1.
New York (magazine)
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New York is a bi-weekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite, and established itself as a cradle of New Journalism. Since its redesign and relaunch in 2004, the magazine has won more National Magazine Awards than any other publication and it was one of the first dual-audience lifestyle magazines, and its format and style have been emulated by some other American regional city publications. In 2009, its paid and verified circulation was 408,622 and its websites—NYmag. com, Vulture. com, The Cut, and Grub Street—receive visits from more than 14 million users per month. New York began life in 1963 as the Sunday-magazine supplement of the New York Herald Tribune newspaper, edited first by Sheldon Zalaznick and then by Clay Felker, the magazine showcased the work of several talented Tribune contributors, including Tom Wolfe, Barbara Goldsmith, and Jimmy Breslin. Soon after the Tribune went out of business in 1966–67, Felker and his partner, Milton Glaser, gerald Goldsmith, and reincarnated the magazine as a stand-alone glossy. Joining them was managing editor Jack Nessel, Felkers number-two at the Herald Tribune, New Yorks first issue was dated April 8,1968. Among the by-lines were many names from the magazines earlier incarnation, including Breslin, Wolfe, and George Goodman. Within a year, Felker had assembled a team of contributors who would come to define the magazines voice, Breslin became a regular, as did Gloria Steinem, who wrote the city-politics column, and Gail Sheehy. Harold Clurman was hired as the theater critic, Alan Rich covered the classical-music scene. Gael Greene, writing under the rubric The Insatiable Critic, reviewed restaurants, Woody Allen contributed a few stories for the magazine in its early years. The magazines regional focus and innovative illustrations inspired numerous imitators across the country, the office for the magazine was on the top floor of the old Tammany Hall clubhouse at 207 East 32nd Street, which Glaser owned. Wolfe, a contributor to the magazine, wrote a story in 1970 that captured the spirit of the magazine, Radical Chic. The article described a benefit party for the Black Panthers, held in Leonard Bernsteins apartment, in a collision of high culture, in 1972, New York also launched Ms. magazine, which began as a special issue. New West, a magazine on New Yorks model that covered California life, was also published for a few years in the 1970s. As the 1970s progressed, Felker continued to broaden the magazines editorial vision beyond Manhattan, covering Richard Nixon, twenty years later, Cohn admitted that hed done no more than drive by Odysseys door, and that hed made the rest up. It was a problem of what Wolfe, in 1972, had labeled The New Journalism. In 1976, the Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch bought the magazine in a hostile takeover, a succession of editors followed, including Joe Armstrong and John Berendt
2.
Tom Wolfe
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His first novel, The Bonfire of the Vanities, published in 1987, was met with critical acclaim, became a commercial success, and was adapted as a major motion picture. Wolfe was born in Richmond, Virginia, the son of Louise, a landscape designer, Wolfe grew up on Gloucester Road in the historic Richmond North Side neighborhood of Sherwood Park. He recounts some of his memories of growing up there in a foreword to a book about the nearby historic Ginter Park neighborhood. Wolfe was student council president, editor of the newspaper and a star baseball player at St. Christophers School. Wolfe majored in English and practiced his writing outside the classroom as well and he was the sports editor of the college newspaper and helped found a literary magazine, Shenandoah. Of particular influence was his professor Marshall Fishwick, a teacher of American studies educated at Yale, more in the tradition of anthropology than literary scholarship, Fishwick taught his classes to look at the whole of a culture, including those elements considered profane. The very title of Wolfes undergraduate thesis, A Zoo Full of Zebras, Anti-Intellectualism in America, evinced his fondness for words, Wolfe graduated cum laude in 1951. Wolfe had continued playing baseball as a pitcher and had begun to play semi-professionally while still in college, in 1952 he earned a tryout with the New York Giants but was cut after three days, which Wolfe blamed on his inability to throw good fastballs. Wolfe abandoned baseball and instead followed his professor Fishwicks example, enrolling in Yale Universitys American studies doctoral program and his PhD thesis was titled The League of American Writers, Communist Organizational Activity Among American Writers, 1929–1942. In the course of his research, Wolfe interviewed many writers, including Malcolm Cowley, Archibald MacLeish, and James T. Farrell. A biographer remarked on the thesis, Reading it, one sees what has been the most baleful influence of education on many who have suffered through it, it deadens all sense of style. His thesis was rejected but it was finally accepted after he rewrote it in an objective rather than a subjective style. Upon leaving Yale he wrote a friend explaining through expletives his personal opinions about his thesis, though Wolfe was offered teaching jobs in academia, he opted to work as a reporter. In 1956, while preparing his thesis, Wolfe became a reporter for the Springfield Union in Springfield. Wolfe finished his thesis in 1957 and in 1959 was hired by The Washington Post, Wolfe has said that part of the reason he was hired by the Post was his lack of interest in politics. The Posts city editor was amazed that Wolfe preferred cityside to Capitol Hill and he won an award from The Newspaper Guild for foreign reporting in Cuba in 1961 and also won the Guilds award for humor. While there, he experimented with fiction-writing techniques in feature stories, in 1962, Wolfe left Washington for New York City, taking a position with the New York Herald Tribune as a general assignment reporter and feature writer. The editors of the Herald Tribune, including Clay Felker of the Sunday section supplement New York magazine, during the 1962 New York City newspaper strike, Wolfe approached Esquire magazine about an article on the hot rod and custom car culture of Southern California
3.
Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine
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Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine is a 1976 book by Tom Wolfe, consisting of eleven essays and one short story that Wolfe wrote between 1967 and 1976. It includes the essay in which he coined the term the Me Decade to refer to the 1970s, in addition to the stories, Wolfe also illustrated the book. Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was Wolfes third collection of essays and short stories, following The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby in 1965, Wolfes 1970 book Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers contained two lengthy essays and is not generally considered a collection. Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine was published in 1976 by Wolfes regular publisher Farrar, the subjects of Wolfes essays were considered less original than his previous efforts. When Wolfe wrote about the culture of surf gangs in The Pump House Gang or about stock car racing in The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby it was untrod ground, the primary theme of Wolfes essays is the struggle for social status. Wolfe is particularly critical of the intelligentsia and the liberal elite and his contempt of distinguished writers was evident in an essay about an established West Side author discussing his cash flow at length. Wolfe continued to denounce what he saw as faux-sympathy for poor people coming from a liberal elite. Wolfe terms the status-driven era he chronicled the Me Decade, the longest essay, however, is The Truest Sport, Jousting with Sam and Charlie, about life aboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1967. Wolfe writes about the personnel of the aircraft in heroic terms, according to The New York Review of Books, another common theme throughout all the books is the effect the Vietnam War had on American society. The lone short story in the book, The Commercial is an essay of a baseball player who is given an advertising deal. Often referred to as New Journalism, Wolfes characteristic writing style, characterized by florid prose, Wolfe compared himself to British author Evelyn Waugh, who was known for his dark comedy
4.
Jimmy Carter
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James Earl Jimmy Carter Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States from 1977 to 1981. In 2002, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his work with the Carter Center, Carter was a Democrat who was raised in rural Georgia. He was a farmer who served two terms as a Georgia State Senator from 1963 to 1967, and one as the Governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975. He was elected President in 1976, defeating incumbent President Gerald Ford in a close election. On his second day in office, Carter pardoned all evaders of the Vietnam War drafts, during Carters term as President, two new cabinet-level departments, the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, were established. He established an energy policy that included conservation, price control. In foreign affairs, Carter pursued the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, the round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks. On the economic front he confronted persistent stagflation, a combination of inflation, high unemployment. The end of his tenure was marked by the 1979–1981 Iran hostage crisis, the 1979 energy crisis, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident. In response to the Soviet move he ended détente, escalated the Cold War, Carter won the 1980 primary with 51. 13% of the vote but lost the general election in an electoral landslide to Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, who won 44 of 50 states. His presidency has drawn medium-low responses from historians, with many considering him to have accomplished more with his post-presidency work and he set up the Carter Center in 1982 as his base for advancing human rights. He has also traveled extensively to conduct negotiations, observe elections. Additionally, Carter is a key figure in the Habitat for Humanity project, since surpassing Herbert Hoover in September 2012, he has been the longest-retired president in American history. He is also the first president to mark the 40th anniversary of his election and inauguration, in reference to current political views, he has criticized some of Israels actions and policies in regards to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and has advocated for a two-state solution. James Earl Carter, Jr. was born on October 1,1924, at the Wise Sanitarium in Plains and he is a descendant of English immigrant Thomas Carter, who settled in Virginia in 1635. Numerous generations of Carters lived as farmers in Georgia. Carter is also a descendant of Thomas Cornell, an ancestor of Cornell Universitys founder and of Richard Nixon, Plains was a boomtown of 600 people at the time of Carters birth. His father, James Earl Carter, Sr. was a local businessman who ran a general store and had begun to invest in farmland
5.
