Word: abstracted
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...secular saint, but he would be the first to admit that he is something far more pedestrian: a politician. He overthrew apartheid and created a nonracial democratic South Africa by knowing precisely when and how to transition between his roles as warrior, martyr, diplomat and statesman. Uncomfortable with abstract philosophical concepts, he would often say to me that an issue "was not a question of principle; it was a question of tactics." He is a master tactician...
...what the confession does. It puts the other person in a permanent state of hurt and grief and loss of trust and an inability to feel safe, and it doesn't alleviate your guilt. Your relationship is dealt a potentially devastating blow. Honesty is great, but it's an abstract moral principle.... The higher moral principle, I believe, is not hurting people. And when you confess to having an affair, you are hurting someone more than you can ever imagine. So I tell people, if you care that much about honesty, figure out who you want to be with, commit...
Patriotism has always been the most abstract of American virtues--which may be why we fight so ferociously over the symbols that help us define it. Too often those symbols--flags, anthems, slogans--which are meant to unite us, end up dividing...
...some degree, Lomborg is right. It would be a mistake to let fears over warming in the future overwhelm the endless list of ills today, and at times it does seem as if environmentalists care more about climate in the abstract than real human suffering. But not every threat can be broken down in terms of dollars and cents. Climate change is a unique challenge because if the dire predictions turn out to be right, our planet - and our civilization - might no longer be recognizable. We remain frustratingly incapable of nailing down how much warming we'll experience over...
...grounds that they violate human dignity. Even if we accept this idea of dignity—which is somehow desecrated by the sale but not the donation of kidneys, and which applies to these organs but not the other aforementioned body parts—is the preservation of this abstract idea worth restricting a person’s control over his or her body and putting another person’s life at risk? We must base the law, not on these disputed and amorphous moral principles, but on the real social costs of different legislation...