Lack Of Imagination Research Articles

The Revival of Impeachment as a Partisan Political Weapon

The Revival of Impeachment as a Partisan Political Weapon

Realities in Postmodern Guise-Toward a Poetics of Contemporary Taiwan Poetry

In Taiwan, poetics is often reduced into a framework to approximate poetry for equivalent match. Critics tend to use the framework to view and measure the stature of writings and therefore poetry has often been trimmed down into a binary opposition. Worse, these propensities for binary opposition combined with political or ideological bias often simplify poetics into two extremes: one favoring avant-gardism, the other, vernacularism. For the former, the more experimental in visual form, the more liable to be favorably discussed, the critics focus on their ostentatious structure and language game and extol their superb imagination while overlooking that avant-gardism sometimes may mask a lack of imagination to face the contemporary realities. For the latter, the critics pendulum to the other extreme, highlighting its ”local color” ideology and concern with living realities without acknowledging that these ideology and realities concern may have degraded poetry into the instrument of political slogans. The critics therefore are blindfolded to realize that the best works exist ”in between.” This paper tries to discuss the aesthetics of those works ”in between” to unravel poetry in postmodern spirit without the seemingly necessary wordplay and twist of forms. Moreover, poetry in postmodern guise is also concerned with reality without the contamination of political or ideological propaganda.

Expanding students' horizons

English teaching is often too formulaic, says William Glover. There is a lack of imagination in how we approach our writing across the curriculum

Atrocity, Banality, Self-Deception

Keywords evil, self-deception, banality, atrocity, motivation When talking about evil we must make a fundamental choice about how we are to use the term. We may use it as half of the contrast "good versus evil," in which case it covers everything that is not good. That includes moral incompetence, lack of imagination, willingness to follow orders, overreactions, and a host of other reasons why people who do not have personalities that we would call evil do things that are wrong, often very wrong. Call this the weak reading of evil: evil as wrongdoing. Or we may use it with the meaning suggested by "evil person," "really evil act," "the evil lurking in all of us," and other such idioms. If we do this, we focus on a particular class of actions, and the motives and people that produce them, that arouse a particular moral revulsion in us. Call this the strong reading of evil: evil as atrocity (for more on this contrast see Morton [2004] and Card [2002]). Kubarych, following Peck, thinks of evil in the strong way. Most of the time at any rate: Some of the philosophers, such as Kant, that he draws on are thinking of evil in the weak way, and some of his quotations are from the German, where good/bad/evil distinctions are not drawn in the same way as in English. He explores a general explanation of evil that seems to be targeted at the psychology of extremely abhorrent actions. But, I argue, his account is in danger of collapse in either of two directions. Depending on how we interpret Kubarych's account, it could turn out that it describes all wrongdoing as evil, or, making some different choices, it could turn out that there are no really evil people. The strong reading of evil is definitely the most interesting and potentially fruitful. After all, we have no shortage of satisfying explanations of why people lie to get out of unwelcome appointments, steal to support their children or their drug habits, or defraud investors to become rich. But we do feel deeply puzzled by those who commit torture, serial murder, or genocide. We ask of these people not so much "Why did he do it?" as "How could he do it?" We feel the need of a philosophical or psychological theory that can give us even a slight handle of these people and their deeds. There are two risks associated with the project of explaining atrocity, though. The first is the risk of accepting unsatisfactory accounts, just because they purport to explain what we desperately want to understand. The second is the risk of supposing that there is a single explanation when the causes of the phenomenon are in fact too varied. On other topics these two risks have often combined to make people believe what seem to us now to be evident falsehoods. Humans have often for example wanted to know the causes of disease, and as a result have accepted blanket explanations, in terms of [End Page 257] evil spirits or lack of faith, that seem ludicrous to us now that we have a better grasp of the variety of factors that can cause our bodies to misfunction. So before asking naively "Why and how can people do these awful things?" we should ask "Is there a deeper causal unity here, beyond the fact that we react to these acts with horror?" My suspicion is that there is not much unity, that it is asking too much to want a common profile to the psychology of serial killers, or of proponents of genocide, let alone a profile that applies across these and other categories. What we can do, I believe, is describe our concept of evil in such a way that we can leave some parameters to be filled in by a large variety of objective psychological factors. Even this runs the risk that the really relevant factors cannot be forced into the role that the philosophical account requires. In...

