Scholars and poets.POLEMICS po·lem·ics n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) 1. The art or practice of argumentation or controversy. 2. The practice of theological controversy to refute errors of doctrine. about affirmative action affirmative action, in the United States, programs to overcome the effects of past societal discrimination by allocating jobs and resources to members of specific groups, such as minorities and women. concentrate their intensity in moral vocabulary. Defenders say the beneficiaries "deserve" preference. Opponents contend that it's "unfair" or "immoral" to treat people differently because of their skin color. Thomas Sowell's persuasive new book, Affirmative Action Around the World Affirmative Action Around the World: An Empirical Study is a 2004 nonfiction work by economist Thomas Sowell. Already known as a critic of affirmative action or race-based hiring and promotion, Sowell, himself African-American, analyzes the specific effects of such : An Empirical Study (Yale, 239 pp., $28), makes an important contribution to this debate by focusing on the facts on the ground--not just the familiar battleground of American college American College is the name of:
adj. Being or occurring between two or more social groups: intergroup relations; intergroup violence. relations and real dangers to the fabric of society have also been produced by affirmative action in some countries." The book is short, but full of cautionary tales. In India, for example, preferential policies have resulted in "minimal benefits to those most in need of them and maximum resentments and hostility toward them on the part of others." In Nigeria, attempts to reduce ethnic polarization and foster national unity through the creation of group preferences have not fared well; the policies have "given the various groups something to fight over, rather than something to bring them closer together." In the U.S., as elsewhere, "affirmative action has been a boon to those already more fortunate" because the upper-income earners in the disadvantaged group tend to reap a disproportionate amount of the benefits of the preferential policies. These dysfunctional programs need to be buried. But that won't happen until we take Sowell's advice--and start judging affirmative action by its results rather than its rationales. * Of comprehensive poetry anthologies This is a list of anthologies of poetry. A - C
Harold Bloom (born July 11, 1930) is an American professor and prominent literary and cultural critic. Bloom defended 19th-century Romantic poets at a time when their reputations stood at a low ebb, has constructed controversial theories of poetic influence, and , who also offers detailed commentary on the selections. "In authentic poetry," he writes, "an excess or overflow emanates from figurative language, and brings about a condition of newness." The purpose of art, Ezra Pound instructed us, is to "make it new"; Bloom suggests that poetry reaches greatness to the precise extent that it makes the new creation appear to have been inevitable. Through its "strangeness," he writes, great poetry "is the true mode for expanding our consciousness." Understandably, the vast majority of the poems in this anthology will not be unfamiliar, but the selection is generous and Bloom's commentary is provocative. In his discussion of Milton, for example, he writes that "if you love poetry, then you love Satan"; if poiesis or making is a good--a desirable and praiseworthy praise·wor·thy adj. praise·wor·thi·er, praise·wor·thi·est Meriting praise; highly commendable. praise imitation of the work of the original Creator--its products can sometimes be so beautifully startling star·tle v. star·tled, star·tling, star·tles v.tr. 1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start. 2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. as to suggest a trespass upon prerogative. * Peter Godman is a non-Catholic scholar who has spent some time in the Vatican archives; the result of his researches is Hitler and the Vatican: Inside the Secret Archives That Reveal the New Story of the Nazis and the Church (Free Press, 282 pp., $27), which offers substantial insights. In the 1930s, an intricate bureaucracy--beset with its own currents and countercurrents--struggled to formulate a response to the unprecedented virulence represented by National Socialism. As early as 1934, Cardinal Pacelli, later Pius XII, was denouncing the Nazis for "preach[ing] the false and deceptive message of a new materialism of race," even as another bishop, Alois Hudal, was calling for the Church's "adaptation" to the Nazis' version of modernity. The book is a poignantly convincing depiction of men trapped between appeasement appeasement Foreign policy of pacifying an aggrieved nation through negotiation in order to prevent war. The prime example is Britain's policy toward Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. and martyrdom. "The world should see," Pacelli declared a few days after being elected Pope in 1939, "that we have done everything to live in peace with Germany." Posterity would never doubt this; before the bar of history, Pacelli would be arraigned on entirely different charges. Godman's book provides a historically sensitive contextualization Contextualization of language use Contextualization is a word first used in sociolinguistics to refer to the use of language and discourse to signal relevant aspects of an interactional or communicative situation. of the choices Pacelli made. |
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