Word: abstractions
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There are several reasons for discussing this subject openly and carefully. To begin with, commentators have pointed out for years that Americans give overwhelming support to free speech as an abstract proposition but quickly change their minds when they encounter concrete cases involving the expression of unpopular ideas. Not so long ago, for example, a national poll revealed that 68 percent of people 25 to 35 years old and 78 percent of all 17-year-olds favored a ban on any statements on radio or television indicating that "Russia is better than the United States" or "Some races of people...
...religious issues may now be greater than in any previous election. At stake on one level are a set of tough, specific public policy matters with a clear religious dimension: abortion, public school prayer, tax credits for parents of private school students. The debate has also raised more abstract questions: Just how should faith inform public policymaking? Should clergy involve themselves and their congregations directly in politics? To what extent should religious beliefs be thrust into the campaign...
Questions about the role of religion in politics also occur on a level more abstract than the to-and-fro over particular legislative issues. By allying himself with the Religious Right and its tendency toward a self-righteous zeal, President Reagan can seem, at times, to be appropriating godliness itself for his party and Administration. Last week Columnist Mike Royko joked bitterly about the tendency. "They've managed to convince a large segment of the population that God is a conservative Republican...
...flecked totalitarian state-is not only legitimate but a tribute to the hardihood of Moliere's 17th century satire of conformity and misplaced religious fervor. Pintilie's production at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis will not please purists: it is manic rather than mannered, it looks abstract and austere rather than luxuriously "in period," and it ingeniously takes liberties with the plot without altering the text...
...untenable in 1960, Candidate Ferraro in 1984 seems well equipped to disprove the caricature of woman as flighty, emotional and weak. The electorate has yet to be exposed to many female campaigners-none at the topmost level-and people are able to cling to prejudice more easily in the abstract. With a real live female candidate stumping the country and getting incessant public attention between now and November, one who is unafraid of seeming both feminine and strong, a lot of half-baked, half-conscious bias should slough away. "Kennedy proved that Catholics had finally arrived in American society, that...