272 ■ NOTES
as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect.”) See
review in Newsweek (Oct. 5, 1987, p. 90).168 Human relations are malleable. This has been one of the basic tenets
of symbolic interactionism in sociology and anthropology (see Goffman
1969, 1974; Suttles 1972). It also underlies the systems approach to
family therapy, e.g., Jackson (1957), Bateson (1978), Bowen (1978), and
Hoffman (1981).Intolerable solitude. See notes to p. 165.
Sunday mornings. That people tended to have an unusual number of
nervous breakdowns on Sunday mornings was already noted by psycho
analysts in turn-of-the-century Vienna (see Ferenczi 1950). They, how
ever, attributed the fact to more complicated causes than the ones we
are postulating here.169 The literature on television viewing is so enormous that even a short
summary would probably be too long. A reasonably complete review is
given in Kubey & Csikszentmihalyi in press. Given the scale of the
phenomenon, and its social and economic implications, it is very difficult
to maintain scientific objectivity when dealing with television. Some
researchers stoutly defend it, claiming that viewers are perfectly able to
use television for their own purposes and turn viewing to their advan
tage, while others interpret the data to show that it makes the viewers
passive and discontented. Needless to say, this writer belongs to the
second faction.170 The conclusion that drugs are not consciousness-expanding is based
on interviews with about 200 artists whom our team has been studying
for the past 25 years (see Getzels & Csikszentmihalyi 1965, 1976; Csik
szentmihalyi, Getzels, & Kahn 1984). Although artists have a tendency
to glorify drug-induced experiences, I have yet to hear of a creative work
(or at least one that the artists themselves thought was a good one)
produced entirely under the influence of drugs.
Coleridge and Kubla Khan. One of the most often-quoted examples
of how drugs help creativity is Coleridge’s claim that he wrote Kubla
Khan in a flash of inspiration caused by the ingestion of laudanum—or
opium. But Schneider (1953) has cast serious doubts on this story,
presenting documentary evidence that Coleridge wrote several drafts of
the poem, and made up the opium story to appeal to the romantic tastes
of early-19th-century readers. Presumably if he had lived now, he would
have done the same.171 Our current research with talented teenagers shows that many fail to
develop their skills not because they have cognitive deficits, but because
they cannot stand being alone, and are left behind by their peers who