Yamaha Corporation
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It is one of the constituents of Nikkei 225 and is the worlds largest piano manufacturing company. Yamaha was established in 1887 as a piano and reed organ manufacturer by Torakusu Yamaha as Nippon Gakki Company, Limited in Hamamatsu, the companys origins as a musical instrument manufacturer are still reflected today in the groups logo—a trio of interlocking tuning forks. The YA-1, of which 125 were built in the first year of production, was named in honour of the founder and it was a 125cc, single cylinder, two-stroke, street bike patterned after the German DKW RT125. In 1955, the success of the YA-1 resulted in the founding of Yamaha Motor Co. Ltd, in 1989, Yamaha shipped the worlds first CD recorder. Yamaha purchased Sequential Circuits in 1988 and it bought a majority stake of competitor Korg in 1987, which was bought out by Korg in 1993. In the late 1990s, Yamaha released a series a portable battery operated keyboards under the PSS, in 2002, Yamaha closed down its archery product business that was started in 1959. Six archers in five different Olympic Games won gold medals using their products and it acquired German audio software manufacturers Steinberg in January 2005, from Pinnacle Systems. K. Ltd, the UK piano sales & manufacturing arm was unaffected, on December 20,2007, Yamaha made an agreement with the Austrian Bank BAWAG P. S. K. Group BAWAG to purchase all the shares of Bösendorfer, intended to place in early 2008. Yamaha intends to continue manufacturing at the Bösendorfer facilities in Austria, the acquisition of Bösendorfer was announced after the NAMM Show in Los Angeles, on January 28,2008. As of February 1,2008, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH operates as a subsidiary of Yamaha Corp, Yamaha Corporation is also widely known for their music teaching programme that began in the 1950s. Yamaha electronic have proven to be successful, popular, and respected products, for example, the Yamaha YPG-625 was given the award Keyboard of the Year and Product of the Year in 2007 from The Music and Sound Retailer magazine. Other noteworthy Yamaha electronics include the SHS-10 Keytar, a keytar which offered MIDI output features normally found on much more expensive keyboards. Other companies in the Yamaha group include, Bösendorfer Klavierfabrik GmbH, Vienna, Yamaha Motor Company Yamaha Fine Technologies Co. Ltd. Yamaha Golf Cart Company Yamaha Livingtec Corporation Yamaha Metanix Corporation Yamaha Music Communications Co. Ltd, Yamaha Pro Audio Kandō is a Japanese word used by Yamaha to describe their corporate mission. Kandō in translation describes the sensation of profound excitement and gratification derived from experiencing supreme quality, some reasonable English synonyms are emotionally touching or emotionally moving. The Yamaha Music Foundation is an established in 1966 by the authority of the Japanese Ministry of Education for the purpose of promoting music education. It continued a program of music classes begun by Yamaha Corporation in 1954, Yamaha expanded into many diverse businesses and product groups
6.
Southern Baptist Convention
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The Southern Baptist Convention is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the worlds largest Baptist denomination and the largest Protestant body in the United States and this also makes it the second-largest Christian body in the United States, after the Catholic Church. Members at a convention held in Augusta, Georgia, created the SBC in 1845. After the American Civil War, another split occurred when most freedmen set up independent congregations, others joined new African-American denominations, chiefly the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Since the 1940s, the SBC has moved away from some of its regional and historical identification, especially since the late twentieth century, the SBC has sought new members among minority groups and become much more diverse. In addition, while still heavily concentrated in the Southern US and it should be noted that some State convention comprise more than one State - for example the New England Baptist Convention is comprise of the six New England states. North and South Dakota comprise the Dakota Baptist Convention, in addition - Northern New Jersey is part of the Baptist Convention of New York and Southern New Jersey is part of the Baptist Convention of Pennsylvania. At its annual convention in 2012, the SBC elected as president Fred Luter Jr. the first African American to hold the position, an SBC presidential term is for one year, with a term limit of two terms. Each president is elected by Messengers sent by local church at the SBC annual meeting. Since Luter ran unopposed, per the by-laws of the convention, because of the historic nature of the vote, the assembly was asked to rise in support of the vote, which the messengers did enthusiastically. Luter was re-elected president for a term at the 2013 meeting. The current president in 2016 is Steve Gaines, Southern Baptists emphasize the significance of the individual conversion experience which is affirmed by the person having complete immersion in water for a believers baptism. As a result, they reject the practice of infant baptism, SBC churches are evangelical in doctrine and practice. Specific beliefs based on biblical interpretation can vary due to their congregational polity which allows autonomy to each individual local church. Most early Baptists in the British colonies came from England in the 17th century, the oldest Baptist church in the South, First Baptist Church of Charleston, South Carolina, was organized in 1682 under the leadership of William Screven. A Baptist church was formed in Virginia in 1715 through the preaching of Robert Norden, the Baptists operated independently of the state-established Anglican churches in the South, at a time when non-Anglicans were prohibited from holding political office. By 1740, there were about eight Baptist churches in the colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, as a result, black congregations and churches were founded in Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia before the American Revolution. Some black congregations kept their independence even after whites tried to exercise more authority after the Nat Turner slave rebellion of 1831
7.
Alchemy
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Alchemy is a philosophical and protoscientific tradition practiced throughout Europe, Egypt and Asia. It aimed to purify, mature, and perfect certain objects, the perfection of the human body and soul was thought to permit or result from the alchemical magnum opus and, in the Hellenistic and western tradition, the achievement of gnosis. In Europe, the creation of a stone was variously connected with all of these projects. In English, the term is limited to descriptions of European alchemy, but similar practices existed in the Far East, the Indian subcontinent. In Europe, following the 12th-century Renaissance produced by the translation of Islamic works on science, Islamic and European alchemists developed a structure of basic laboratory techniques, theory, terminology, and experimental method, some of which are still in use today. However, they continued antiquitys belief in four elements and guarded their work in secrecy including cyphers and their work was guided by Hermetic principles related to magic, mythology, and religion. The latter interests historians of esotericism, psychologists, and some philosophers, the subject has also made an ongoing impact on literature and the arts. The word alchemy was borrowed from Old French alquemie, alkimie, taken from Medieval Latin alchymia, the Arabic word is borrowed from Late Greek chēmeía, chēmía, with the agglutination of the Arabic definite article al-. This ancient Greek word was derived from the early Greek name for Egypt, Chēmia, based on the Egyptian name for Egypt, the Medieval Latin form was influenced by Greek chymeia meaning ‘mixture’ and referring to pharmaceutical chemistry. Alchemy covers several philosophical traditions spanning some four millennia and three continents and these traditions general penchant for cryptic and symbolic language makes it hard to trace their mutual influences and genetic relationships. It is still a question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other. Here, elements of technology, religion, mythology, and Hellenistic philosophy, each with their own much longer histories, Zosimos of Panopolis wrote the oldest known books on alchemy, while Mary the Jewess is credited as being the first non-fictitious Western alchemist. They wrote in Greek and lived in Egypt under Roman rule, mythology – Zosimos of Panopolis asserted that alchemy dated back to Pharaonic Egypt where it was the domain of the priestly class, though there is little to no evidence for his assertion. Alchemical writers used Classical figures from Greek, Roman, and Egyptian mythology to illuminate their works and these included the pantheon of gods related to the Classical planets, Isis, Osiris, Jason, and many others. The central figure in the mythology of alchemy is Hermes Trismegistus and his name is derived from the god Thoth and his Greek counterpart Hermes. Hermes and his caduceus or serpent-staff, were among alchemys principal symbols, according to Clement of Alexandria, he wrote what were called the forty-two books of Hermes, covering all fields of knowledge. The Hermetica of Thrice-Great Hermes is generally understood to form the basis for Western alchemical philosophy and practice and these writings were collected in the first centuries of the common era. Technology – The dawn of Western alchemy is sometimes associated with that of metallurgy, Many writings were lost when the emperor Diocletian ordered the burning of alchemical books after suppressing a revolt in Alexandria
8.
The "Me" Decade and the Third Great Awakening
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The essay was first published as the cover story in the August 23,1976 issue of New York magazine and later appeared in his collection Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine. Wolfe asserts the disappearance of the class he calls the proletariat. He cites the economic boom of postwar America as affording the average American a new sense of self-determination and individuation associated with the economic prosperity. Wolfe describes the resulting abandoning of communal, progressive, and New Deal-style politics as taking the money and he traces the preoccupation with self and self-development back to the aristocratic European gentry. Wolfe states that the tradition and the philosophy behind the finishing school are inherently dedicated to the building and forming of personal character. He describes the experience of hallucinogens as similar to, even competitive with, religious ecstasy. Wolfe chronicles the American periods of Christian revival known as the First and Second Great Awakenings, to which he analogizes the 1970s and he argues that the Me Decade of the 1970s is a Third Great Awakening. Instead they lived as if they were living their ancestors and their offsprings lives, Mauve Gloves & Madmen, Clutter & Vine Counterculture of the 1960s Self-help Great Awakening
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Individualism
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Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that emphasizes the moral worth of the individual. Individualism is often defined in contrast to totalitarianism, collectivism, authoritarianism, communitarianism, Individualism makes the individual its focus and so starts with the fundamental premise that the human individual is of primary importance in the struggle for liberation. Classical liberalism, existentialism, and anarchism are examples of movements that take the individual as a central unit of analysis. Individualism thus involves the right of the individual to freedom and self-realization and it has also been used as a term denoting The quality of being an individual, individuality related to possessing An individual characteristic, a quirk. A more positive use of the term in Britain came to be used with the writings of James Elishama Smith, who was a millenarian and a Christian Israelite. Although an early Owenite socialist, he rejected its collective idea of property. Without individualism, Smith argued, individuals cannot amass property to increase ones happiness, an individual is a person or any specific object in a collection. From the 17th century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism, individuality is the state or quality of being an individual, a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. The individualist does not follow one particular philosophy, rather creates an amalgamation of elements of many, on a societal level, the individualist participates on a personally structured political and moral ground. Independent thinking and opinion is a trait of an individualist. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, claims that his concept of general will in the contract is not the simple collection of individual wills. Societies and groups can differ in the extent to which they are based upon predominantly self-regarding behaviors, the principle of individuation, or principium individuationis, describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinguished from other things. For Carl Jung, individuation is a process of transformation, whereby the personal and it is a completely natural process necessary for the integration of the psyche to take place. Jung considered individuation to be the process of human development. Thus, the atom is replaced by a never-ending ontological process of individuation. Individuation is an incomplete process, always leaving a pre-individual left-over. The philosophy of Bernard Stiegler draws upon and modifies the work of Gilbert Simondon on individuation and also upon similar ideas in Friedrich Nietzsche, for Stiegler the I, as a psychic individual, can only be thought in relationship to we, which is a collective individual. The I is constituted in adopting a collective tradition, which it inherits, methodological individualism is the view that phenomena can only be understood by examining how they result from the motivations and actions of individual agents
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Communitarianism
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Communitarianism is a philosophy that emphasizes the connection between the individual and the community. However, it was not until the 1980s that the term gained currency through association with the work of a small group of political philosophers. The term is used in two senses, Philosophical communitarianism considers classical liberalism to be ontologically and epistemologically incoherent, and opposes it on those grounds. Communitarians believe that the value of community is not sufficiently recognized in liberal theories of justice, ideological communitarianism is characterized as a radical centrist ideology that is sometimes marked by leftism on economic issues and centrism on social issues. When the term is capitalized, it refers to the Responsive Communitarian movement of Amitai Etzioni. While the term communitarian was coined only in the mid-nineteenth century and they are found in some classical socialist doctrine, and further back in the New Testament. Communitarianism has been traced back to early monasticism, but in the century began to be formulated as a philosophy by Dorothy Day. In an early article the Catholic Worker clarified the dogma of the Mystical Body of Christ as the basis for the movements communitarianism, Communitarianism is also related to the personalist philosophy of Emmanuel Mounier. Both authors warned of the dangers of anomie and alienation in modern societies composed of atomized individuals who had gained their liberty but lost their social moorings. Modern sociologists saw the rise of a society and the decline of communal bonds and respect for traditional values. Among those who raised these issues were Robert Nisbet, Robert Bellah, further, author David E. Pearson argued that o earn the appellation community, it seems to me, groups must be able to exert moral suasion and extract a measure of compliance from their members. What is specifically meant by community in the context of communitarianism can vary greatly between authors and time periods, historically, communities have been small and localized. This has led to the quest for more-encompassing communities, such as the European Union, whether truly supra-national communities can be developed is far from clear. More modern communities can take different forms, but are often limited in scope. For example, members of one residential community are also members of other communities – such as work, ethnic. In moral and political philosophy, communitarians are best known for their critiques of John Rawls political liberalism, communitarians uphold the importance of the social realm, and communities in particular, though they differ in the extent to which their conceptions are attentive to liberty and individual rights. Even with these general similarities, communitarians, like members of other schools of thought. There are several schools of communitarian thought
11.
