Word: zeitgeists
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Deinstitutionalization fit perfectly into the antiauthoritarian zeitgeist of the '60s and early '70s. Radical Psychiatrist R.D. Laing popularized the rather romantic notion that insanity could be a sane reaction to an insane world, while Sociologist Erving Goffman suggested that institutions, by their very nature, stifled individual development. Courts began to protect the rights of the mentally ill against the encroachments of the state. But in the 1980s, the continual seesaw in America between individual freedom and society's responsibility is tipping again...
...words but lack the understanding to put what they read into broad, insightful context. The Hirsch antidote: heavy doses of Western cultural lore, as represented by a list of nearly 5,000 entries in an appendix labeled "What Literate Americans Know," ranging from A ("act of God") to Z ("Zeitgeist"), and including "1066" and "White Christmas (song)." Knowing at least a commercial idea when it sees one, namely the untrivial sales impact of the list, Houghton Mifflin promises more where it came from, i.e., a dictionary of cultural terms and perhaps an electronic game to test cultural literacy...
Besides, like any clever agent, Bond could adapt to the Zeitgeist. With an eye toward detente, he found villains in rogue warriors, not cold warriors. Indeed, in A View to a Kill, "Comrade Bond" is awarded the Order of Lenin. One of these days, he might even get a citation from Ms. magazine. The male chauvinist piggy is still susceptible to European beauties of no fixed abode or accent, but now he relies on their intelligence and independence. They can fight manfully; he can fall in love...
...maintain their positive image in a newly-acute public eye, range from politicians as diverse as Ronald Reagan and Gary Hart to various and sundry purveyors of salvation in the evangelical movement such as Jim Bakker, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Looking back over the changes in the American zeitgeist over the past nine months, we can only hope that "Substance Chic" is more than just a passing...
...People have to make happy clothes," Patrick Kelly says. "There's just too much sadness in the world." In fashion's fractional contribution to the Zeitgeist, he and Ozbek and Gigli have made nonchalance into a high craft, turned zest into a wearable commodity. Spirit does not have shape on a hanger either, but these are three young designers who cut it and fit it like fine fabric, then send it out to play...