Word: isn
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...elevate hope over fear and tomorrow over yesterday." Rousing words, but who's to say that tomorrow is better than yesterday, those in Sri Lanka or Peru might say, and why should we put hope (based on what might happen) over fear (based on what has palpably happened)? It isn't self-evident that mankind is really progressing, at a level deeper than machines, any more than it is that any of us is wiser than our parents...
...make resolutions" is surely the most irritating rejoinder since the deeply annoying "Let's not and say we did.") But it's easy to see why the snobs wince. Yes, New Year's resolutions are glib, sanctimonious and self-serving. Yes, they are the haiku of holiday kitsch. But isn't glib, sanctimonious, self-serving kitsch the glue that holds us together as Americans...
...only Stalin and Mao but in some ways also Hitler, who was enchanted by the Soviets' terror tactics. Doesn't the presence of such evil--and the continued eruption of totalitarian brutality from Uganda to Kosovo--make a mockery of the rationalists' faith that progress makes civilizations more civilized? Isn't Hitler, alas, the person who most influenced and symbolized this most genocidal of centuries...
...additional complications. Among other things, string theory requires the existence of up to seven dimensions in addition to the by now familiar four (height, width, length and time). It also requires the existence of an entirely new class of subatomic particles, known as supersymmetric particles, or "sparticles." Moreover, there isn't just one string theory but five. Although scientists could rule out none of them, it seemed impossible that all of them could be right...
...made literacy a crucial skill and an unprecedented means of social advancement to those who acquired it. Established hierarchies began to crumble. Books were the world's first mass-produced items. But most important of all, printing proved to be the greatest extension of human consciousness ever created. It isn't over: the 500-year-old information revolution continues on the internet. And thanks to a German printer who wanted a more efficient way to do business, you can look that...