Word: powerlessness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...court of the '70s may not be criminal rights but citizen rights. Columbia Political Scientist Alan Westin, for instance, sees an impending collision between the old system of government, which depends upon political parties and established bureaucracy, and the new demands for participation by the poor and the powerless. There will be constant requests, predicts Westin, for the court to referee. If it refuses, he says, there will be "a decade unsurpassed in violence." Beyond that, there will be, without question, a paramount need to provide a legal framework to curb an overweening technology, which even today threatens to destroy...
...states that now make manufacturers strictly liable for any defect that ought not to exist-warranties not withstanding. The object, said Justice Buell Nesbett, "is to ensure that the cost of injuries resulting from defective products are borne by the manufacturers rather than by the injured persons, who are powerless to protect themselves...
...time in 18 months, the finely balanced monetary system that is the foundation of Western commerce tumbled into chaos. The crisis threatened to paralyze the system of fixed-exchange rates that has been fostering a rapid growth of trade, tourism and general prosperity. For the moment, world leaders seemed powerless to devise a lasting solution. The all but certain prospect is that more, and perhaps worse, trouble lies ahead...
Both the outsiders and the defectors are concerned that technological society is headed for what John Gardner calls "the beehive model"-a world of faceless bureaucracies and powerless individuals. One target is today's "multiversity," with its fragmented specialists, the antithesis of Cardinal Newman's 19th century idea of the university as a seeker of wholeness. Many intellectuals are also dismayed by the style of much intellectual thought today: the narrow pragmatism of the physical and behavioral sciences. The charge is that specialization has robbed thought of moral vision. In Big Science, for example, team members work...
...that end, the country's intellectuals are hardly as powerless as many claim to be. The U.S. still heeds the individual social critic who builds a powerful case. Michael Harrington's The Other America, for instance, was a key impetus for the poverty program. Other effective reformers abound-James Bryant Conant, John Gardner, Ralph Nader, Saul Alinsky and Daniel Moynihan, to cite a few. And who ever dreamed that Eugene McCarthy would do so well in the New Hampshire primary...