Monomania's relationship to the idea of progress in the nineteenth century could turn the
idee fixe into a symbol of both scientific and artistic advancement.
Whereas some prominent breeders, most notably the Aga Khan, prefer to ring the changes as a matter of routine, rarely repeating a mating, Martin and Pam Wygod's policy with Tranquility Lake has been that of the
idee fixe. The mare has consorted only with the world's most expensive stallion since she was taken out of training, and it is perhaps the plan to pursue that course until a filly results.
Many look behind it, however, from snobbery, mischievousness, or the thrall of an
idee fixe, seeking another Shakespeare than the one it presents.
As Marina Van Zuylen's introduction reminds us, 'monomania' came from Pinel and Esquirol, his pupil, in the early nineteenth century, and from the psychiatrist Etienne-Jean Georget; it was associated with the
idee fixe, and it could act as a synonym for melancholy.
Consider Columbus, who made a huge miscalculation about the dimensions of the earth but who was driven by the
idee fixe, and as a result discovered America--by accident.
The book is a language carnival, mixing expressions like "schtup" and "
idee fixe" in the same sentence.
The perception of Africa as a corrupt continent--whether rightly or wrongly earned--has now become such an
idee fixe in the rest of the world, that such a decisive gesture against such a highly-placed politician speaks volumes for the continent's determination to change this perception.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as the baby boom generation inserted itself into the life of the mind in Western Europe and America, it became an
idee fixe that the Enlightenment had given birth to a number of the most odious characteristics of Western civilization: wanton imperialism, capitalism, ecological depredation.
But Friedman remains resolutely credulous in the face of these gales of corporate spin, and in the end, his corporate triumphalism becomes an
idee fixe. Everything that matters is forcibly shoehorned into his tech-driven globalized future.
When we offer a pragmatic explanation of someone's belief, presenting it as, say, a wishful thought or
idee fixe, then we will have different expectations of her doxastic behavior.
conservatives used Israel as justification for the war, it was either because they insisted on a superficial reading of Israel's needs or because Israel served as one more pretext for a policy that had be come an
idee fixe.
Among the neoconservative thinkers who hold sway in the present administration, one current
idee fixe is the dream not merely of eradicating Islamic terrorism but of transforming Islam itself.
