Word: constant
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...course, Wolfe isn't able to carry this through without inconsistencies and almost constant maiming of facts. At certain points in the piece the American intellectual is a moron, a pretentious ape who stores but cannot read back issues of The New York Review of Books. The kind of person who furnishes his house in the built-for-children way that is the mark of the consumption-oriented hipster: stark white walls, huge plants and Coltrane records. At other times the same group is unbelievably activist, traveling the country and spreading its poison about this great land on every Midwest...
...curiously shallow and optimistic, more concerned with behavior (sex or drink, for example) than with the deeper states of sin. The devil can be banished, and evil can be fought; evil is seen almost as a mere "problem" to be solved. There is little sense that evil is a constant presence and inextricably mixed with good. That is why every new American generation seems to discover evil as if it had been invented only yesterday-and by the older generation. There is not much of the insight that man and society are permanently imperfect...
What force then will serve to spread wealth "to the lowest ranks of the people"? The law of the free marketplace, says Smith, by which even greed is predestined to do good. That is because it is based on everyone's self-interest, which he defines as "the uniform, constant and uninterrupted effort of every man to better his condition." His logic runs like this...
Unable to continue at the potter's wheel, Wedgwood turned to other aspects of the trade, trying out different mixtures of colored clays and various glazes. His brother disapproved of his constant experimenting and refused to make him a partner, so Wedgwood tried two other partnerships, then started a small business of his own. He had ideas for basic improvements that now seem obvious: standardized sizes, for example, so that plates could more easily be stored in piles. And instead of letting one craftsman toil over each plate, Wedgwood introduced a division of labor for faster production. He also...
...honor of serving as pedestals to these creations, the modishly coiffed ladies of the Continent are willing to suffer all manner of inconveniences. Doorways, chandeliers and closed carriages pose a constant challenge. Since the more fanciful styles take as long as four hours to sculpt, women often find it necessary to have them done the day before an important event and then sleep sitting up all night to preserve them. The coiffures are constructed to last three or four weeks; when cut open, they often emit a noxious effluvium and occasionally a living creature...