Word: egalitarianism
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...teahouse owned by Harold's family. They are soon joined by teen-aged Master Harold, returning from school. Having spent time with these men since he was a child. "Hally" banters with them as friends, discussing the details of his morning. Styling himself as a typical liberal egalitarian student, he laments that "It's a bloody awful world when you think of it, what people do to each other...Where's progress? Every age has got its social reformer." Sam, the more intelligent and articulate of the Negro servants, easily replies, "Where's ours?" which Hally shrugs and offers...
...Buckley. For years when Buckley ran support for the outcast Republican right, one could still laugh at his jokes, marvel at his elegance (some say arrogance) and appreciate his steadfast defense of conventional conservatism. Sometimes it could appear almost comical, the notion as he presents it, that a naturally egalitarian society could better itself by arbitrarily endowing some minority with excess wealth. But the patrician Buckley, by fueling liberal notions of conservative insensitivity and snobbery-could make the most brilliant of his arguments impotent. For some that would be the biggest joke...
...hospital's union leaders are a grotesque admixture of ideological charlatans and ranting four-year-olds. The three union leaders are prepared to close down the hospital in the name of equality, protesting that the private patients should not receive better food than the public ones. This sincere egalitarian critique is immediately compromised, however, when management allows the three union leaders to attend the catered reception for the Queen...
Freeman refutes Mead's findings in Samoa on almost all counts: rank, aggressive behavior, religion and punishment, for instance. Contrary to popular belief, Freeman claims that the Samoans are not an easy going, forgiving, and relatively egalitarian people. Rather, they are aggressive, strict, somewhat pious, and, on occasion, belligerent and violent--not entirely unlike our own culture. More interesting are Freeman's chapters on sexual mores and behavior, and on adolescence. He concludes that the Samoans are in fact as uptight and troubled as adolescent Americans...
Clearly, the parallel is not perfect: Americans are less committed to an egalitarian society, the New Deal and Great Society have lost their appeal in the face of the new selfishness, and one cannot be sure that voters will respond so directly, Still, a welfare state has a certain amount of inertia. One cannot easily deprive people of privileges they have had a taste of, and even Reagan has been forced to compromise, sparing Social Security, signing the new $5 billion jobs bill, and even raising some taxes. But the pressure for new taxes will continue as the projected deficit...