Word: faustian
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...Western man has not lived with his natural environment. He has merely conquered it." Others suggest that the struggle will be won once the public realizes the danger inherent in man's Faustian lust to overwhelm and use the world...
...when wars were simple -and considered just-the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was a proud developer of U.S. weaponry. As a patriotic duty in World War II, for instance, the school's electronics wizards perfected the radar that foiled Hitler's bombers. Now duty has become a Faustian dilemma. In the age of antiwar dissent, M.I.T. still gets more money from the Pentagon-$108 million last year -than any other U.S. university. The result has thrust M.I.T. to the forefront of a growing national debate: What role, if any, shall universities play in war research...
...With luck and hard work," says Arthur Clarke, the dean of science-fiction writers, "we have a chance to see the final end of the Dark Ages." It seems an irresistible vision, a Faustian grand finale for rational humanist...
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911), one of the most popular conductors of his day, saw to it that his Faustian symphonies and yearning song cycles were performed as often as possible. But he knew as well as anyone that his music was way ahead of its day. "My time will come," he said. And now it has. Today the record companies lavish the kind of attention on him that they used to reserve for Beethoven and Brahms. Some choice items from a recent batch...
Like succeeding Krupps, Alfred combined an almost Faustian flair for enterprise with a Teutonic dedication to efficiency. Like his descendants, too, he showed the strain of contrariness and in bred eccentricity that helps make Manchester's series of family portraits a gallery of near-grotesques. Alfred ranted against "speculators, stock-exchange Jews, share swindlers and similar parasites"; then he borrowed from the banker Salomon Oppenheim to meet his payroll. Paranoiacally fearful of Socialist tendencies among his workers, he hired an agent to inspect even the "used toilet paper" for seditious notes. He also located his office above a stable...