Society articles from May 1997

Society archives from May 1997

The arithmetic of abortion.
May 1, 1997... A number of recent government publications provide new insights on abortion. The numbers refer variously to 1991, 1992 or 1993 but since the statistics of abortion have been remarkably stable in recent years, they tell us most of what we want...

Most Americans favor centrist moral positions.
May 1, 1997... Fifty-eight percent of Americans noted that they see themselves as neither liberal nor conservative when it comes to moral questions. They would rely on persuasion rather than on new laws to encourage morality, while rejecting a laissez-faire...

Maturity diminishes drug use.
May 1, 1997... Young adults who used illegal drugs or alcohol as teenagers tend to cut down or quit when confronted by the responsibilities of marriage and family. But divorce can drive them back to their old habits, according to a study. The study,...

The immigration flood. (US immigration)
May 1, 1997... A great shift in U.S. policy came about as an unintended consequence of the Immigration Act of 1965 and subsequent modifications of it. "The bill will not flood our Cities with immigrants. It will not upset the ethnic mix of our society," said...

Victimization and the victim industry.
May 1, 1997... Victimization has become fashionable, the focus of talk shows, political speeches, and concerned commentaries as diverse as Alan Dershowitz's The Abuse Excuse (1994), Robert Hughes's Culture of Complaint (1993), Wendy Kaminer's I'm...

Alarmism is an infectious disease.
May 1, 1997... Governmental funding for medical research is in some measure determined by scientific findings and the way they are reported in the media. Scientists highlight the problems that research could most usefully address; their findings, especially...

The larger threat of infectious diseases.
May 1, 1997... I welcome the opportunity to respond to the article by David Murray and Joel Schwartz, "Alarmism Is an Infectious Disease," which includes a critique of an article that I coauthored, "Trends in Infectious Diseases Mortality in the United...

Three scenarios on the future of China.
May 1, 1997... The most powerful force operating in the global economy today is not a matter of interest rates or growth rates or any obvious set of economic statistics. It is so fundamental that it does not register on the Internet. I am referring to the...

The bullfight gentrified.
May 1, 1997... Blond girls from the United States hawking American ice cream at a bullfight, and in Las Ventas, Madrid, once revered as the "cathedral" of bull fighting? It was blasphemy, and worse was to follow. After long abstinence, I was in Madrid for the...

Martin Buber in the postmodern age.
May 1, 1997... It is a great enigma that in this "postmodern" era so much attention has been focused on Martin Buber and his work. Why has Buber's thought become ever more central to discourses in philosophy, social science, psychiatry, and education? In...

Campaign finance reform.
May 1, 1997... We undertook this project because we thought the debate over campaign finance reform had been conducted for too long with more beat than light. Whether at the national, state, or municipal level, old assertions have flown across the partisan...

Gambling on jobs and welfare in Atlantic City.
May 1, 1997... In When Work Disappears, William Julius Wilson argues that the poverty and welfare dependency that plague many U.S. cities are fundamentally due to a lack of jobs. He advocates a massive public-sector employment program to solve the problem....

Commercialization of America's health charities.
May 1, 1997... America's nonprofit organizations are highly regarded and strongly supported by the public: Their revenues have risen dramatically over time, from less than $200 billion in 1978 to $1.1 trillion in 1993. Nonprofits are supposedly distinct from...

Augustine through a modern prism.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Peter Dennis Bathory Confronted with the beauty of this world, its music and its language, St. Augustine worried about the "peril of indulgence" (Confessions, X, 33). To indulge oneself, to be absorbed and overwhelmed by even the...

Augustine and the Limits of Politics.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Peter Dennis Bathory Confronted with the beauty of this world, its music and its language, St. Augustine worried about the "peril of indulgence" (Confessions, X, 33). To indulge oneself, to be absorbed and overwhelmed by even the...

Love and St. Augustine.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Peter Dennis Bathory Confronted with the beauty of this world, its music and its language, St. Augustine worried about the "peril of indulgence" (Confessions, X, 33). To indulge oneself, to be absorbed and overwhelmed by even the...

Sporting Gentlemen: Men's Tennis from the Age of Honor to the Cult of the Superstar.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by N. J. Demerath III Academics are not good at being tough, especially when it comes to counseling deficient graduate students. One particularly tender colleague handled the problem by inquiring optimistically: "Have you considered...

Visions of the Sociological Tradition.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Joseph Gusfield Three workmen on the same project are asked "What are you doing?" The first replies, "Earning a living." The second says, "Laying bricks." The third responds, "Building a cathedral." - Apocryphal tale When I...

State and Status: The Rise of the State and Aristocratic Power in Western Europe.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by David Marsland Samuel Clark's ambitious study addresses a complex and important issue - the "rise of the centralized state and its effect on the power of the aristocracy." Its geographical focus is the British Isles, France, and...

The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Jonathan B. Imber In order to make sense of the dogma eat dogma world in which the intellectually gifted and ideologically committed hammer out their arguments and alliances, it is useful to know something about Thomas Sowell's...

The Betrayed Profession: Lawyering at the End of the Twentieth Century.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Cynthia Fuchs Epstein Something's rotten in the state of lawyering, observes Sol Linowitz, the attorney and government servant who, as chief counsel and chairman of the board of the Xerox Corporation, advised the company that...

Aging and Old Age.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Lewis A. Coser Posner is a distinguished federal judge, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School, as well as a prolific writer on issues on the borderline of legal studies and economics. Writing in the tradition...

Voice and Equality: Civic Voluntarism in American Politics.
May 1, 1997... Reviewed by Howard G. Schneiderman The question of civic voluntarism and voluntary associations to American democracy can be traced back to The Federalist Papers. But while it is hardly new, the question is still fresh and fascinating. The...