Word: spheres
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...main difference between the 1950s and the 1980s, Kaus concludes, lies in the size of the public sphere. The ever-decreasing frequency of interactions between individuals from different backgrounds has nearly destroyed social equality. More and more, Americans equate salary earned with intrinsic worth, and so a shrinking public sphere allows snobbery and status envy to geed upon income differences...
...time-honored civic liberalism to its logical ends. Kaus maintains that the first problem civic liberals must eliminate is the persistence of underclass. If the United States can somehow raise its poorest citizens' standard of living, other Americans won't be able to justify their flight from the public sphere. The perceived threat that the poorly-educated, crime-ridden underclass poses to the children of the wealthy and the middle class will disappear, and Americans will find their way back into public parks, public schools, public transportation and the like...
...Equality suggests that other institutional changes will shore up the new public sphere. A healthcare system that puts the rich and poor together in the same doctors' offices and hospital rooms demonstrates an unequivocal refusal to value the lives of the rich more than those of the poor. Likewise a military draft. Although it provides and easy out for college-aged males who hesitate to face the risks and rigors of military service, the current All-Volunteer Force is the epitome of institutionalized social inequality; the poor boys get paid to get killed, and everyone else stays home. Earnest institutional...
...expand the areas of life in which everyone, regardless of income, receives the same treatment. National health care, improved public schools, universal national service and government financing of nearly all election campaigns, which would freeze out special- interest money -- these are the unobjectionable components of Kaus' enlarged public sphere...
Havnen added that this influx of women into thepolitical sphere "has had a considerable influenceon the national level and also the local level...