Predispositions Quotes

“Every one in the world ought to do the things for which he is specially adapted. It is the part of wisdom to recognize what each one of us is best fitted for, and it is the part of education to perfect and utilize such predispositions. Because education can direct and aid nature but can never transform her.”

“Our “selves”, our “being”, our “ego”, our “soul”, our individuality, our personality, … is only our mind continuously adapting to its environment to insure survival and well-being, working with whatever inherited predispositions (formed by previous generations of minds adapting to their environment) it has to work with.If we could only make our beautiful mind come in contact with the facts, ALL the facts… , we could trust it with the rest, ALL the rest.Our beautiful mind will always do the right thing.Always.The thing is to find the facts. ALL the facts. Not one less.”

“We have already seen that when positive authority suggests a change in behavior, the recipient will accept it provided he is capable of doing so and provided it does not require drastic modification of belief or frustrate important needs. By carrying out the suggestion, one can simultaneously reduce dissonance and preserve intact one's relation to positive authority. But what can reasonably be expected when the suggestion to change is beyond the recipient's capability or frustrates his deep needs or predispositions? In such a situation, a conflict arises between his desire to comply with authority and the abilities or needs which make compliance impossible.One way to resolve such a conflict situation (or to reduce the dissonance) is to change one's conception of authority. If a suggestion emanating from positive authority is unacceptable, the conflict may be removed by becoming disaffected with the authority and transforming it either into a negative authority or into a nonexistent one. This is exactly what Leon and Joseph did.”

“As social phenomena, languages are tied up in world of unequal power relations, gaining or losing status not based on technical linguistic grounds but on social judgement, biases, and stereotypes that are based on the status of their speakers. As such, we argue that white America's love-hate relationship with black modes of communication can only be interpreted within a framework that considers language a primary site of cultural contestation. It should be clear by now that it's about more than a mothafucka, right? Our analysis of Black Language forms that the dominant culture considers inflammatory, controversial, or stigmatized allows us to make several observations. First, building off what anthropologist and linguist Arthur Spears noted in his discussion of uncensored speech, Black verbal culture, like all cultures is "a complex network of predispositions, values, behaviors, expectations and routines." Language practices, in their varying sociocultural contexts, can only be understood if read within the full range of the community's speech activities, and that requires rigorous ethnographic search and analysis. Second the community's beliefs and ideas about language- it's language ideologies- should be the primary point of departure for investigation and interpretation.”

“Most are inclined to recline into a reclining position, in order to enjoy the decline.”