Word: conceptions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...political elements Brinkley brings to the novel more than make up for it; it is precisely this concept that most spy novels lack. Particularly fascinating is the view of inevitable corruption permeating whatever government controls Managua, an outlook that would warm even a hardened cynic's heart but leave ardent supporters of America's fight to democratize the world feeling slightly...
...very different character. A character who, rather awkwardly for me, doesn't herself believe in the concept of character. That is to say (a favorite phrase of her own) Robyn Penrose, Temporary Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Rummidge, holds that "character" is a bourgeois myth, an illusion created to reinforce the ideology of capitalism...
...artful equivocation is an almost impossible concept to explain, but it is easy to demonstrate. Let us take our earlier typical examination question, "Did the philosphical beliefs of Hume represent the spirit of the age in which he lived?" The equivocator would answer it in this way: "Some people believe that David Hume was not necessarily a great philosopher because his thought was merely a reflection of conditions around him, colored by his own personality. Others, however, strongly support Hume's greatness on the ground that the force of his personality definitely affected the age in which he lived...
...physicians, meanwhile, are transformed from professionals into employees, with a duty to serve not only the interests of their patients but the demands of the corporation as well. "They're asking physicians to pay for their decisions," says internist Madeleine Neems in Lake Bluff, Ill. "That's a terrible concept. When you analyze whether or not a patient needs an expensive test, a lot of times it's not a clear-cut yes or no. I don't want my finances tied into those decisions...
...true Communist society (not that there has ever been one, but this is what the Soviets were aiming for), there's little incentive to produce. The well-known goal is "from each according to his abilities, to each according % to his needs." That is a noble concept, but because it separates what people get from how they perform -- they get what they need regardless of how they perform -- it ultimately fails...