanican tradition. “They give time for anyone who might have an objection to our union to come forward.”
I recognized the problem even as the words left my mouth, but he was first to say it.
“And when the entire province objects, what then?” He pushed himself into a sitting position, then took my hands and gently pulled me up beside him. “Alera, how important is this custom to you?”
I peered out the window at the stars while I gave the matter serious thought, pondering Narian’s way of life and if I could reconcile myself to it. I wanted to, but part of me was afraid of it--of going against the doctrines I had been raised to follow. I believed strongly in my kingdom’s religion. I also knew I had to uphold the traditions my people valued if they were to believe in me and accept me as their leader. If I were to switch now to Cokyrian custom, their trust would be betrayed.
“It’s very important,” I ultimately answered, not looking at him.
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said, cupping my chin to raise my eyes to his. “I wouldn’t deserve you if I didn’t respect your beliefs.”
He gave me a light kiss, signifying that things were resolved between us, although the real problem remained.
“I don’t know when the people will accept you, but I cannot go behind their backs. It may be a long wait.”
Narian’s expression was resigned. “So we wait.”
His attitude lifted my spirits, and a splendid idea struck me. “Our priests are sworn to keep confidences--we could be betrothed.”
“And betrothal--it doesn’t involve banns or ceremonies or parades in this kingdom?” He was teasing me, assuring me he was fine with my decision.
“No.” I laughed. “Just an exchange of rings. I’ll wear mine around my neck.”
“I’ll wear mine on my hand where I should. My soldiers will be oblivious.” He smirked, then added, “And it will confirm your countrymen’s suspicions that I am ignorant.”
I gazed into his eyes, at the love that shone within them, and laid my head upon his chest, content, for now, to have him hold me.
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Cayla Kluver (Sacrifice (Legacy, #3))
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Organizational cultures that encourage curiosity and questions help people develop themselves. People who ask questions have more self-confidence, as they see the people they question show appreciation and respect for the question and the questioner. When a nonthreatening environment for questions is a daily reality, people become ever more comfortable with themselves, know their strengths better, and are more self-assured. As leaders see their peers and their staff demonstrate greater capability and responsibility in responding to questions and taking more initiative, they can be more relaxed and flexible.
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Michael J. Marquardt (Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask)
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Over those nine months in 1999, when we were rushing to reboot this broken film, the Braintrust would evolve into an enormously beneficial and efficient entity. Even in its earliest meetings, I was struck by how constructive the feedback was. Each of the participants focused on the film at hand and not on some hidden personal agenda. They argued—sometimes heatedly—but always about the project. They were not motivated by the kinds of things—getting credit for an idea, pleasing their supervisors, winning a point just to say you did—that too often lurk beneath the surface of work-related interactions. The members saw each other as peers. The passion expressed in a Braintrust meeting was never taken personally because everyone knew it was directed at solving problems. And largely because of that trust and mutual respect, its problem-solving powers were immense.
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Ed Catmull (Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration)
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How is Science Governed? We have already seen how the changing nature of science, and its changing relationship with society, has left Polanyi’s self-governing republic of science somewhat defenceless. The boundaries of science have become more porous even if, in the heartland of the republic, the norms and practices of expert peer-review and disinterested enquiry continue to be aspired to. New complex phenomena such as climate change, and the role ascribed to scientific knowledge in public debates about climate change policy, demand adjustments to the way in which science is governed and how its knowledge is policed. With respect to climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is the creation of this new operating environment for science or, one might say, is an attempt to create a new interface between science and policy suited to a ‘post-normal’ operation of science. Yet exactly what the IPCC is, how it is governed, what sort of knowledge it
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Mike Hulme (Why We Disagree about Climate Change: Understanding Controversy, Inaction and Opportunity)
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How can there be a moral sense if everywhere we find cruelty and combat, sometimes on a monstrous scale?