Uncertainty in the analysis and interpretation of research information

Uncertainty in the analysis and interpretation of research information

Diamond in the Rough

This review of Jared Diamond's new book, Collapse, analyses the book in the context of other Malthusian treatments of environmental issues, noting its original and unconventional analysis of the role of environmental factors in the fate of past cultures, but critiquing its lack of imagination for the institutional dimensions of environmental decision-making for our future today.

A Note on the Seventieth Anniversary of Social Research

Bob Kerrey A Note on the Seventieth Anniversary of Social Research FOR SIX DECADES SOCIAL RESEARCH HAS CARRIED THE VOICES OF MEN and women who have explored fundam ental human issues such as hate, love, violence, and altruism in ways that have forced the authors, and enabled their readers, to think beyond their disciplines. Such thinking is the essence of what the Graduate Faculty and the New School strive to promote. Social Research and the New School for Social Research seek to avoid the obscure tone of specialized schol­ arship, and make im portant new ideas available to a broad public beyond the academy. Crossing borders, both disciplinary and geographic, has always been a special strength of Social Research. In its first 50 years, the best of European critical thought and the most complex of American ideas and experiences met in the pages of the journal, as did their authors. In this regard, Social Research captured the spirit of encounter that the founders of the University in Exile brought to the United States. Something of the moral authority of the University in Exile still inhabits the pages of the journal, as its authors leave familiar places and doctrines to explore new questions and build new intellectual homes. As we move into the seventh decade in the life of Social Research, it is possible to detect in its eclecticism a certain stubborn interest in the ways that human passions—base or noble—invariably compete with human interests—narrow or broad. The journal retains its ability to social research Vol 71 : No 3 : Fall 2 004 ix bring philosophy to life through its dialogue with the social sciences, and to keep the social sciences honest by infusing the theoretical with the empirical findings of psychology and biology. As we look back, we acknowledge that this is no mean feat. As we look ahead, we are fortu­ nate that it is not a finished project. Today, we live in a world in which political discourse has broken free of physical limitations as a consequence of the World Wide Web. However, fear and lack of imagination have always been greater barri­ ers than geography. And, in a highly technological world that values speed and entertainment above all else, Social Research’s insistence that we face our nature as human beings, as well as the nature of our rela­ tionships, is potentially more valuable than when the journal began. We hope that its potential becomes the catalyst for greater understand­ ing, and that greater understanding yields creative action. Bob Kerrey, President, New Schoolfor Social Research x social research ...

Shareholders' Remedies Reassessed

broader. Inadvertence may qualify as a culpable mental state in circumstances when a person ought to have adverted. Treating as acting with an absent mental state a person who has acted intentionally but without adverting to a risk when he or she should have is like treating the failure to apply brakes while driving a motor vehicle as a pure omission rather than a dangerous act of driving. In a civil society there should be certain minimum duties of citizenship and every individual should have a responsibility to advert to relevant risks when actively engaging in certain conduct. Failure to live up to that can fairly be labelled culpable. This is not an objective test in the sense of ignoring the accused and asking what the reasonable person would have foreseen. The focus remains on the accused and the question is simply whether his or her mind should have been attuned to the risk. The two children in Rv G were not blameworthy because it was not reasonable to expect an eleven or twelve year old to advert to the risk that materialised. Had they instead been two drunks, it is unlikely that Rv G would have overruled Caldwell. For now, Caldwell is dead, although it lingers on as a ghost of Reid.58 A preferable course of action in Rv G would have been for the House of Lords to have endorsed an overt normative concept of recklessness by refining Glanville Williams' (an avowed subjectivist) proposed modification of Caldwell along the lines suggested here. This would allow courts to evaluate the blameworthiness of the accused's mental state according to prevailing ethical standards and distinguish between individuals who act out of 'stupidity or lack of imagination', and those who act 'outside the bounds of what humane and decent people regard as tolerable'.

