Word: paradoxical
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Mailer is a member of the postwar generation of writers who still believed in the possibility of the Great American Novel. This notion always flirted with silliness, but its power to spur the ambition of young authors cannot be discounted. The paradox of Mailer's career is that his pursuit of this white whale proved the quest in his case unnecessary. He became a major writer without becoming a major novelist. His instinct to abandon fiction for long periods was, given his talents and temperament, entirely correct. His unique value among his contemporaries proved to be the witness...
...many experts, however, Reagan's dream of a "truly lasting stability" is a nightmare of a new, and highly destabilizing, arms race. It is part of the paradox and perversity of nuclear weapons-and practically an article of faith among those who must think about how to prevent their use-that defensive systems can be every bit as treacherous as the offensive ones they are meant to counter. The reason is that in theory, strategic defenses would tend to upset the balance of terror and increase the chance...
...Lauderdale mounted a referendum and voted itself dry so swiftly, it is said, there was scarcely time to order a second round. To understand the reason for the ban, a familiarity with bedrock religion would be handy-that and oldtime values. And to understand its effect is to appreciate paradox. The contradiction, in the words of Circuit Court Judge J. Edward Tease, has been "institutionalized bootlegging." Too, as Architect Gerald Wade was instructing an inquisitor the other day, "Your question is phrased wrong. The question isn't how long the county has been dry, but, rather, whether...
...Chicago Biographer Alzina Stone Dale indicates in her spirited biography, Chesterton doted on paradox. The lover of tradition was a radical populist; the Falstaffian clown was a deeply committed intellectual; the friend of such freethinkers as George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells converted to Roman Catholicism at 48, and thereafter engaged in eloquent public debates with his colleagues...
Abolitionists hope so, anyway. They are now arguing a subtle paradox. The prudence and selectivity required by the court, they say, means that executions will be carried out only rarely, and thus will remain arbitrary and freakish, a sort of death lottery. There is always caprice along the way to death row. Prosecutors have great leeway in deciding which homicides to try as capital murders. A killer can be persuaded to testify against an accomplice to save his own life. Brooks was convicted and executed; for the same murder his partner must serve only eight more years in prison...