Proletariat
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The proletariat is a term for the class of wage-earners, in a capitalist society, whose only possession of significant material value is their labor-power, a member of such a class is a proletarian. The proletarii constituted a class of Roman citizens owning little or no property. This assembly, which met on the Campus Martius to discuss public policy issues, was also used as a means of designating military duties demanded of Roman citizens. The top infantry class assembled with full arms and armor, the two classes brought arms and armor, but less and lesser, the fourth class only spears. In voting, the cavalry and top class were enough to decide an issue, as voting started at the top. As a result of the Marian reforms initiated in 107 B. C. by the Roman general Gaius Marius, proletarians are wage-workers, while some refer to those who receive salaries as the salariat. For Marx, however, wage labor may involve getting a salary rather than a wage per se, intermediate positions are possible, where some wage-labor for an employer combines with self-employment. Socialist parties have often struggled over the question of whether they should seek to organize and represent all the lower classes, according to Marxism, capitalism is a system based on the exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie. Instead of hiring those means of production, they themselves get hired by capitalists and work for them and these goods or services become the property of the capitalist, who sells them at the market. Surplus value is the difference between the wealth that the proletariat produces through its work, and the wealth it consumes to survive and to provide labor to the capitalist companies. A part of the value is used to renew or increase the means of production, either in quantity or quality. What remains is consumed by the capitalist class, the commodities that proletarians produce and capitalists sell are valued for the amount of labor embodied in them. The same goes for the labor power itself, it is valued, not for the amount of wealth it produces. Marxists argue that new wealth is created through labor applied to natural resources, prole drift, short for proletarian drift, is a term that suggests the tendency in advanced industrialized societies for everything inexorably to become proletarianized, or to become commonplace. This trend is attributed to mass production, mass selling, mass communication, examples include best-seller lists, films and music that must appeal to the masses and shopping malls. Why workers can change the world, hal Draper, Karl Marxs Theory of Revolution, Vol.2, The Politics of Social Classes
12.
American middle class
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The American middle class is a social class in the United States. Depending on the model used, the middle class constitutes anywhere from 25% to 66% of households. One of the first major studies of the class in America was White Collar, The American Middle Classes. Later sociologists such as Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College commonly divide the class into two sub-groups. Constituting roughly 15% to 20% of households is the upper or professional middle class consisting of highly educated, salaried professionals, constituting roughly one third of households is the lower middle class consisting mostly of semi-professionals, skilled craftsmen and lower-level management. Middle-class persons commonly have a standard of living, significant economic security, considerable work autonomy. Members of the middle class belong to groups which overlap with each other. Overall, middle-class persons, especially upper-middle-class individuals, are characterized by conceptualizing, creating and consulting, thus, college education is one of the main indicators of middle-class status. Largely attributed to the nature of middle-class occupations, middle class tend to emphasize independence, adherence to intrinsic standards, valuing innovation. Politically more active than other demographics, college educated middle class professionals are split between the two major parties, Income varies considerably from near the national median to well in excess of US$100,000. Household income figures, however, do not always reflect class status and standard of living, as they are influenced by the number of income earners. It is therefore possible for a large, dual-earner, lower middle class household to out-earn a small, the middle classes are very influential, as they encompass the majority of voters, writers, teachers, journalists, and editors. Most societal trends in the US originate within the middle classes, scholars have a variety of technical measures of who is middle-class. By contrast public opinion has a variety of implicit measures, the definitions seem to stretch quite a great deal depending on the political cause that is being invoked or defended, as one commentator noted, Well, it depends on whom you ask. Everyone wants to believe they are middle class, for people on the bottom and the top of the wage scale the phrase connotes a certain Regular Joe cachet. But this eagerness to be part of the group has led the definition to be stretched like a bungee cord - used to everything from the Earned Income Tax Credit to the estate tax. While the groups overlap, differences between those at the center of both groups are considerable, the lower middle class has lower educational attainment, considerably less workplace autonomy, and lower incomes than the upper middle class. With the emergence of a labor market, the economic benefits
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Progressive Era
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The Progressive Era was a period of widespread social activism and political reform across the United States, from the 1890s to the 1920s. The main objectives of the Progressive movement were eliminating problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, the movement primarily targeted political machines and their bosses. By taking down these corrupt representatives in office a further means of democracy would be established. They also sought regulation of monopolies and corporations through antitrust laws and these antitrust laws were seen as a way to promote equal competition for the advantage of legitimate competitors. Many progressives supported prohibition in the United States, ostensibly to destroy the power of local bosses based in saloons. At the same time, womens suffrage was promoted to bring a purer female vote into the arena, many activists joined efforts to reform local government, public education, medicine, finance, insurance, industry, railroads, churches, and many other areas. Progressives transformed, professionalized and made scientific the social sciences, especially history, economics, in academic fields the day of the amateur author gave way to the research professor who published in the new scholarly journals and presses. The national political leaders included Theodore Roosevelt, Robert M, La Follette, Sr. and Charles Evans Hughes on the Republican side, and William Jennings Bryan, Woodrow Wilson and Al Smith on the Democratic side. Yet, leaders of the movement also existed far from presidential politics, jane Addams, Grace Abbott, Edith Abbott and Sophonisba Breckinridge were among the most influential Progressive Era reformers. Initially the movement operated chiefly at local levels, later, it expanded to state, Progressives drew support from the middle class, and supporters included many lawyers, teachers, physicians, ministers and business people. Some Progressives strongly supported scientific methods as applied to economics, government, industry, finance, medicine, schooling, theology, education, reformers felt that old-fashioned ways meant waste and inefficiency, and eagerly sought out the one best system. S. Magazines were not a new medium but they became more popular around 1900. It was an age of Mass media, thanks to the rapid expansion of national advertising, the cover price fell sharply to about 10 cents. One cause was the coverage of corruption in politics, local government and big business. They were journalists who wrote for magazines to expose social and political sins. They relied on their own investigative journalism reporting, muckrakers often worked to expose social ills and corporate, the journalists who specialized in exposing waste, corruption, and scandal operated at the state and local level, like Ray Stannard Baker, George Creel, and Brand Whitlock. Other like Lincoln Steffens exposed political corruption in many large cities, Roosevelt gave these journalists their nickname when he complained they were not being helpful by raking up all the muck. The Progressives were avid modernizers, with a belief in science and they looked to education as the key
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Modern liberalism in the United States
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Modern American liberalism is the dominant version of liberalism in the United States. It is characterized by social liberalism, and combines ideas of liberty and equality with support for social justice. The term modern liberalism in this article refers only to the United States, in a global context, this philosophy is usually referred to as social liberalism. The American modern liberal philosophy strongly endorses public spending on such as education, health care. Important social issues today include addressing inequality, voting rights for minorities, affirmative action, reproductive and other rights, support for LGBT rights. American liberals oppose conservatives on most issues, but not all, Modern liberalism is historically related to social liberalism and progressivism, though the current relationship between liberal and progressive viewpoints is debated. John F. Kennedy defined a liberal as follows, keynesian economic theory has played an important role in the economic philosophy of modern American liberals. Modern American liberals generally believe that national prosperity requires government management of the macroeconomy, in order to keep unemployment low, inflation in check and they also value institutions that defend against economic inequality. In The Conscience of a Liberal Paul Krugman writes, I believe in an equal society, supported by institutions that limit extremes of wealth. I believe in democracy, civil liberties, and the rule of law and that makes me a liberal, and Im proud of it. Liberals often point to the prosperity enjoyed under a mixed economy in the years since World War II. They believe liberty exists when access to necessities like health care and economic opportunity are available to all, Modern American liberalism is typically associated with the Democratic Party, as modern American conservatism is typically associated with the Republican Party. Today the word liberalism is used differently in different countries, one of the greatest contrasts is between the usage in the United States and usage in Europe. According to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Liberalism in the American usage has little in common with the word as used in the politics of any European country, save possibly Britain. In Europe, liberalism, usually means what is called classical liberalism, a commitment to limited government, laissez-faire economics. This classical liberalism sometimes more closely corresponds to the American definition of libertarianism, in the United States, the general term liberalism will almost always refer to modern liberalism, a more social variant of classical liberalism. A2015 Gallup poll found that liberal views have consistently been on the rise in America since 1999. As of 2015, there is an equal number of socially liberal Americans and socially conservative Americans
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Aristocracy