Disappearing of Geidan and the Lack of Imagination in Theatre Criticism

Disappearing of <i>Geidan</i> and the Lack of Imagination in Theatre Criticism

Professional strategies of medical officers of health in the post-war period--1: 'innovative traditionalism': the case of Dr Ian MacQueen, MOH for Aberdeen 1952-1974, a 'bull-dog' with the 'hide of a rhinoceros'.

Recent policies concerning the enhancement of preventive medicine and health improvement have raised important questions about leadership in public health and have emphasized the roles that can be played by local authorities. In this light, it is worth exploring the activities undertaken by local authority Medical Officers of Health (MOsH), until their posts were abolished in 1974. The process leading to 1974 has often been blamed, at least partly, on the complacency, lack of imagination and demoralization of MOsH. However, when John Welshman asked the question 'watchdog or lapdog?' of the MOH, in a paper published in 1997, he concluded there was little justification for the latter label. This paper considers the career of Ian MacQueen, Aberdeen's last MOH, who is well known for the criticisms of his handling of the Aberdeen typhoid outbreak in 1964, which appeared in the report of an official enquiry. He was deemed to have made excessive use of the media and to have turned the outbreak into an event approaching a national crisis. However, in the context of MacQueen's 32 year career in Aberdeen, his use of the media during the typhoid outbreak was no aberration. Rather, it was characteristic of his determination to maintain an important role for the MOH within the NHS-era health services. There is therefore continuity between MacQueen's strategy and the ambitions of many MOsH before the NHS, who hoped for a unified health service with themselves occupying a leading role. MacQueen's actions during the typhoid outbreak also reflected his innovative activities in the field of health education, and his interest in the media for that purpose. In conclusion, MacQueen provides an example of an MOH who cannot be charged with complacency and resignation to a declining role: rather, his strategy of 'innovative traditionalism' sought to protect and extend his department's services.

Emotion and Peace of Mind

Introduction 1. EMOTION AS COGNITIVE AND ITS THERAPY 2. The Emotions as Value Judgements in Chrysippus 3. Seneca's Defence: Third Movements as Harmonizing Chrysippus and Zeno 4. Seneca's Defence: First Movements as Answering Posidonius 5. The Arts: First Movements and Controversies on Drama and Music. Aristotle, Philodemus, and the Stoics 6. Posidonius on the Irrational Forces in Emotion: Galen's Report 7. Posidonius: Judgements Insufficient for Emotion. Exhaustion and Lack of Imagination 8. Posidonius: Judgements Not Necessary for Emotion. Disowned Judgements, Animals, and Music 9. Aspasius and Other Objections to Chrysippus 10. What is Missing from the Judgemental Analysis? Brain Research and Limitations on Stoic Cognitive Therapy 11. THE ROLE OF ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY IN STOIC COGNITIVE THERAPY 12. Stoic Indifference: A Barrier to Therapy? 13. The Case for and against Eradication of Emotion 14. The Traditions of Moderation and Eradication 15. How the Ancient Exercises Work 16. Exercises Concerned with Time and the Self 17. Physiology and the Non-Cognitive: Galen's Alternative Approach to Emotion 18. Sex, Love, and Marriage in Pagan Philosophy and the Use of Catharsis 19. Catharsis and the Classification of Therapies 20. EMOTIONAL CONFLICT AND THE DIVIDED SELF 21. The Concept of Will 22. FIRST MOVEMENTS AS BAD THOUGHTS: ORIGEN AND HIS LEGACY 23. From First Movements to the Seven Cardinal Sins: Evagrius 24. First Movements in Augustine: Adaptation and Misunderstanding 25. Christians on Moderation versus Eradication 26. Augustine on Lust and the Will Bibliography of Secondary Sources Mentioned Index of Ancient Thinkers Index Locorum Subject and Name Index

The European Spatial Development Perspective - What Next?

