Word: navel
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...fine, that’s helpful.THC: To some extent, this novel is as large as can be, addressing world political issues like Israel and Palestine, but it is also a small, intimate portrait of three young, white, Ivy-educated males. Are you at all worried about the charge of navel-gazing? How does this affect the cultural or political work that your book might perform, if at all?KG: This happens to be the stuff that right now I can write best about and with the most insight and the most depth of any other subject in the world. This...
...peering beneath the mirage of self-loathing, we find in fact a healthy tradition of self-criticism and improvement. The tendency toward navel-gazing and negativity apparent particularly among our brightest citizens, while sometimes excessive, remains far preferable to conformity and laziness. If the rest of the world feels inclined to characterize the United States as close-minded and brutish, let them; our most scathing criticisms often come from within. In the end, it’s these that matter, because they spur us on to better things: anything to disprove the doubters...
...This attack could be taken as simply amusing if certain criticisms didn't hit home at times: our country has apparently descended into a kind of navel-gazing at a time when the world is changing very fast, and we're struggling to produce popular culture. So much solicitude is touching. But hang on: what about American culture seen from Paris? Brad Pitt, successor of Humphrey Bogart? Madonna, heiress of Billie Holiday? Edouard Launet, IN LIBÉRATION...
...idea that heritage studies is simply navel-gazing by another name has plagued ethnic departments since the 1960s. “Some reactions were that there’s a hopeless compromise here—you cannot have a rigorous program of study if the people are only in it to find their roots,” says Machinist. Jayne Professor of Government and Professor of African and African American Studies Jennifer L. Hochschild explains that a liberal arts education must “get you outside of yourself” so that you learn to think about a wide...
...room to decide precisely what every educated person ought to know. Try it! There will be no agreement. The trouble is not finding a coherent position, but sorting out other coherent positions with a method that will yield a legitimate result. Harvard tried this experiment recently. After months of navel-gazing, consultations, focus groups, and faculty meetings, they came to a compromise: Students would have to take courses in certain categories, like history or literature or math or science. But within those categories, there were limited choices, and students were free to make them. That is what the current system...