Word: fetishize
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Capitalism is not a Gompers fetish, as his opposition to Socialism indicates. He declared: "There is no necessity to worry about how labor and capital can be reconciled, for they are one and the same...
...Oguntola Shapara, Nigerian physician, was decorated by King George. Dr. Shapara discovered an African secret society which worshipped smallpox as a fetish. The members spread the disease as part of their rites, making it impossible for the health officials of Nigeria to stamp out the plague. Dr. Shapara was initiated into the society and took part in its secret ritual in order to learn how to combat it. With this knowledge the Government of the colony was able to abolish the clan and to control smallpox...
Unfortunately, a certain group of undergraduates make a fetish of "recognition". They worship the varsity letter, the "cum laude", the Phi Beta Kappa key, not for the worthy efforts these symbols represent, but for the fancied prestige they infer. Failing to see that all glory depends on whole-hearted devotion to work, they attribute the glamor of the varsity letter to some intrinsic quality rather than to the strenuous efforts of generations of athletes. Their fatuous grinding away for "recognition" has for its goal an impossible flaunting of decorations, while the "big" man is invariably the least ostentatious...
...illiterate in this state, there is some need for such an institution. But it must be remembered that the old liberal arts college and the large endowed university have a precious place in the educational life of America, a place which vocational training does not attempt to fulfill. The fetish of size in education is fatal and the idea that colleges are for all is impossible. Thousands would not know what to do if they had the benefits of expensive higher training. Furthermore, state education, by no means implies free education, since only the tuition-- but a minor item...
...Boston Transcript sums up the matter in a single sentence: "The fetish of size, in education, is a fatal one." The purpose of a university is not alone to instruct and inspire the greatest number but also to make that instruction effective. The loss of the personal touch in education cannot be counterbalanced by the fact that a greater number of students are being taught...