One rather paradoxical answer is that man’s attacks against his fellow man reveal his moral sense because they express his social nature. Contrary to Freud, it is not simply their innate aggressiveness that leads men to engage in battles against their rivals; contrary to Hobbes, it is not only to control their innate wildness that men create governments. Men are less likely to fight alone against one other person than to fight in groups against other groups. It is the desire to earn or retain the respect and good will of their fellows that keeps soldiers fighting even against fearsome odds, leads men to accept even the more distorted or implausible judgments of their peers, and persuades many of us to devalue the beliefs and claims of outsiders.
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James Q. Wilson
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IT has to work towards building better credibility as a business solutionary and gain respect from business peers.
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Pearl Zhu (100 IT Charms: Running Versatile IT to get Digital Ready)
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This same question gets asked over and over again in many forms: How do I lead when I’m going into an area where I don’t have much experience? How do I lead people that are older than me? How do I lead people that are younger than me? How do I lead when I am stepping into a new industry? How do I lead a bunch of men as a woman? How do I lead a bunch of women as a man? How do I lead when taking over for someone that just got fired? How do I lead when I got promoted from amongst my peers? The answer to all these questions is always the same and is fairly simple. Be humble. Listen. Respect people up and down the chain of command. Take input but be decisive. Be honest while being tactful. Stay balanced. Understand the perspective of people on the team both above you and below you. Take ownership of problems and mistakes. Give credit to the team. Finally, build relationships—good, solid, professional relationships with your team.
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Jocko Willink (Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win)
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So, you’re in love with the Smith girl?” Ben stumbled at his father’s question that was really more of a statement. “No. Not at all.” He forced a short laugh. “Of course I’m not in love with Susanna Smith.” “Well, you certainly fooled me tonight.” “I cannot deny I’m attracted to Susanna,” he admitted. “Who wouldn’t be? She’s intelligent, witty, and interesting.” “She sounds like the perfect match for you.” He wanted to agree. Susanna was everything Hannah was not. He thought about her more than he should. And even in her grandfather’s study earlier, he’d felt a pull toward her that was unbearably strong and difficult to resist. He knew he needed to control himself better around Susanna. Surely he would have less trouble with his attraction once he was finally engaged to Hannah. “I’m in the process of trying to propose marriage to Hannah Quincy.” His father plodded forward without missing a step. “Then you love Miss Quincy?” Did he love Hannah? Ben shook his head. “Sometimes there are factors more important than love.” “Then you are in love with her wealth rather than her person?” Ben wanted to rebut his father’s words—similar to those of Parson Wibird from earlier in the day—but something about his father’s bluntness kept him from doing so. “Hannah Quincy will give me what I currently lack, namely the status and approval of my peers.” His father was silent for a long moment, the steady scraping of their boots against the dirt road reminding Ben of the steadiness of the man by his side. He was a deacon of the church and had been the selectman of the town for years. There was not a nobler or more respected man among the community. “There’s more than one way to earn the approval of your peers.” His father spoke slowly as if weighing his words carefully. “And often the best way is through strength of character.
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Jody Hedlund (Rebellious Heart)
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I imagine it wasn’t easy for you to come back here. Took a lot of courage.” Wyatt peered into his empty cup. “Maybe. Or maybe I just like being put in my place.” Her sigh came out part laugh, part huff. “I was so angry with you.” “Yes, ma’am . . . I know.” “And a part of me . . . still is.” He slowly nodded, respectful of that anger. But even more respectful of her—for admitting that to him. He looked over at her hands clasped loosely around her cup and wondered what it would feel like to have one of them fit snug into his. Her hands were small. Not delicate, but slim. Her fingers had strength to them, just like she did. He felt her staring. “I don’t want to start anything back up, believe me, ma’am, but . . . I do want to tell you that my saying all that yesterday wasn’t done with any intention to hurt you.” She worried an edge of loose hem on her robe. “I know that . . . mostly.” Her smile was weak. “But still . . . it did.” Words failed him. Close enough to see the flecks of gold in the soft umber of her eyes, he reached for her hand. She jumped like a skittish filly. But she didn’t pull away. He held her hand in his, memorizing the feel of her soft skin, and of how her fingers gripped his, shyly at first. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For hurting you.” And he was.
