Word: worldview
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...Endowment for the Arts to respect "general standards of decency and respect" in its grant-awarding process. Implicit in such rulings is a reading of the First Amendment that goes something like this: whenever the state throws its weight behind a specific set of beliefs, it is establishing one worldview at the expense of another. And this the First Amendment explicitly prohibits it from doing. You don't have to support art, this peculiar interpretation of the Constitution counsels; but once you get in the game, moral criteria are illegitimate and only artistic considerations should apply...
Where, then, do we draw the line? Public funding of desecration of religious symbols and sacred objects of singular significance is out, but what about art meaningfully representing subject matter that merely conflicts in a serious way with ones worldview? Should a born-again evangelical have to see his tax dollars spent on representations of homosexuality? How about Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase?" He might just fear hellfire and brimstone as punishment for underwriting any display of carnality. Heck, what about a fanatical tree-hugger--should his tax dollars help house murals depicting the brutal subjugation...
...which most world leaders are plugged into hundreds of sources of information, from CNN to their own intelligence reports, Yeltsin's worldview is shaped largely by a daily press digest of about 17 pages. Whether he looks at it is another matter: a succession of aides have complained that he is loath to read. It is equally hard to persuade him to watch the TV news. Meanwhile the circle of people who have unfettered access to him is strikingly small. The circle consists of his former chief of staff Valentin Yumashev, who still wields enormous influence from the shadows; Yeltsin...
...meet them all, become a part of their little worlds and offer them entrance to ours. But it can be equally awe-inspiring to think how radically different the lives of others are from your own, how no experience is going to bring you any closer to their worldview...
Subordinate intentions--such as those deriving from good conscience--may operate in any line of work, but the profit-making intention ultimately "prevails" over these weaker intentions at the level of decision and action. And since the profit motive dominates the conventional worldview of these unconscionable times, should it be at all surprising that we live in a world of extreme poverty, environmental destruction, war and spiritual emptiness...