Word: panglossians
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...string and Plant emulsifies his voice for such less than breathtaking lyrics as "If mountains should crumble into the sea/ There would still be you and me," and "Inspiration is what you are to me." But the inspiration is unfortunately bathetic, and the sanguine ending is a bit too Panglossian. "Thank You" does provide a needed contrast to the previous songs, amatory alacrity and citrous jeu d'chair, but its flawed beauty recalls Checkhov's reply to a plea for biographical disclosures: "If you haven't facts, substitute lyricism...
...politics and war will soon become obvious. Then, armed with facts, the population need only use its untapped brain power to usher in "a higher plane of civilization" that would make classical Greece or the Renaissance look like cultural wastelands by comparison. "All that is required," Gallup asserts with Panglossian optimism, "is a firm belief in man's great potentialities and a readiness to accept change...
This lofty, Panglossian attitude underlies serious, if infrequent, professional misjudgments by the Foreign Office, notably Britain's brave attempt to shrug off the Congo crisis, as well as its extraordinary lapses of human judgment, as in its boys-will-be-boys disregard of such howling security risks as Burgess and Maclean. Since more than 90% of all its recruits are Oxford or Cambridge men, class-conscious Britons still echo the plaint of 19th century Reformer John Bright that the service is "a gigantic system of outdoor relief for the British aristocracy...
...grasp of the satiric method is so masterful that he keeps several lines of intent running at once-the narrative, the lesson, the joke-creating an impression of charm, not bitterness, of critical appreciation, not disloyalty. To make a point, he follows Voltaire's example and speaks in Panglossian didactics: "When we do not want to think of something, it is best to forget it." Final Kinship. In Big Mac, moreover, Kos's aim reaches far beyond Yugoslavia's frontiers. When the whale's decay at last turns a pinch-nosed public against him, Rade...
...Panglossian* (or Eisenhower Republican) view, which holds that the economy is "wonderful, flexible, resilient, dynamic, self-operating and cornucopic...