Literary notes about Mindless (AI summary)
In literature, the term "mindless" is often employed to denote a lack of thought, purpose, or emotional engagement, serving as a sharp critique of behaviors or conditions that are automatic and unreflective. It can convey a sense of mechanical monotony, as when life is recounted in an almost hypnotic refrain—“Mindless we lived and mindless we loved...” [1]—or function as a bitter insult aimed at those deemed intellectually barren or contemptible [2]. At times, the word underscores an eerie, zombie-like existence devoid of free will or sensitivity [3], while in other contexts it highlights superficiality in aesthetic or cultural practices [4]. In essence, authors utilize "mindless" to reflect a troubling absence of critical self-awareness and to cast light on the consequences of living without thoughtful intent [5], [6], [7].
- Mindless we lived and mindless we loved, And mindless at last we died; And deep in a rift of the Caradoc drift We slumbered side by side.
— from The Scrap Book. Volume 1, No. 2April 1906 by Various - "You brainless, mindless, contemptible idiot," Garlock sneered.
— from The Galaxy Primes by E. E. (Edward Elmer) Smith - One word from Douglas and she had become a zombie—a mindless muscle preparation that existed only to obey.
— from The Lani People by Jesse F. Bone - An Oriental Paradise, with its delicate but mindless æstheticism, is above every thing a garden for love.
— from The Life of Reason: The Phases of Human Progress by George Santayana - There was no sign that its blind, mindless patience was becoming exhausted.
— from Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 by Various - Remove his optic nerve and he becomes blind, destroy the ganglia in his brain, and he becomes mindless.
— from The Truth about Jesus : Is He a Myth? by M. M. (Mangasar Mugurditch) Mangasarian - For to believe otherwise is not only to be mindless of his ways, but altogether deaf.
— from The Commonwealth of Oceana by James Harrington