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Aristocracy is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning rule of the best, at the time of the words origins in Ancient Greece, the Greeks conceived it as rule by the best qualified citizens—and often contrasted it favourably with monarchy, rule by an individual. In later times, aristocracy was usually seen as rule by a group, the aristocratic class. The Greeks did not like the concept of monarchy, and as their democratic system fell, in Ancient Rome, the Republic consisted of an aristocracy—as well as consuls, a senate, and a tribal assembly. In the Middle Ages and early modern era, aristocracies primarily consisted of an aristocratic class, privileged by birth. Since the French Revolution, aristocracy has generally been contrasted with democracy, however, this distinction is often oversimplified. In exchange feudal aid is received from tenants or vassals, oaths of military allegiance, however an oligarchy, nobility or royalty had the right to set taxes, assemble or raise armies and command loyalty by virtue of traditional authority. In the 1651 book Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes describes an aristocracy as a commonwealth in which the representative of the citizens is an assembly by part and it is a system in which only a small part of the population represents the government. Modern depictions of aristocracy tend to regard it not as the ancient Greek concept of rule by the best, history, John Cannon, Oxford University Press,1997, ISBN 978-0-19-866176-4 Aristocracy in the Modern World, Ellis Wasson, Palgrave Macmillan,2006
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Gentry
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Gentry are well-born, genteel and well-bred people of high social class, especially in the past. In the United Kingdom, the term refers to the social class of the landed aristocracy or to the minor aristocracy whose income derives from their large landholdings. The idea of gentry in the sense of noblesse is extinct in common parlance in modern day Britain. Though the untitled nobility in modern day Britain are normally termed gentry, the older sense of nobility is that of a quality identical to gentry. The fundamental social division in most parts of Europe in the Middle Ages was between the nobiles, i. e. the tenants in chivalry, and the ignobles, i. e. the villeins, citizens and burgesses. The division into nobles and ignobles in smaller regions of Europe in the Middle Ages was less due to a more rudimentary feudal order. After the Reformation, intermingling between the class and the often hereditary clerical upper class became a distinctive feature in several Nordic countries. Besides the gentry there have been other analogous traditional elites, the Indo-Europeans who settled Europe, Western Asia and the Indian subcontinent conceived their societies to be ordered in a tripartite fashion, the three parts being castes. Castes came to be divided, perhaps as a result of greater specialisation. The classic formulation of the system as largely described by Georges Dumézil was that of a priestly or religiously occupied caste, a warrior caste. Dumézil divided the Proto-Indo-Europeans into three categories, sovereignty, military, and productivity and he further subdivided sovereignty into two distinct and complementary sub-parts. One part was formal, juridical, and priestly, but rooted in this world, the other was powerful, unpredictable, and also priestly, but rooted in the other, the supernatural and spiritual world. The second main division was connected with the use of force, the military, finally, there was a third group, ruled by the other two, whose role was productivity, herding, farming, and crafts. This system of roles can be seen in the castes which flourished on the Indian subcontinent. Emperor Constantine convoked the First Council of Nicaea in 325 whose Nicene Creed included belief in one holy catholic and apostolic Church, emperor Theodosius I made Nicene Christianity the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West, the classical heritage flourished throughout the Middle Ages in both the Byzantine Greek East and Latin West. During the Middle Ages it was customary to classify the population of Christendom into laboratores, bellatores, the last group, though small in number, monopolized the instruments and opportunities of culture, and ruled with almost unlimited sway half of the most powerful continent on the globe. The clergy, like Platos guardians, were placed in authority, in the latter half of the period in which they ruled, the clergy were as free from family cares as even Plato could desire
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Chivalry
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Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is a code of conduct associated with the medieval institution of knighthood which developed between 1170 and 1220. The code of chivalry that developed in medieval Europe had its roots in earlier centuries, the term chivalry derives from the Old French term chevalerie, which can be translated to horse soldiery. Gautier states that emerged from the Moors as well as the Teutonic forests and was nurtured into civilization. Over time, its meaning in Europe has been refined to emphasise social and moral virtues more generally, in origin, the term chivalry means horsemanship, formed in Old French, in the 11th century, from chevalier, from Medieval Latin caballārius. In English, the term appears from 1292, thus, chivalry has hierarchical meanings from simply a heavily armed horseman to a code of conduct. Based on the three treatises, initially chivalry was defined as a way of life in which three essential aspects fused together, the military, the nobility, the religion. Gautiers Ten Commandments of chivalry are, Thou shalt believe all that the Church teaches, Thou shalt respect all weaknesses, and shalt constitute thyself the defender of them. Thou shalt love the country in which thou wast born, Thou shalt not recoil before thine enemy. Thou shalt make war against the infidel without cessation and without mercy, Thou shalt perform scrupulously thy feudal duties, if they be not contrary to the laws of God. Thou shalt never lie, and shalt remain faithful to thy pledged word, Thou shalt be generous, and give largesse to everyone. Thou shalt be everywhere and always the champion of the Right, though these ten commandments are often accepted to be what knights would use, these would not necessarily be what a knight actually followed in the medieval era. This code was created by Leon Gautier in 1883, long after the knight had ceased to exist in its traditional form. Chivalry in a sense was more of a subjective term. It is a version of the myth of the Golden Age, from Jean Charles Léonard de Sismondi, We must not confound chivalry with the feudal system. The feudal system may be called the life of the period of which we are treating, possessing its advantages and inconveniences, its virtues. Chivalry, on the contrary, is the world, such as it existed in the imaginations of the Romance writers. Its essential character is devotion to woman and to honour, Sismondi alludes to the fictitious Arthurian romances about the imaginary Court of King Arthur, which were usually taken as factual presentations of a historical age of chivalry. He continues, The more closely we look into history, the more clearly shall we perceive that the system of chivalry is an invention almost entirely poetical and it is impossible to distinguish the countries in which it is said to have prevailed
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Counterculture of the 1960s
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Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s. This embracing of creativity is particularly notable in the works of British Invasion bands such as the Beatles, in addition to the trendsetting Beatles, many other creative artists, authors, and thinkers, within and across many disciplines, helped define the counterculture movement. Several factors distinguished the counterculture of the 1960s from the movements of previous eras. Post-war affluence allowed many of the generation to move beyond a focus on the provision of the material necessities of life that had preoccupied their Depression-era parents. The counterculture era essentially commenced in earnest with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, poor outcomes from some of these activities set the stage for disillusionment with, and distrust of, post-war governments. In the US, President Dwight D, the Partial Test Ban Treaty divided the establishment within the US along political and military lines. In the UK, the Profumo Affair also involved establishment leaders being caught in deception, leading to disillusionment and serving as a catalyst for liberal activism. The Cuban Missile Crisis, which brought the world to the brink of war in October 1962, was largely fomented by duplicitous speech. The assassination of US President John F. Kennedy in November 1963, many social issues fueled the growth of the larger counterculture movement. On college and university campuses, student activists fought for the right to exercise their constitutional rights, especially freedom of speech. The availability of new and more effective forms of control was a key underpinning of the sexual revolution. With this change in attitude, by the 1990s the ratio of children out of wedlock rose from 5% to 25% for Whites. The end of censorship resulted in a reformation of the western film industry. Communes, collectives, and intentional communities regained popularity during this era, Some of these self-sustaining communities have been credited with the birth and propagation of the international Green Movement. The emergence of an interest in expanded spiritual consciousness, yoga, occult practices, in 1957, 69% of US residents polled by Gallup said religion was increasing in influence. By the late 1960s, polls indicated less than 20% still held that belief, the Generation Gap, or the inevitable perceived divide in worldview between the old and young, was perhaps never greater than during the counterculture era. Ultimately, practical and comfortable casual apparel, namely updated forms of T-shirts, many began to live largely clandestine lives because of their choice to use such drugs and substances, fearing retribution from their governments. The confrontations between college students and law enforcement officials became one of the hallmarks of the era, many younger people began to show deep distrust of police, and terms such as fuzz and pig as derogatory epithets for police reappeared, and became key words within the counterculture lexicon
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New Left
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Sections of the New Left rejected involvement with the labor movement and Marxisms historical theory of class struggle, although others gravitated to variants of Marxism like Maoism. In the United States, the movement was associated with the hippie movement, the origins of the New Left have been traced to several factors. It was from this French new left that the First New Left of Britain borrowed the term, the German-Jewish critical theorist Herbert Marcuse is referred to as the Father of the New Left. He rejected the theory of class struggle and the Marxist concern with labor, according to Leszek Kołakowski, Marcuse argued that since all questions of material existence have been solved, moral commands and prohibitions are no longer relevant. He regarded the realization of mans nature as the true liberation of humanity. Another prominent New Left thinker, Ernst Bloch, believed that socialism would prove the means for all beings to become immortal. The writings of sociologist C. Wright Mills, who popularized the term New Left in a 1960 open letter, Mills biographer, Daniel Geary, writes that his writings had a particularly significant impact on New Left social movements of the 1960s. As a result of Nikita Khrushchevs Secret Speech denouncing Joseph Stalin many abandoned the Communist Party of Great Britain, some joined various Trotskyist groupings or the Labour Party. The Marxist historians E. P. Thompson and John Saville of the Communist Party Historians Group published a dissenting journal within the CPGB called Reasoner. Refusing to discontinue the publication at the behest of the CPGB, Thompson was especially important in bringing the concept of a New Left to the United Kingdom in the Summer of 1959 with a New Reasoner lead essay, in which he described. A generation nourished on 1984 and Animal Farm, which enters politics at the point of disillusion where the middle-aged begin to get out. But their enthusiasm is not for the Party, or the Movement and they do not mean to give their enthusiasm cheaply away to any routine machine. They expect the politicians to do their best to trick or betray them and they prefer the amateur organisation and amateurish platforms of the Nuclear Disarmament Campaign to the method and manner of the left wing professional. They judge with the eyes of the first generation of the Nuclear Age. We have made no sustained critique of the economics of capitalism in the 1950s, but we still have a long way to go, and there are far too many timeless militants for whom the mixture is the same as before. In 1960, The New Reasoner merged with the Universities and Left Review to form the New Left Review and these journals attempted to synthesise a theoretical position of a Marxist revisionism, humanist, socialist Marxism, departing from orthodox Marxist theory. This publishing effort made the ideas of culturally oriented theorists available to a reading audience. In this early period, many on the New Left were involved in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, under the long-standing editorial leadership of Perry Anderson, the New Left Review popularised the Frankfurt School, Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser and other forms of Marxism