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Tamera Alexander (The Inheritance)
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What I most admired about Pete as I was growing up and what I still treasure is that he treated all life forms (human, animal, or plant) with an intelligent, quiet kindness and respect. And he did so in a very manly way. Adults, peers, and children all responded to him with a great attraction. So he set an example which seemed to me both worthy and reachable. If I could follow it, I felt guaranteed to be a good man, well-liked and successful. Of all my hand me downs, his were the best. Yet they also contained a dangerous shadow.
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Joe Gallenberger
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For me to give someone a firm and enthusiastic yes or no is to presume the person I am saying yes or no to is my equal, or at least someone I feel equal to saying yes or no to, as though they are a partner, a friend, someone with whom I am on the same footing. It presumes I am in possession of some power in the situation. It presumes the other person sees me as an equal, or something like a peer, and is waiting to see if they are going to get a yes or no before proceeding with whatever they'd like to happen next. It presumes the other person can see me at all, or cares to; that they have respect for me as though we are both the same.
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Donna Freitas (Consent: A Memoir of Unwanted Attention)
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When women of color are engaged in antiracist work with our male colleagues, we are often expected to assume a “race first, gender second” mentality, that is, to effectually relegate the non-raced layers of our identity to the background. When we are engaged in antisexist work with our White female peers, we are expected to do the same thing with respect to gender, focusing upon the universal experience of womanhood (as if such a thing exists). Both represent single-axis frameworks. And both are highly problematic for women of color.
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Chanequa Walker-Barnes (I Bring the Voices of My People: A Womanist Vision for Racial Reconciliation (Prophetic Christianity (PC)))
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Forget what the onlookers think, for a man’s thoughts die with him. Remember instead that the children of tomorrow will view today with the clarity of hindsight. All lies will be revealed and all truths will emerge. So jettison your preoccupations with the respect of your peers in favour of a promise to do right by generations
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Craig A. Falconer (Not Alone: The Contact Trilogy: Complete Box Set #1-3)
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In medieval society, daily or at least frequent contact with opponents was inescapable; thus conflict was a constant and ongoing part of life. Enemies frequently were forced to encounter one another, perhaps even to work together, and certainly to pray together, and this constantly reinforced atmosphere of hostility ultimately involved not only the opponents themselves and their immediate families but the entire community. Every conflict drew into it a wider society; as individuals and families were forced to take sides, to define their relationships to the principal participants. In the dispute at Chorges we see a conflict that involves not only the prior and the de Turre brothers but also their respective vassals, lords (the abbot and the archbishop respectively), and kin and, ultimately, the neighbors who are forced to testify for one side or the other. The circle of conflict becomes progressively wider.
The fatal magnetism that feuds exercised on society at large is perhaps best illustrated in contemporary literature. The essence of the tragedy in medieval epics and sagas is often exactly this: that a man, burdened by complex obligations to estranged parties, is ultimately and fatally drawn into their conflict. Neutrality is unthinkable. The most obvious example is the conflict between Roland and his father-in-law, Ganelon, which ultimately leads to the deaths not only of the two principals but also of the peers, numerous Frankish knights, and thirty of Ganelon's kinsmen (not to mention thousands of Saracens). At Chorges, the prior tries to avoid having Peter de Rosset drawn into the web of conflict for fear of losing his friendship; the bailiff Peter attempts to avoid testifying because he knows that to do so will place in the conflict. Both efforts come to nought.
