Word: vision
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
What Gomes has decidedly less patience for isthe people who expect him to capitalise on themedia attention he has garnered. Gomes' lifeconforms to the vision of an American successstory. The son of a cranberry farmer, Gomes'father offered a tepid response when he learnedthat his son wanted to be a preacher. But sensingthat he had found his life's vocation, Gomespursued the path he felt destined to. And, seeinghim at the pulpit, it is hard to imagine him doinganything else...
Although at first blush this seems a noble vision, it is in fact a deeply paternalistic view--benevolent paternalism, perhaps, but paternalism all the same. Epps, speaking as a representative of the administration, knows Harvard and understands how it operates. Students can only hope to match their talents to the existing structure of this institution. The goal as he envisions it is not to enable students to shape either their experiences or the College itself, but to enable us to use the existing possibilities as best...
...contemporary of Nostradamus was Sir Thomas More, whose Utopia was not so much a vision of the future as a vision of a better society and thus a reproach to present evils. But henceforth, Utopian dreams of reform invariably mingled with anticipation of tomorrow. This was particularly true in the 18th century, with the Age of Reason's belief in the perfectibility of human nature and the near inevitability of progress. Revolution was in the air, and revolution itself is a kind of prophecy--a violent prediction...
According to his vision, which he called Nationalism, America in 2000 is essentially one huge corporation. In his odd version of economics, the absence of competition means that all production is efficient and goods are cheap. Since there is enough for everybody, greed has disappeared and so has money. People are issued something like credit cards with which they can draw whatever they need from common stores. Every citizen must serve in a kind of workers' army in which all get the same pay. In lieu of financial incentives there is patriotism and "passion for humanity." People marry each other...
...contributing darker shades to images of the future. In 1903 William Wallace Cook, a newspaperman and free-lance writer, published A Round Trip to the Year 2000, in which robots known as "muglugs" displace human workers, sending them to live out a miserable existence somewhere in the Midwest (a vision not designed to cheer chambers of commerce in the heartland). Voracious capitalism has triumphed. The "Air Trust" sells the very air people breathe; the "Sun Trust" forces the public to pay even for sunshine...