All 3 Uses of
initiative
in
Atlas Shrugged
- Dr. Stadler felt certain that this small-time shyster had had as little to do with the Project as any of the movie usher attendants, that he possessed neither the mind nor the initiative nor even the sufficient degree of malice to cause a new gopher trap to be brought into the world, that he, too, was only the pawn of a silent machine-a machine that had no center, no leader, no direction, a machine that had not been set in motion by Dr. Ferris or Wesley Mouch, or any of the cowed…†
Chpt 3.3
- The assistant manager had exhausted his power of initiative by volunteering to call her.†
Chpt 3.5 *
- Far behind them, like an island in the vast semi-darkness of the studio space, the drawing room prepared for their broadcast stood deserted and fully lighted, a semicircle of empty armchairs under a cobweb of dead microphones in the glare of the floodlights which no one had taken the initiative to turn off.†
Chpt 3.8
Definition:
-
(initiative) the ability and tendency to determine what should be done and to start doing it without instruction
or:
to start somethingThe exact meaning of starting something depends upon the context. For example:- "She did it on her own initiative." -- started it without anyone telling her to
- "She seized the initiative." -- started actions that force others to react to her rather than her having to react to them
- "the peace initiative" -- a plan or the start of actions to bring about something
- "a ballot initiative" -- a proposed law that is started by citizen petition rather than by the legislature (applicable in many jurisdictions such as California)