From this process of taking sides, of testing bonds, came not only social antagonism but cohesion as well. Dispute thus served to define the boundaries of social groups: kindreds, vassalic groups, patronage connections, and the like. Moreover, conflicts created new groups as individuals or parties sought new alliances to assist them in pressing their claims. Finally, every conflict tested the implicit, preexisting social bonds and hierarchies, and every new outbreak caused existing ties to be either reaffirmed or denied. The Chorges dispute tests and reinforces the bonds uniting the de Turre and de Rosset groups, tests and strengthens the loyalty of their vassals and amid, and forces the entire local community to define itself in relationship to the two sides. By the end of the account (which is not the same as the end of the dispute), the knights have reason to doubt the strength of their bonds with their lord, the archbishop, and to take comfort in the loyalty of Bruno Stephanus and their other vassals who have proven their devotion. The archbishop and the monks, who had often faced each other as opponents, have drawn closer together in their mutual effort to end the conflict.
Like the dispute over the sponsaficium itself, the narrative of it does not begin at the "beginning" and carry through to the "end." This is typical of such records because these conflicts were such an essential part of the social fabric that one can hardly speak of them in this society as having a beginning, a middle, and an end. Conflicts were more structures than events--structures often enduring generations. The basis for social forms themselves was often a long-term, inherited conflict without which social groups would have lost their meaning and hence their cohesion.
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Patrick J. Geary (Living with the Dead in the Middle Ages)
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Dear Black Girls… Don’t get caught up in following the crowd. Everybody wants to fit in, but don’t degrade yourself trying to be a part of the in-crowd. Getting high, drunk, and being promiscuous is NOT the way to go. Peer pressure is VERY real, but the choices that you make can literally ruin your life. Choose your friends wisely! Making the wrong choices can lead you down a path of destruction, hurt, pain, and lost dreams. Don’t be so easily influenced… Value who you are and have some self-respect!
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Stephanie Lahart
“
These girls give it up no matter how shitty I treat them. If they don’t respect themselves, why should I?
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B.B. Reid (The Peer and the Puppet (When Rivals Play, #1))
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Elderly citizens naively believe that the younger generation is less respectful and more immodest than prior generations. As we age, it is easy for us to forget the follies of our own youth and attribute greater decorum onto our parents’ generation than to our peers. Every age produces its share of fools, braggarts, con artist, manipulators of the public trust, and other forms of degenerate behavior. Politicians from all eras come from the ranks of people who seek power, the type of persons inclined to swindle the masses and promote their personal glory. As we mature, we look with increasing skepticism on the fun-loving madness that drove our youth, and we grow more susceptible falsely to believe that a few short decades ago there was more decency, modesty, sincerity, and moral rectitude. In addition, as we age and feel increasingly secure in our position in society, we easily forget some of the great tragedies that marred prior generations and insensate to the vices that corrupted our ancestors’ culture. Each generation recollects with fondness the social infrastructure that formed their being and holds in reverence the scientists, teachers, religious leaders, artists, artisans, heroic soldiers, and revered social and political leaders whom influenced their generation.
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Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
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I have raised you to respect every human being as singular, and you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman, whose mind is active as your own, whose range of feeling is as vast as your own; who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddies in a nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks too loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dressmaking and knows, inside herself, that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. “Slavery” is this same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and inscribes this love in its essential texts, a world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave, hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave, and when this woman peers back into the generations all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can imagine some future for her grandchildren. But when she dies, the world—which is really the only world she can ever know—ends. For this woman, enslavement is not a parable. It is damnation.
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Ta-Nehisi Coates (Between the World and Me (One World Essentials))
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Strelsin asked CEOs an easy question: “How would you describe the most important aspect of your role in the organization?” The CEOs whose companies were inconsistent in their performance prioritized creating a vision, building a specific corporate culture, and developing a specific business strategy. But when Strelsin posed the same question to CEOs of industry-leading companies, most said that they had made it their personal mission, above all else, to simplify the lives of those who worked below them. They pursued simplification in a number of ways: they simplified their strategies so their peers and subordinates could focus on the most important challenges. They simplified their hierarchies, so that their companies could execute their strategies more effectively. They made it a priority to communicate in clear prose that inspired everyone to join in their company’s respective mission. In short, the most successful executives in Strelsin’s study excelled in their jobs because they regarded themselves not merely as CEOs, but as chief simplifiers.