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Lysergic acid diethylamide
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Lysergic acid diethylamide, also known as acid, is a psychedelic drug known for its psychological effects. This may include altered awareness of the surroundings, perceptions, and feelings as well as sensations and it is used mainly as a recreational drug and for spiritual reasons. LSD is typically either swallowed or held under the tongue and it is often sold on blotter paper, a sugar cube, or gelatin. However, adverse reactions such as anxiety, paranoia. LSD is in the ergoline family, LSD is sensitive to oxygen, ultraviolet light, and chlorine, though it may last for years if it is stored away from light and moisture at low temperature. In pure form it is odorless and clear or white in color, as little as 20–30 micrograms can produce an effect. LSD was first made by Albert Hofmann in Switzerland in 1938 from ergotamine, the laboratory name for the compound was the acronym for the German Lyserg-säure-diäthylamid, followed by a sequential number, LSD-25. Hofmann discovered its properties in 1943. LSD was introduced as a medication under the trade-name Delysid for various psychiatric uses in 1947. In the 1950s, officials at the U. S, Central Intelligence Agency thought the drug might be useful for mind control and chemical warfare and tested the drug on young servicemen and students, and others without their knowledge. The subsequent recreational use by youth culture in the Western world as part of 1960s counterculture resulted in its prohibition, LSD currently has no approved uses in medicine. LSD is commonly used as a recreational drug, LSD is considered an entheogen because it can catalyze intense spiritual experiences, during which users may feel they have come into contact with a greater spiritual or cosmic order. Users sometimes report out of body experiences, in 1966, Timothy Leary established the League for Spiritual Discovery with LSD as its sacrament. LSD can cause pupil dilation, reduced appetite, and wakefulness, other physical reactions to LSD are highly variable and nonspecific, some of which may be secondary to the psychological effects of LSD. The most common immediate psychological effects of LSD are visual hallucinations and illusions, trips usually start within 20–30 minutes of taking LSD by mouth, peak three to four hours after ingestion, and last up to 12 hours. It is impossible to predict when a bad trip will occur, some users, including Albert Hofmann, report a strong metallic taste for the duration of the effects. LSD causes an animated experience of senses, emotions, memories, time. Generally beginning within 30 to 90 minutes after ingestion, the user may experience anything from subtle changes in perception to overwhelming cognitive shifts, changes in auditory and visual perception are typical
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Hallucinogen
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A hallucinogen is a psychoactive agent which can cause hallucinations, perceptual anomalies, and other substantial subjective changes in thoughts, emotion, and consciousness. The common types of hallucinogens are psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants, although hallucinations are a common symptom of amphetamine psychosis, amphetamines are not considered hallucinogens, as they are not a primary effect of the drugs themselves. While hallucinations can occur when abusing stimulants, the nature of stimulant psychosis is not unlike delirium, a debate persists on criteria which would easily differentiate a substance which is psychedelic from one hallucinogenic. Sir Thomas Browne in 1646 coined the term hallucination from the Latin word alucinari meaning to wander in the mind, the term psychedelic is derived from the Ancient Greek words psychē and dēloun, or mind-revealing. A hallucinogen and a psychedelic may refer correctly to the same substance, hallucinations and psychedelia may both refer to the same aspects of subjective experience in a given instance. A hallucinogen in this sense refers to any substance which causes changes in perception or hallucinations. In contrast to Hollisters original criteria, adverse effects may predominate with some hallucinogens with this application of the term, the word psychedelic was coined to express the idea of a drug that makes manifest a hidden but real aspect of the mind. One explanatory model for the experiences provoked by psychedelics is the reducing valve concept, in this view, the drugs disable the brains filtering ability to selectively prevent certain perceptions, emotions, memories and thoughts from ever reaching the conscious mind. This effect has been described as mind expanding, or consciousness expanding, many designer drugs and research chemicals are hallucinogenic in nature, such as those in the 2C and NBOMe families. Dissociatives produce analgesia, amnesia and catalepsy at anesthetic doses, dissociative symptoms include the disruption or compartmentalization of. the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity or perception. p. 523 Dissociation of sensory input can cause derealization, the perception of the world as being dream-like or unreal. The primary dissociatives achieve their effect through blocking the signals received by the NMDA receptor set and include ketamine, methoxetamine, phencyclidine, dextromethorphan, however, dissociation is also remarkably administered by salvinorin As potent κ-opioid receptor agonism. Some dissociatives can have CNS depressant effects, thereby carrying similar risks as opioids, DXM in higher doses can increase heart rate and blood pressure and still depress respiration. Inversely, PCP can have unpredictable effects and has often been classified as a stimulant. While many have reported that they feel no pain while under the effects of PCP, DXM and Ketamine, this does not fall under the usual classification of anesthetics in recreational doses. Rather, true to their name, they process pain as a kind of far away sensation, pain, although present, becomes a disembodied experience, as for probably the most common dissociative, nitrous oxide, the principal risk seems to be due to oxygen deprivation. Injury from falling is also a danger, as nitrous oxide may cause loss of consciousness. Because of the level of physical activity and relative imperviousness to pain induced by PCP
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Religious ecstasy
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Although the experience is usually brief in time, there are records of such experiences lasting several days or even more, and of recurring experiences of ecstasy during ones lifetime. A persons sense of time and space disappear during a religious ecstasy forsaking any senses or physical cognizance in its duration. Among venerated Catholic saints who dabble in Christian mysticism, a physical stature, human sensory, or perception is completely detached to time. In Sufism, the term is referred to as wajd and the experience is referred to as either jazbah or majzoobiyat, the adjective religious means that the experience occurs in connection with religious activities or is interpreted in context of a religion. Thus we find experiences given such names as nature, religious, aesthetic, neo-platonic, ecstasies enjoyed by accepted religious mystics are usually called religious experiences no matter what the nature of the ecstasy or the trigger inducing it. Religious people may hold the view that true religious ecstasy occurs only in their religious context, an ecstatic experience may take place in occasion of contact with something or somebody perceived as extremely beautiful or holy. It may also happen without any known reason, the particular technique that an individual uses to induce ecstasy is usually one that is associated with that individuals particular religious and cultural traditions. As a result, an experience is usually interpreted within the particular individual religious context. Athletes may follow rituals in preparing for contests, which are dismissed as superstition, Yoga provides techniques to attain an ecstasy state called samādhi. According to practitioners, there are stages of ecstasy, the highest being Nirvikalpa Samadhi. Bhakti Yoga especially, places emphasis on ecstasy as being one of the fruits of its practice, in Buddhism, especially in the Pali Canon, there are eight states of trance also called absorption. The first four states are Rupa or, materially-oriented, the next four are Arupa or non-material. These eight states are preliminary trances which lead up to final saturation, in Visuddhimagga, great effort and years of sustained meditation are practiced to reach the first absorption, and that not all individuals are able to accomplish it at all. It is possible to experience the absorptions in a less intense state with much less practice, in the Dionysian Mysteries, initiates used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state. In the monotheistic tradition, ecstasy is usually associated with communion, however, such experiences can also be personal mystical experiences with no significance to anyone but the person experiencing them. Some charismatic Christians practice ecstatic states and interpret these as given by the Holy Spirit, the firewalkers of Greece dance themselves into a state of ecstasy at the annual Anastenaria, when they believe themselves under the influence of Saint Constantine. In modern Pentecostal, charismatic and spirit-filled Christianity, numerous examples of religious ecstasy have transpired and these occurrences however, have changed significantly since the time of the Toronto Blessing phenomena and several other North American so-called revivals and outpourings from the mid 1990s. It is said to be a prophetic action bringing spiritual blessings from God into the world, many believe spiritual birthing to be highly demonic in nature and more occult-like than Christian
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Christian revival
