Word: idealistic
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Murton is a realistic idealist: "I don't think prison reform is attainable," he says matter-of-factly. "It's a goal we won't ever reach but we can get closer." He smiles. "We don't have Jeffersonian democracy either...
Julia feels that she has betrayed her race. A romantic idealist, she struggles to convince herself that her love for Herman is a simple emotion, uncomplicated by their racial difference. But America's history of sexual relations between white men and Black women echoes of ugly racism: Southern gentlemen--even Jefferson--enjoyed frequent midnight strolls through their slave quarters, looking for Black women to sleep with; in most cases, these country squires took no responsibility for the slave children they fathered. Julia's female neighbors have not forgotten that sexual abuse and cannot help feeling that she allows Herman...
...idealist, Carter tends to think that if a policy is right, it will somehow prevail. A proper moral stance, he seems to believe, is at least half the battle. He thus remains relatively indifferent to strategy, to making sure that all the pieces are in place and all the proper personalities consulted, that all the predictable consequences of an action indeed have been predicted. He tends to react rather than anticipate, to race from one crisis to the next, always hoping for the best. He often fails to see how one event is related to another in a binding chain...