Word: abstractions
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...celebration of Goetz is understandable--he took on the punks and the system--but it retains a curiously surreal quality: the characters, hero and villains alike, are all abstract, marquee characters. Indeed, the whole Goetz phenomenon is life gone to the movies. The tabloids call the hero the Death Wish vigilante. The bad guys are out of A Clockwork Orange. The subway set is borrowed from Escape from New York. And now the audience picks up the chant from Network, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more...
...fact that the story instantly took on the form of a morality play. (In fact two columnists, on the same day, headlined their comments on the shooting with that phrase.) SYMBOL OF SUBTERRANEAN VENGEANCE, the Washington Post called Goetz. But no one remains a symbol, no story remains abstract forever. Mayors and editorialists can take heart: as soon as reality sets in, the glamour will fade, and the people will come to their senses...
...lenient treatment his attackers received. These four were paying for more than their own sins. A whole class of muggers got theirs on the downtown express. But the law, which still prevails aboveground, does not permit trial by class. Everyone pays for his sins only. Even criminals cannot remain abstract...
...warrant refusing a gift, Bok contends in his 1979 statement that most donations fall in the "acceptable" category. "On the whole I would be inclined to accept such donations on the ground that the tangible benefits of using the money for scholarships or faculty salaries should overcome the more abstract, symbolic consideration," Bok writes...
...antimodern, or "postmodern," movement of the past decade has shaken this complacency. Postmodernism is just as abstract, arrogant and alienated from popular culture as "less-is-more" modernism ever was. Worse, it has abandoned all the social aspirations of the early modern movement. Yet antimodernism has demonstrated one important lesson: the absurdity of seeking a universal style. Designers talk increasingly about "pluralism," and they even picked up computer-advertising jargon about "user friendliness...