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Revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a church congregation or society, with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the revival to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Revivals are seen as the restoration of the church itself to a vital, Mass conversions of non-believers are viewed by church leaders as having positive moral effects. Within Christian studies the concept of revival is derived from biblical narratives of national decline, in particular, narrative accounts of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah emphasise periods of national decline and revival associated with the rule of various righteous and wicked kings. Josiah is notable within this biblical narrative as a figure who reinstituted temple worship of Yahweh while destroying pagan worship, within modern Church history, church historians have identified and debated the effects of various national revivals within the history of the USA and other countries. During the 18th and 19th centuries American society experienced a number of Awakenings around the years 1727,1792,1830,1857 and 1882, the Bible narrative records a number of revivals within the history of the Israelites. In particular, following the development of temple worship based in Jerusalem the Bible records periods of decline and revival associated with the rule of righteous. Within this historical narrative the reign of Josiah epitomises the effect of revival on Israelite society in reinstituting temple worship of Yahweh and its character formed part of the mental framework that led to the American War of Independence and the Civil War. The philosophy of Earl of Shaftesbury III led to a Proto-Romanticism that mixed with Christian worship to produce a tertium quid, a similar revival in Scotland took place at Cambuslang, then a village and is known as the Cambuslang Work. It resulted from powerful preaching that deeply affected listeners with a sense of personal guilt. Pulling away from ancient ritual and ceremony, the Great Awakening made religion intensely emotive to the person by creating a deep sense of spiritual guilt. Historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom sees it as part of a great international Protestant upheaval that also created Pietism in Germany and it brought Christianity to the slaves and was an apocalyptic event in New England that challenged established authority. It had little impact on Anglicans and Quakers, unlike the Second Great Awakening that began about 1800 and which reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness, the Hungarian Baptist church sprung out of revival with the perceived liberalism of the Hungarian reformed church during the late 1800s. Many thousands of people were baptized in a revival that was led primarily by uneducated laymen, special efforts were made to attract children and to generate literature to spread the revivalist message. Halévy suggested that a politically conservative Methodism forestalled revolution among the uneducated working class by redirecting its energies toward spiritual rather than temporal affairs. The thesis has engendered strong debate among historians, and several have adopted and modified Halévys thesis, some historians, such as Robert Wearmouth, suggest that evangelical revivalism directed working-class attention toward moral regeneration, not social radicalism. Others, including E. P. Thompson, claim that Methodism, some historians question the Halévy thesis
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Great Awakening
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The term Great Awakening can refer to several periods of religious revival in American religious history. Historians and theologians identify three or four waves of increased religious enthusiasm occurring between the early 18th century and the late 19th century, the Awakenings all resulted from powerful preaching that gave listeners a sense of personal guilt and of their need of salvation by Christ. It brought Christianity to African-American slaves and was an event in New England that challenged established authority. It had little impact on Anglicans, and Quakers, unlike the Second Great Awakening, which began about 1800 and reached out to the unchurched, the First Great Awakening focused on people who were already church members. It changed their rituals, their piety, and their self-awareness, edwardss congregation was involved in a revival later called the Frontier Revivals in the mid-1730s, though this was on the wane by 1737. But as American religious historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom noted, the Great Awakening was still to come, ushered in by the Grand Itinerant, the great British Evangelist George Whitefield. Whitefield arrived in Georgia in 1738, and returned in 1739 for a visit of the Colonies, making a triumphant campaign north from Philadelphia to New York. In 1740, he visited New England, and at every place he visited, ministers from various evangelical Protestant denominations supported the Great Awakening. In the middle colonies, he influenced not only the British churches, additionally, pastoral styles began to change. In the late period, most pastors read their sermons. Nathan Hatch argues that the movement of the 1740s played a key role in the development of democratic thought. As well as the belief of the press and the belief that information should be shared. These concepts ushered in the period of the American Revolution and this contributed to create a demand for religious freedom. The Great Awakening represented the first time African Americans embraced Christianity in large numbers, the Second Great Awakening was a religious revival that occurred in the United States beginning in the late eighteenth century and lasting until the middle of the nineteenth century. While it occurred in all parts of the United States, it was strong in the Northeast. This awakening was unique in that it moved beyond the elite of New England to those who were less wealthy. The center of revivalism was the so-called Burned-over district in western New York, named for its overabundance of hellfire-and-damnation preaching, the region produced dozens of new denominations, communal societies, and reform. Closely related to the Second Great Awakening were other reform movements such as temperance, abolition, the temperance movement encouraged people to abstain from consuming alcoholic drinks in order to preserve family order
25.
Christopher Lasch
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Christopher Kit Lasch was an American historian, moralist, and social critic who was a history professor at the University of Rochester. The Culture of Narcissism became a surprise best-seller and won the National Book Award in the category Current Interest, Lasch was always a critic of liberalism, and a historian of liberalisms discontents, but over time his political perspective evolved dramatically. In the 1960s, he was a neo-Marxist and acerbic critic of Cold War liberalism and his writings during this period led him to be denounced by feminists and hailed by conservatives for his apparent defense of the traditional family. He eventually concluded that an unspoken but pervasive faith in Progress tended to make Americans resistant to many of his arguments. Christopher Lasch came from a political family rooted in the left. His father, Robert Lasch, was a Rhodes Scholar and journalist, zora Lasch, his mother, who held a philosophy doctorate, worked as a social worker and teacher. Lasch was active in the arts and letters early, publishing a newspaper while in grade school. Lasch studied at Harvard, where he roomed with John Updike, and Columbia, Richard Hofstadter was also a significant influence. He contributed a Foreword to later editions of Hofstadters The American Political Tradition and he taught at the University of Iowa and then was a professor of history at the University of Rochester from 1970 until his death from cancer in 1994. Lasch also took a public role. Russell Jacoby acknowledged this in writing that I do not think any other historian of his generation moved as forcefully into the public arena, in 1986 he appeared on Channel 4 television in discussion with Michael Ignatieff and Cornelius Castoriadis. Lasch became further influenced by writers of the Frankfurt School and the early New Left Review, besides Leuchtenburg, Hofstadter, and Freud, Lasch was especially influenced by Orestes Brownson, Henry George, Lewis Mumford, Jacques Ellul, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Philip Rieff. The patriarch, though he might still preside in splendor at the head of his board, had come to resemble an emissary from a government which had been silently overthrown. The mere theoretical recognition of his authority by his family could not alter the fact that the government which was the source of all his powers had ceased to exist. He claimed, further, that this personality type conformed to structural changes in the world of work, with those developments, he charged, inevitably there arose a certain therapeutic sensibility that, inadvertently or not, undermined older notions of self-help and individual initiative. By the 1970s even pleas for individualism were desperate and essentially ineffectual cries which expressed a lack of meaningful individuality. Most explicitly in The True and Only Heaven, Lasch developed a critique of social change among the classes in the U. S. explaining and seeking to counteract the fall of elements of populism. He sought to rehabilitate this populist or producerist alternative tradition, The tradition I am talking about, tends to be skeptical of programs for the wholesale redemption of society
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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Farrar, Straus and Giroux is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. FSG is known for publishing books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer Prizes, National Book Awards. The publisher is currently a division of MacMillan, whose parent company is the German publishing conglomerate Georg von Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, Farrar, Straus and Giroux was founded in 1946 by Roger W. Straus, Jr. and John C. The first years of existence were rough until they published the book, Look Younger. The book went on to sell 500,000 copies and Straus said that the book carried them along for awhile, in the early years, Straus and his wife Dorthea, went prospecting for books in Italy. It was there that they found the memoir Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi and other rising Italian authors Alberto Moravia, Giovanni Guareschi, Robert Giroux joined the company in 1955 and after he later became a partner, the name was changed to Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Giroux had been working for Harcourt and had been angered when Harcourt refused to him to publish Salingers Catcher in the Rye. Giroux brought many literary authors with him including Thomas Merton, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, Flannery OConnor, Jack Kerouac, Peter Taylor, Randall Jarrell, T. S. Eliot, and Bernard Malamud. In 1964, Straus named Giroux chairman of the board and officially added Girouxs name to the publishing company, Straus offered FSG to the Holtzbrinck family because of their reputation for publishing serious works of literature. Jonathan Galassi is president and publisher, andrew Mandel joined in 2004 as deputy publisher. In 2008, Mitzi Angel came from Fourth Estate in the UK to be publisher of the Faber and Faber Inc. imprint, other notable editors include Sean McDonald, Ileene Smith, Alex Star, Amanda Moon, and Sarah Crichton. In February 2015 FSG and Faber and Faber announced the end of their partnership, all books scheduled for release and previously released under the imprint will be moved to the FSG colophon by August 2016. S. Its authors include David Auburn, Margaret Edson, Doug Wright, Richard Greenberg, Tom Stoppard, David Hare, Neil LaBute, Peter Conrad, Martin Eisenstadt, hill and Wang publishes books of academic interest and specializes in history. Its authors include Roland Barthes, William Cronon, Langston Hughes, Sarah Crichton Books publishes books with a slightly commercial bent. The imprint launched with Cathleen Falsanis The God Factor in 2006, ishmael Beahs A Long Way Gone was a bestseller and a Starbucks featured book in 2007. North Point Press published literary nonfiction with an emphasis on history, travel, ecology, music, food. Its authors include Peter Matthiessen, Beryl Markham, Guy Davenport, A. J. Liebling, Margaret Visser, Wendell Berry, scientific American / FSG, led by Amanda Moon, publishes non-fiction popular science books for the general reader. Its authors include Jesse Bering, Daniel Chamovitz, Kevin Dutton, FSG Books for Young Readers publishes National Book Award winners Madeleine LEngle, William Steig, Louis Sachar, and Polly Horvath
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International Standard Book Number
