Word: gloom
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They gather each morning at dawn, waiting to see if the boats coming in are empty or full. Crewmen, captains, shipowners, processors and union representatives huddle in the gloom on fishing piers all along the New England seacoast. Like generations of fishermen before them, many of these weather-lined men work grueling twelve-hour shifts in biting winds and high seas for days on end. Unlike their predecessors, however, they are catching fewer fish every year-which is one reason that U.S. fish prices are rising so fast...
...concedes wearily, later that day. "I talked with some kid and he said I don't think that anybody incidentally would care about anybody infiltrating the peace movement that was demonstrating against the President, particularly on the war in Vietnam," he adds, a ray of hope breaking through his gloom. "Do you think so?" "No!" John Dean says bravely...
...shoppers despite last week's lifting of the Arab oil embargo; and Watergate has produced a morbid epidemic of doubt about the country's future. "Inflation is no longer the sole reason for pessimistic expectations," says University of Michigan Economist Jay Schmiedeskamp. "At least half of the gloom comes from Watergate and the energy crisis. The Government plays a large role in the economy, and the people have lost faith in the Government's ability...
...justification they cite his storytelling powers. Faced with an important question like "Who was Legs Mortimer?" only Wodehouse could reply, "That was precisely what Angus McTavish wanted to know when he saw him blowing kisses at Evangeline Brackett from the clubhouse canteen," thereby ensuring a rapt and docile audience. Gloom is kept down to the essential minimum and balanced by modest quantities of sex and violence, as in The Salvation of George Mackintosh, in which the beautiful Celia attempts to murder him (George) with, of all things, her niblick. (He had. after all, addressed her while she was addressing...
Human Nature. But what takes Heilbroner beyond 1974's gloom-as-usu-al is his rediscovery of and pessimism about human nature. Old-style progressives, if they accepted the concept of human nature at all, used to regard it as either essentially good or infinitely correctible. But Heilbroner now doubts that mankind can be brought to care enough about the future to do what is necessary to save the present - especially as regards self-denial. Can 20th century civilization give up the "ethos of 'science' " (not to mention the work ethic) and for sake the now monstrous...