Word: paradox
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After the dour, crabbed atmosphere of the Carter years, the country needed a mood change. The great failure, and great paradox, of the Reagan era is that its protagonist succeeded too well on that score. His rhetoric on domestic matters encouraged Americans to celebrate instant gratification at the expense of the future, while his policies channeled national energies away from enterprises of common purpose. Reaganomics increased the national debt by 170% and converted the U.S. from a major creditor to a vulnerable debtor in the global financial market...
...many Westerners, the idea of the Japanese monarchy seems a paradox in a country that has become the cynosure of the modern industrial world. Yet the institution, the oldest of its kind on the globe, lies at the center of Japan's national psyche, characterizing both the country's flexibility and its resistance to the shock of the new. As Akihito succeeds his father, the institution and the nation are at another beginning...
...paradox has bent the collective mind of the electorate into a pretzel. Before last week's debates, the Progressive Conservatives had looked like a good bet to win a majority in the House of Commons for a second consecutive term. A Gallup poll estimated that the Tories would claim roughly 40% of the vote -- enough to win 193 of the House's 295 seats -- with the New Democrats running at 29%, and Liberals at 28%. But Gallup also reported that 42% of Canadians oppose the free-trade agreement, 34% support it, and almost a quarter of the country is undecided...
...paradox of Sontag is that she is an ardent modernist with the earnestness -- and superabundant energy -- of a Victorian moralist. If she likes to "go faster," it's partly because she has so much to cram in. In August, for instance, she attended the biennial gathering of the writers group PEN International (she is president of PEN's American chapter) in Seoul and managed to infuriate Korean authorities by insistently raising the issue of imprisoned South Korean writers. Late September brought the New York Film Festival premiere of Sarah, a documentary on Sarah Bernhardt that Sontag narrates, and a week...
Inevitably, some people fear that all this profit cannot come without a loss. The paradox of beauty is that it will not be left alone; it begs, almost, to be compromised, homogenized, packaged or roughed up. And Thailand has certainly been industrious in marketing its smiles. By now, 77 companies offer hill-tribe treks in Chiangmai alone, and Pattaya, a quiet fishing village just two decades ago, is a bloated red-light area studded with 256 hotels. Indeed, the metaphor of selling out is given flesh by the embarrassing statistics of Thailand's sex trade: perhaps 250,000 women...