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The International Standard Book Number is a unique numeric commercial book identifier. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an e-book, a paperback and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, the method of assigning an ISBN is nation-based and varies from country to country, often depending on how large the publishing industry is within a country. The initial ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering created in 1966, the 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108. Occasionally, a book may appear without a printed ISBN if it is printed privately or the author does not follow the usual ISBN procedure, however, this can be rectified later. Another identifier, the International Standard Serial Number, identifies periodical publications such as magazines, the ISBN configuration of recognition was generated in 1967 in the United Kingdom by David Whitaker and in 1968 in the US by Emery Koltay. The 10-digit ISBN format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and was published in 1970 as international standard ISO2108, the United Kingdom continued to use the 9-digit SBN code until 1974. The ISO on-line facility only refers back to 1978, an SBN may be converted to an ISBN by prefixing the digit 0. For example, the edition of Mr. J. G. Reeder Returns, published by Hodder in 1965, has SBN340013818 -340 indicating the publisher,01381 their serial number. This can be converted to ISBN 0-340-01381-8, the check digit does not need to be re-calculated, since 1 January 2007, ISBNs have contained 13 digits, a format that is compatible with Bookland European Article Number EAN-13s. An ISBN is assigned to each edition and variation of a book, for example, an ebook, a paperback, and a hardcover edition of the same book would each have a different ISBN. The ISBN is 13 digits long if assigned on or after 1 January 2007, a 13-digit ISBN can be separated into its parts, and when this is done it is customary to separate the parts with hyphens or spaces. Separating the parts of a 10-digit ISBN is also done with either hyphens or spaces, figuring out how to correctly separate a given ISBN number is complicated, because most of the parts do not use a fixed number of digits. ISBN issuance is country-specific, in that ISBNs are issued by the ISBN registration agency that is responsible for country or territory regardless of the publication language. Some ISBN registration agencies are based in national libraries or within ministries of culture, in other cases, the ISBN registration service is provided by organisations such as bibliographic data providers that are not government funded. In Canada, ISBNs are issued at no cost with the purpose of encouraging Canadian culture. In the United Kingdom, United States, and some countries, where the service is provided by non-government-funded organisations. Australia, ISBNs are issued by the library services agency Thorpe-Bowker
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The Bonfire of the Vanities
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The Bonfire of the Vanities is a 1987 novel by Tom Wolfe. The novel was conceived as a serial in the style of Charles Dickens writings. Wolfe heavily revised it before it was published in book form, the novel was a bestseller and a phenomenal success, even in comparison with Wolfes other books. It has often called the quintessential novel of the 1980s. The title is a reference to the historical Bonfire of the Vanities, which happened in 1497 in Florence, Italy, Wolfe deliberately set out to make The Bonfire of the Vanities capture the essence of New York City in the 1980s. Wall Street in the 1980s was newly resurgent after most of the decade had been bad for stocks. Beneath Wall Streets success, the city was a hot-bed of racial and cultural tension, homelessness and crime in the city were growing. Roberts, a Bronx judge known for his no-nonsense imperious handling of cases in his courtroom, throughout his early career, Wolfe had planned to write a novel that would capture the wide spectrum of American society. Among his models was William Makepeace Thackerays Vanity Fair, which described the society of 19th century England, Wolfe remained occupied writing nonfiction books on his own and contributing to Harpers until 1981, when he ceased his other projects to work on the novel. Wolfe began researching the novel by observing cases at the Manhattan Criminal Court, to overcome a case of writers block, Wolfe wrote to Jann Wenner, editor of Rolling Stone, to propose an idea drawn from Charles Dickens and Thackeray. The Victorian writers whom Wolfe viewed as his models had often written their novels in serial installments, Wenner offered Wolfe around $200,000 to serialize his work. The deadline pressure gave him the motivation he had hoped for, Wolfe was not happy with his very public first draft, and thoroughly revised his work. Even Sherman McCoy, the character of the novel, changed—originally a writer. Wolfe researched and revised for two years, the Bonfire of the Vanities appeared in 1987. The book was a commercial and critical success, spending weeks on bestseller lists, the story centers on Sherman McCoy, a wealthy New York City bond trader with a wife and young daughter. Finding the ramp back to the highway blocked by trash cans, approached by two black men whom they perceive—uncertainly, in Shermans case—as predators, McCoy and Ruskin flee. Having taken the wheel of the car, which fishtails as they race away, Fallow cynically tolerates the manipulations of the Reverend Bacon, a Harlem religious and political leader who sees the hospitalized boy as a projects success story gone wrong. Fallows series of articles on the matter ignites a series of protests, up for re-election and accused of foot-dragging in the Lamb case, the media-obsessed Bronx District Attorney Abe Weiss pushes for McCoys arrest
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A Man in Full
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A Man in Full is a novel by Tom Wolfe, published on November 12,1998 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. It is set primarily in Atlanta, with a significant portion of the story also transpiring in the East Bay region of Northern California, a Man In Full features a number of point-of-view characters. The novel begins with the learning of the rumored rape of a young white heiress by a black superstar athlete. Though the incident itself is unimportant to the lives of the characters, a Man In Full is written much in the style of Wolfes other fictions, such as The Bonfire of the Vanities and I Am Charlotte Simmons. Most of the mainstream American newspapers and news magazines gave the positive reviews. However, a wave of reviews in more highbrow literary outlets were more critical. Some of this more pointed criticism, mixed with praise for Wolfes style, came from established American novelists, including John Updike, in addition, novelist John Irving criticized Wolfes novel during an interview on a Canadian television program. Wolfe countered this criticism in his book Hooking Up, calling the three authors his three stooges who were shaken by the support he received. The novelists, he claimed, were threatened by the success of his technique - writing a novel based on reporting techniques - and were failing to engage the world around them, according to Mailers review, the book had sold over 750,000 copies by December 1998. The book was credited with allusions to, or the caricaturing of, the abridged audiobook of A Man in Full was narrated by American actor David Ogden Stiers. New Georgia Encyclopedia William O. Stephens, The Rebirth of Stoicism, William O. Stephens, Real Men Are Stoics, An Interpretation of Tom Wolfes A Man in Full Tom Wolfe page
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I Am Charlotte Simmons
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I am Charlotte Simmons is a 2004 novel by Tom Wolfe, concerning sexual and status relationships at the fictional Dupont University. Wolfe researched the novel by talking to students at North Carolina, Florida, Penn, Duke, Stanford, and Michigan. Wolfe suggested it depicts the American university today at a college that is Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke. In May 2008, music video director Liz Friedlander was signed to direct a movie adaptation, I am Charlotte Simmons is the story of college student Charlotte Simmonss first semester-and-a-half at the prestigious Dupont University. A high school graduate from a rural town, her intelligence. As Charlotte prepares to say goodbye to her family and leave for college, when the governors bodyguard spots the two fraternity members, a fight ensues with Hoyt and Vance beating up the bodyguard and fleeing. The story of the night soon spreads across campus, increasing Hoyts popularity on campus, Charlotte arrives on campus in the fall. Her roommate is wealthy Beverly, the daughter of the CEO of a multinational insurance company. She is obsessed with sex, in particular members of the schools lacrosse team. Jojo Johanssen is an athlete on the colleges predominantly black basketball team. He is struggling to keep his position because the school recently recruited a black freshman player. This would severely hurt Jojos chances of playing in the league, Jojo enjoys the spoils of being a college athlete, such as using a tutor program to force other students to complete his school assignments. Jojos tutor Adam Gellin is, like Charlotte, from a working-class background, Charlotte and Adam first meet at the universitys computer lab, where Adam is to write a paper for Jojo. Charlotte does not back down when Adam insists that he needs the more than she does. Hoyt and Charlotte attend an important fraternity formal together, after which Hoyt takes full advantage of a drunken Charlotte, the following morning, Charlotte is dumped by Hoyt. She is further humiliated when she returns to campus and discovers that Hoyts seduction and rejection has made public via two girls Charlotte had previously befriended. The two cruelly mock Charlotte, both over her poverty-stricken background, and for how she drunkenly lost her virginity and this drives Charlotte into a depression and eventually into the arms of Adam, who has wanted Charlotte for her beauty, innocence, and intellect since they first met. Charlotte finally emerges from her depression but finds that she has received terrible grades for her first semester at Dupont, as Adam prepares to publish his article, his world collides with Jojo Johanssens when a paper that Adam wrote for the athlete is accused of being plagiarized
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Back to Blood
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Back to Blood is Tom Wolfes fourth novel, published by Little, Brown. The novel, set in Miami, Florida, focuses on the subject of Cuban immigrants there, Wolfes 1998 novel A Man in Full, about a real-estate mogul in Atlanta during that citys economic boom of the 1990s, was a considerable success. An estimated 1.4 million copies of the book were sold in hardcover alone, all of Wolfes essay collections, non-fiction, and fiction had been published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux since his first book The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby in 1965. But after the disappointing sales of I Am Charlotte Simmons. The Associated Press reported that Wolfe had been offered an advance for Back to Blood. Even before the novel was finished, some details were reported in the media, the novel has been described as Wolfes take on class, family, wealth, race, crime, sex, corruption and ambition in Miami, the city where Americas future has arrived first. Since then the subject has become a more exciting, and in Miami its not only exciting. The book was released on October 23,2012 to mixed reviews, the book debuted at #4 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List on November 11,2012. It remained on the list for three weeks, Back to Blood was an even bigger commercial failure than I Am Charlotte Simmons, selling 62,000 copies as of February 2013, according to Bookscan. Considering the publishers paid $7 million for the manuscript, this means the book cost approximately $112 per reader
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
