Word: positionality
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...THIS IS A BOOK ABOUT PEOPLE, specifically, about those powerful men who ran America in the Sixties. With remarkable clarity, Halberstam details the ways that decisions are made. Already we have seen a truckload of books which posit economic, political, psychological or altruistic motivations for American involvement in Vietnam. This book is different, Halberstam reveals how men operating in an institutional context turn theoretical considerations into hard-nosed policy...
...easiest way to understand them is to dismiss them as monsters. If writing off a whole nation makes you uncomfortable, you can posit a totalitarian state that shredded a people to an atomized mass and transformed each man into a monster. But the facts are less convenient. Most Germans lived close to normal lives. The world turned upside down, but most Germans remained standing...
...posit, simply address everyone as "Mr.," thereby reducing the chance for the printed word to contribute to Ms. Steinem's dilemma? Thus, if we were to receive a letter from a Mr. G. Steinem, no prejudgment could be made on the premise that the writer is good-looking, famous and a woman...
Both men would like to see multilateral agencies lift some of the financial burden from the sweating shoulders of the American colossus. However, the distasteful political system they posit will repel most nations. Smithies' plan takes that into account. "The most suitable multinational arrangement would be a consortium (including) the U.S., Japan, Australia, Thailand, New Zealand, Korea and the Philippines," he writes. "But the club should not be exclusive. Canada, for instance, should be included...
...Smithies make these political assumptions himself or did he act on specifications prepared by the IDA? That is one of the unanswered questions. Smithies refused to talk on the record: "I don't try to get into political controversy," he said. Probably he chose to posit a rightwing political administration, largely because that is the contingency he is academically equipped to handle. But the question misses the point. When the IDA gave him the contract, it knew the sort of work he was likely to do. That was the sort of work it wanted...