Word: etzioni
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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TIME correspondents Margaret Carlson and James Carney talked with the President in the Oval Office last week. On his desk were a biography of Woodrow Wilson and the latest book by sociologist Amitai Etzioni...
...malls, McDonald's restaurants and movie theaters has fostered the perception that almost no place is safe anymore. Fear has led to a boom in the security industry and the transformation of homes and public places into fortresses. "People are worried more. They're worried sick," says Amitai Etzioni, a sociologist at George Washington University. "There is a new level of fright, one that is both overdone and realistic at the same time...
...America a fixation on assassination conspiracies? After all, the latest furor over who really killed J.F.K., inspired by Oliver Stone's movie, has only recently abated. There remain rabid challenges to official versions of the Martin Luther King and Malcolm X murders. To sociologist Amitai Etzioni, the fascination with these questions reflects a need to explain life's inexplicable dark side: Why did all these heroes die? That tendency is encouraged by America's individualism, which encourages an instinctive distrust of authority and officialdom...
...Etzioni and his followers, the question is how best to promote responsibility before imposing it. "In the end, free people are going to decide for themselves how to act," says Roger Conner of the American Alliance for Rights & Responsibilities, a bipartisan public-interest group. "How they feel about a duty that may be imposed on them is crucial. Way before something like Norplant is coerced, there has to be serious education and the widespread availability of birth control. If those conditions are met, there is a far greater possibility that both the individual and society will accept imposition. A regime...
There is much to noodle here, and there soon may also be the opportunity to see if these issues can support a presidential campaign. The leading Democratic advocate of civic obligation is Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, who announced his candidacy last week. Beyond sharing the views of Etzioni and Conner, Clinton has actually succeeded in having some of the "responsibilities" philosophy codified in law. For example, Arkansas parents who fail to attend parent-teacher conferences can be fined, and students who drop out of school are denied driver's licenses. "Not everything we do that is wrong is illegal," says...