Word: disinterest
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Waterproof." Probably no less revolutionary-looking crowd ever assembled under Red banners. Watching the listless demonstrators, one could be sure that their incapacity for revolution was exceeded only by their disinterest in it. Their mood was as grey as the overcast sky above. When a thin drizzle of rain fell, hundreds ran for shelter. Cracked a German onlooker: "Ah! These revolutionaries are not waterproof!" As a mass they resembled nothing bolder than a crowd at a railroad station waiting for a late train. They stood in idle little groups, talking over personal, non-political problems: "Emmie, have you no idea...
...Wreckage. Japan is a nation of small things, small men (who before the war outnumbered the small women), tiny trees, narrow roads, minuscule farms, large cruelties and small, delicate graces. Small animals are popular. The bear is regarded with disinterest, but to the fox and the badger the Japanese attribute supernatural powers...
Mass-Observation's summation : "The considerable apathy about religion which exists now is a negative one, based mainly on past disappointments and past inactions. There is little positive hostility, but also few positive optimistic expectations, much disinterest. On the other hand, there is a widespread desire for religion to take a bigger part in the life of the community. . . . Action . . . might quickly transform widespread passive good will into some thing dynamic. . . . But the signs are that, in present mood, little else will...
...that is not worth an ounce of cure. The forgotten factor of anti-inflation policy is the curbing of spending by taxes and saving. Although the presidential order, hopes for a sixteen billion dollar reduction in consumer spending budgets by Congressional action, that augustly contentious body has proved its disinterest by shelving tax legislation with the Ways and Means Committee...
...Europe, and security in eastern Europe is unattainable unless it is buttressed by the military power of Russia. . . . To suppose that Britain and the U.S. with the aid of some lesser European powers could maintain permanent security in Europe through a policy which alienated Russia and induced her to disinterest herself in Continental affairs would be sheer madness." This conception was a slap at the reported desire of the Vatican and of some circles in Washington to establish a buffer of anti-Russian states in Eastern Europe...