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The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is a nonfiction book by Tom Wolfe that was published in 1968. The book is remembered today as an early – and arguably the most popular – example of the literary style called New Journalism. Wolfe presents an account of the experiences of Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters. Kesey and the Pranksters became famous for their use of LSD, Tom Wolfe chronicles the adventures of Ken Kesey and his group of followers. Throughout the work, Kesey is painted as a sort of Christ figure, due to the allure of the transcendent states achievable through drugs and because of Keseys ability to preach and captivate listeners, he begins to form a band of close followers. They call themselves the Merry Pranksters and begin to participate in the drug-fueled lifestyle, starting at Keseys house in the woods of La Honda, California, the early predecessors of acid tests were performed. These tests or mass usage of LSD were performed with lights and noise, the Pranksters eventually leave the confines of Kesey’s estate. Kesey buys a bus in which they plan to cross the country and they paint it colorfully and name it Furthur. They traverse the nation, tripping on acid throughout the journey, as the Pranksters grow in popularity, Kesey’s reputation grows as well. By the middle of the book, Kesey is idolized as the hero of a growing counterculture and he starts friendships with groups like Hells Angels and their voyages lead them to cross paths with other icons of the Beat Generation. Keseys popularity grows to the point that permits the Pranksters to entertain other significant members of a growing counterculture. The Pranksters meet Hells Angels, The Grateful Dead, Allen Ginsberg, the failed meeting with Leary leads to great disappointment. A meeting between Leary and Kesey would mark the meeting of East and West, Leary was on the East Coast, and Kesey represented the West Coast. As an effort to broadcast their lifestyle, the Pranksters publicize their acid experiences, the Acid Tests are parties where everyone takes LSD and abandon the realities of the mundane world in search of a state of “intersubjectivity. Just as the Acid Tests are catching on, Kesey is arrested for possession of marijuana, in an effort to avoid jail, he flees to Mexico and is joined by the Pranksters. The Pranksters struggle in Mexico and are unable to obtain the results from their acid trips. Kesey and some of the Pranksters return to the United States, at this point, Kesey becomes a full blown pop culture icon as he appears on TV and radio shows, even as he is wanted by the FBI. Eventually he is located and arrested, the graduation was not effective enough to clear the charges from Kesey’s name
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Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers
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Radical Chic & Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers is a 1970 book by Tom Wolfe. Both essays looked at the conflict between black rage and white guilt, the first piece is set in the duplex on Park Avenue in Manhattan inhabited by conductor Leonard Bernstein, his wife the actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre, and their three children. Bernstein assembled many of his socialite friends to meet with representatives of the controversial Black Panthers. The party was an affair for Bernstein, a longtime Democrat. The Bernsteins usual staff of white South Americans served the party, Wolfes criticism is implicitly of the general phenomena of white guilt and armchair agitation becoming facets of high fashion. The second part of Wolfes book is set at the Office of Economic Opportunity in San Francisco which was in charge of administering many of the anti-poverty programs of the time, Wolfe presents the office as corrupt, continually gamed by hustlers diverting cash into their own pockets. He described one mau-mauer who would show up at the offices and hand over ice-picks, switch-blades and straight-razors that he said were taken from gangs, as a result, much of the money of these programs was not reaching its intended recipients, rendering the programs largely ineffective. The phrase radical chic has entered into the political and cultural lexicon to describe the adoption of radical or quasi-radical causes by members of the wealthy high-society and celebrity class. Both essays were reprinted in Wolfes collection The Purple Decades. Radical Chic, the complete text - New York Magazine Radical Chic, a scan of the original article - New York Magazine
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The New Journalism
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The New Journalism is a 1973 anthology of journalism edited by Tom Wolfe and E. W. Johnson. The pieces are notable because they do not conform to the standard dispassionate, rather they incorporate literary devices usually only found in fictional works. The first section of the consists of four previously published texts by Wolfe, The Feature Game and Like a Novel, Seizing the Power. The text is a diatribe against the American novel which Wolfe sees as having hit a dead end by moving away from realism, in effect, his manifesto is for mixing journalism with literary techniques to document in a more effective way than the novel. These techniques were most likely inspired by writers of social realism, such as Émile Zola and his manifesto for New Journalism has four main points. Rather than rely on second-hand accounts and background information, Wolfe considers it necessary for the journalist to witness events first hand, by recording dialogue as fully as possible, the journalist is not only reporting words, but defining and establishing character, as well as involving the reader. Instead of simply reporting the facts, the journalist has to give the reader a feeling of the events. One technique for achieving this is to treat the protagonists like characters in a novel, just as important as the characters and the events, are the surroundings, specifically what people surround themselves with. Wolfe describes these items as the tools for a social autopsy, part two, which makes of the major part of The New Journalism, consists of twenty-four texts, collected by Wolfe and Johnson. Every text features an introduction, written by Wolfe. The excerpt from In Cold Blood, is the text in the anthology. The excerpt is taken from the chapter titled Answers. In Cold Blood was initially, published as a serial in The New Yorker. Answers, which was the part, was published in the October 25 issue. The book details the brutal 1959 murders of Herbert Clutter, a farmer from Holcomb, Kansas. When Capote learned of the murder before the killers were captured, he decided to travel to Kansas. Bringing his childhood friend and fellow author Harper Lee along, together they interviewed local residents and investigators assigned to the case, the killers, Richard Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, were arrested not long after the murders, and Capote ultimately spent six years working on the book. In the introduction Wolfe writes “For all his attention to technique, however
35.
The Painted Word
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The Painted Word is a 1975 book of art criticism by Tom Wolfe. By the 1970s Wolfe was, according to Douglas Davis of Newsweek magazine more of a celebrity than the celebrities he describes, Wolfe summarized the review saying that it meant without a theory to go with it, I cant see a painting. Prior to publication in book form, The Painted Word was excerpted in Harpers Magazine, Wolfes longtime publisher Farrar, Straus & Giroux released the book in 1975. Wolfes thesis in The Painted Word was that by the 1970s, modern art had moved away from being a visual experience, Wolfe criticized avant-garde art, Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock. The main target of Wolfes book, however, was not so much the artists, in particular, Wolfe criticized three prominent art critics whom he dubbed the kings of Cultureburg, Clement Greenberg, Harold Rosenberg and Leo Steinberg. Wolfe provides his own history of what he sees as the devolution of modern art and he summarized that history, In the beginning we got rid of nineteenth-century storybook realism. Then we got rid of representational objects, then we got rid of the third dimension altogether and got really flat. Then we got rid of airiness, brushstrokes, most of the paint, after providing examples of other techniques and the schools that abandoned them, Wolfe concluded with Conceptual Art, …there, at last, it was. No more realism, no more representation objects, no lines, colors, forms. …Art made its flight, climbed higher and higher in an ever-decreasing tighter-turning spiral until… it disappeared up its own fundamental aperture…. The Painted Word hit the art world like a bad, MSG-headache-producing, Chinese lunch. By ridiculing the most respected members of the art world establishment, many reviewers dismissed Wolfe as someone simply too ignorant of art to write about it. Other critics responded with such similar vitriol and hostility that Wolfe said their response demonstrated that the art community only talked to each other, a review in The New Republic called Wolfe a fascist and compared him to the brainwashed assassin in the film The Manchurian Candidate. Wolfe was particularly amused, however, by a series of criticisms that resorted to X-rated insults, an artist compared him to A six-year-old at a pornographic movie, he can follow the action of the bodies but he cant comprehend the nuances. A critic in Time Magazine used the image, but with an 11-year-old boy. A review in The New York Times Book Review used the image again, the opening of Krausss review in Partisan Review compared Wolfe to the star of the pornographic film Deep Throat. The reviewer viewed Wolfes lack of a suggestion for what should replace modern art as similar in its obtuseness to statements Linda Lovelace made about Deep Throat being a kind of goof. In defense of critics Rosenberg, Greenberg, and Steinberg, Rosalind Krauss noted that each man wrote about art in ways that are entirely diverse, writing in Newsweek, Douglas Davis wrote that The Painted Word fails because of how it departed from Wolfes previous works
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The Right Stuff (book)
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The Right Stuff is based on extensive research by Wolfe, who interviewed test pilots, the astronauts and their wives, among others. Wolfe wrote that the book was inspired by the desire to find out why the astronauts accepted the danger of space flight and he recounts the enormous risks that test pilots were already taking, and the mental and physical characteristics—the titular right stuff—required for and reinforced by their jobs. Wolfe likens the astronauts to single combat warriors from an earlier era who received the honor, the 1983 film The Right Stuff is adapted from the book. In 1972 Jann Wenner, the editor of Rolling Stone assigned Wolfe to cover the launch of NASAs last moon mission, Apollo 17. Wolfe became fascinated with the astronauts, and his competitive spirit compelled him to try to outdo Norman Mailers nonfiction book about the first moon mission, Of a Fire on the Moon. He published a series for Rolling Stone in 1973 titled Post-Orbital Remorse. In 1977 he returned to his astronaut book full-time, in the end, Yeager becomes a personification of the many postwar test pilots and their right stuff. The phrase itself may have originated in the Joseph Conrad story Youth, the Right Stuff was published in 1979 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and became Wolfes best selling book yet. It was praised by most critics, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the story is more about the space race than space exploration in general. The Soviet Unions early space efforts are mentioned only as background, only Project Mercury, the first operational manned space-flight program, is covered. The Mercury Seven were Scott Carpenter, Gordon Cooper, John Glenn, Gus Grissom, Wally Schirra, Alan Shepard, emphasis is given to the personal stories of the astronauts and their wives rather than the technical aspects of space travel and the flights themselves. Reasons for including living beings in spacecraft are barely touched upon, another option considered were athletes already accustomed to physical stress, such as circus trapeze artists. Wolfe states that President Dwight D. Eisenhower, however, insisted on pilots, when Gus Grissom lands at sea and exits his space capsule, saving the capsule seems more important to the recovery team than saving the pilot because of the value of the data. Chuck Yeager spent time with Tom Wolfe explaining accident reports that Wolfe kept getting all wrong, publishing insiders say these sessions between Wolfe and Yeager led Wolfe to highlight Yeagers character, presence, thoughts, and anecdotes throughout the book. Yeager himself downplayed the theory of the stuff, attributing his survival of potential catastrophes to simply knowing his airplane thoroughly. Another test pilot highlighted in the book is Scott Crossfield, Crossfield and Yeager were fierce but friendly rivals for speed and altitude records. NFL Hall of Famer Anthony Muñoz also has a small role and it features a score by composer Bill Conti. The screenplay was adapted by Philip Kaufman from the book, with contributions from screenwriter William Goldman
