Word: modernize
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...When the modern Western states were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free and to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration of Independence). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. In the process...
DIED. Charles Eames, 71, modern designer whose name became synonymous with his curved chairs; of a heart attack; in St. Louis. In 1941, while designing molded machine parts for the U.S. Navy, Eames collaborated by night with his wife Ray to produce the "potato chip," a sculptured wood back and separate seat, both affixed to a steel frame. Today his molded plastic chairs are found in airline terminals and office lobbies the world over...
Philosophy, William Barrett once confessed, is "a very dubious profession" in America. But in his new book, The Illusion of Technique, Barrett vigorously rehabilitates the profession. For better or worse, he writes, philosophers have made the modern world: "If there had not been those early Greek thinkers who created philosophy, there would be no atomic bombs." Barrett's narrative of the stages in between is highly speculative. But his hold on elusive ideas is so sure, his erudition so vast and effortless, that a coherent historical design gradually emerges: Aristotle's invention of logic culminated in the scientific...
...ruin. In The Illusion of Technique, Barrett argues that even if we survive, the familiar world may well recede from our grasp, supplanted by systems that aspire to control human destiny. Barrett contends that philosophy can recall us to that world. To support his claim he cites three modern figures: Martin Heidegger, Ludwig Wittgenstein and William James. However divergent in their styles of thought, they shared Kant's conviction that freedom was the principal issue philosophy had to address. For Wittgenstein, freedom resides in the ambiguity of language; for Heidegger, in the fluid, indeterminate character of being; for William...
...staged at Wolf Trap Farm Park for the Performing Arts, outside of Washington, D.C., this one a world premiere by American Composer Stephen Douglas Burton, 35, and Librettist-Conductor Christopher Keene, 31. Strikingly different?one discordant, the other warm-bloodedly romantic?the two Duchesses show a growing divergence in modern music: between contemporary dissonances and a return to the romantic melodies of the Puccini...