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Lisa Bodell (Why Simple Wins: Escape the Complexity Trap and Get to Work That Matters)
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bloggers are able to tackle issues and topics pertaining to their niche or topics with great insights and opinions, making them highly respected by their peers and most other people in their niche. Consider the following questions:
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Jason Wolf (Blogging: Blogging Blackbook: Everything You Need To Know About Blogging From Beginner To Expert (Blogging For Beginners, Blogging Empire))
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The first fifty years of our lives are a lot about seeking legitimacy, you know. We crave social approval. We want our peers to respect us. We hope our neighbors will like us. We buy all sorts of things we really don’t need and obsess about making money we really don’t enjoy.
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Robin Sharma (The 5 AM Club: Own Your Morning. Elevate Your Life)
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Because Hitler was Stalin’s great evil peer. And like Stalin in his Dacha in 1941, opportunities to kill Hitler were also missed. Twentieth-century history would have been different if we’d had more luck in assassinating our tyrants. Two men and their wills, and the wills of their amoral favourites, we can say at the last count, were responsible for the deaths of fifty-six million people within that seven-year conflict. Not forgetting the irreparable devastation to the lives of those who survived the respective legacies of these tyrants. Can it be sanely argued that men such as they should not have been executed earlier?
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Adam L.G. Nevill (Last Days)
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Few things gain the respect of a boss, a team, and the top leaders of an organization more quickly than someone with a whatever-it-takes attitude. These people are willing and able to think outside of their job description and tackle the kinds of jobs that others are too proud or too frightened to take on. These things are what often create job security, elevate them above their peers, and get them promoted to a role where they can make a greater positive impact.
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John C. Maxwell (How to Lead When Your Boss Can't (or Won't))
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Humans are herd animals. We want to fit in, to bond with others, and to earn the respect and approval of our peers. Such inclinations are essential to our survival. For most of our evolutionary history, our ancestors lived in tribes. Becoming separated from the tribe—or worse, being cast out—was a death sentence. “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.
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James Clear (Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones)
“
Alice’s report, written with three other women, was published in Science in February 1974. Women were about a quarter of the society’s membership. They reported that they worked as many hours as the men did, published as many papers, stayed at their jobs the same length of time, and shared the same motivations—men and women alike worked because they needed the money and because they loved the work and the sense of professional accomplishment. Yet on measure after measure the women had lower status. They earned less than men with the same qualifications, with the most educated women suffering the widest wage gap. Women had more trouble finding jobs, it took them longer to become professors, and they were absent among department heads and other jobs in top administration (which paid more). Administrators sometimes argued that they paid men higher salaries because men were expected to support families, but the study found that men were paid more than women whether they had children or not. Women were less likely to be asked to speak or consult outside their institutions, to write a review or a chapter or serve on an editorial board—all signs of professional respect. The study belied the bold promises a decade earlier to women who had hoped to combine family and career. The married women with doctorates reported the most dissatisfaction of anyone in the survey. They were more likely than their married male peers to have been discouraged from pursuing advanced degrees, less likely to have role models, and more likely to mention “bias.” While most men in microbiology were married, less than half the women were. Most of the women had no children, but the opposite was true for men. Most women said they could move only if their husbands found good jobs; most of the men said they would move regardless of whether their wives found a job they liked. Not surprisingly, women were twice as likely as men to say that their life and career had not lived up to what they envisioned when they finished their training.
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Kate Zernike (The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins and the Fight for Women in Science)
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Spring Grove and Springfield, the two largest white hospitals in the state, produced only $197 and $137 per acre respectively, while Crownsville produced $242. Despite its chronic underfunding and smaller patient population, Crownsville was able to extract substantially higher yields than its peer hospitals.
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Antonia Hylton (Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum)
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Your decision to cease contact and get on with your life will earn you the respect of both your peers and other men who learn about it.
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Bruce Bryans (Keep Calm And Cut Him Off)
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