Word: cubed
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...chastises the President's simplemindedness in foreign affairs the metaphor probably reflects a shared and abiding American faith in a world we can solve. That geometric precision may not be attuned to modern life. The cube cliche recalls the Gordian Knot, that ancient interlocking challenge whose solution held the secrets of Asian conquest. Like Alexander bringing Hellenism to the heathen, Americans want to bear democracy and Western hopes and dreams to an undemocratic non-Western world...
Insofar as these ideals are universally human, the obligation is real, if less manageable than the cube analogy would suggest. Unfortunately, the Administration's puzzle solvers lean towards the engineer's approach to foreign policy take the cube apart, cut the knot with Trident and Lance missiles and try to join the frayed ends...
Turning to another pattern, cubism brings together the American fascinations with the trivia and the inventive Cleverly designed, the cube appeals to a nation that is home to electric can openers, touch-tone phones, and canned hot shaving cream. Americans love garish toys tinged with plastic high tech and the ubiquitous "New, Improved!" label--skateboards with polyurethane wheels, very square exotica from a Hungarian mathematician...
...Both phenomena mirror our self-image as we like it best--well-groomed and creative. Like the beggar watching someone else speed by in a limousine, the clever device prompts an "I could have done that" response. If creativity is the human ability to see pattern in chaos, the cube restores our flagging hope in our own imagination as it distracts us from an untidy world...
MAINLY, THE CUBE is a conversation piece, like the wastebasket collages of Picasso and Braque. It may or may not reflect the dimensionality of man's existence, the shape of our times, or the pretentiousness of slim gold-tipped cigarettes. A bauble that combines the simplicity of pet rocks with engineering savvy, the Cube gratifies our desire for bric-a-brac. In a society where even most of the poor can watch television dreams, the struggle for survival which engages most of humanity can be less squarely faced. Accordingly, boredom, especially the middle class Roman kind which languidly consumers grapes...