In May 1999, ministers of the Member States of the European Union responsible for spatial planning approved the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP). The document is the product of Member States and the European Commission co-operating on the Committee on Spatial Development (CSD). The ESDP is the work of a small band of European planners. Between them they have succeeded in putting European spatial development on the agenda. This is no mean achievement. However, the visualization of spatial policies in the ESDP is weak. The problem has not been lack of imagination but divergences between European planning traditions. Also, attitudes towards European planning cannot be divorced from those towards European integration. And, even if there was consensus on the 'high politics' involved, planning in the European system of 'multi-level governance' raises difficult issues. The paper proposes strategies, not for 'solving' problems, the solution of which eludes us at present, but for sustaining the momentum. The first evolves around INTERREG II C (soon: INTERREG III B). There should be provisions for teasing out the implications for a future ESDP. Attention should focus on the 'spatial visions' that some programmes include. A Northwest European cluster seems a good point to start with. Another strategy is for the European Commission to make explicit its own views, if necessary specifying where the Commission differs from the Member States. These strategies should provide the impetus for a sustained commitment to the ESDP process.

In memoriam: David Antony Walsh (1945–2000)

In memoriam: David Antony Walsh (1945–2000)

Phronesis and Phantasia : Teaching with Wisdom and Imagination

Critics of Aristotelian accounts of practical reasoning, in teaching and in other contexts, criticise phronesis for its rigidity and lack of imagination. This paper argues that phantasia, or imagination, helps us to develop a richer account of Aristotle’s phronesis. Two senses of phantasia, as producing images and as an interpretive faculty, are proposed here to be importantly involved in phronesis. By producing images that help in the selection of an end goal, and by having an interpretive faculty that helps to compare competing possibilities, phantasia plays a crucial role in the practical reasoning process of phronesis.

Buddha Loves Me! This I Know, for the Dharma Tells Me So

So much of the religious life these days seems to me to be characterized by a lack of imagination. In my Christian tradition, for example, I see too few of us stepping up to the challenge of what could be done in the world in the name of our faith. Too many of us seem content to artistically describe a vision, or worse, to reduce everything to the politically possible. I suspect my own tradition in this regard is not unlike other traditions. Occasionally I see glimmers: Mother Theresa in Calcutta, Dr. Rahula in class. But mostly I find myself thirsty for someone to set the crossbar a notch or two higherjust to see if we might be able to jump over. When I look at my Buddha image, I see a man who gave up everything to follow his lust for truth; who never gave up on seeking truth even when it seemed nowhere to be found; who worked tirelessly for the well-being of all. And I look at the Buddha's face, so peaceful and content, in the midst of doing what most of us view as impossible. And I am inspired. My view of the Buddha? It is one part scholarly respect, one part practical gratitude, one part pure inspiration. I couldn't think more highly of anyone.

Focusing environmental management budgets on non‐linear system responses: potential for significant improvements to freshwater ecosystems

1. The non‐linear responses of environmental systems to changes imposed upon them is well known to scientists. Environmental managers rarely act accordingly, however, because of communication problems, a lack of imagination and various other constraints. Therefore, we illustrate such non‐linear responses to demonstrate that gains in efficiency (benefit per money spent) can be made by integrating these characteristics into decision making.2. Identifying three measures that are currently the focus of large freshwater management budgets (waste‐water treatment, riparian buffer strips and discharge allocations to regulated rivers), we relate the costs of these measures to the environmental improvements achievable in running waters. For each of these measures, the environmental improvement achieved per currency unit significantly decreases with an increase in total money spent.3. Traditional environmental management ignores this system behaviour because it invests important parts of budgets in a particular measure before focusing on the next among other measures. We therefore advocate alternating investments in that measure which achieves the greatest environmental improvement in the next possible investment step. Compared with traditional management, this alternating decision‐making strategy will achieve greater environmental improvements for a given total budget.

"Mistress of Infantine Language": Lady Ellenor Fenn, Her Set of Toys, and the "Education of Each Moment

"Mistress of Infantine Language":Lady Ellenor Fenn, Her Set of Toys, and the "Education of Each Moment Andrea Immel (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Fenn's rational dame in her schoolroom. From Fenn, A Spelling Book (London: J. Harris, 1805). Cotsen Children's Collection, Princeton University Library. Lady Ellenor Fenn (1743-1813), better known during her lifetime under the pseudonyms Mrs. Lovechild and Mrs. Teachwell, is usually characterized in critical histories and reference books on children's literature as a prolific but well-intentioned hack who had little influence on later writers. Some critics allow that Fenn had a lively style, an observant eye, and an ability to write to the level of her intended audience, but everyone agrees that these strengths do not quite compensate for her lack of imagination, her tendency to moralize, and her apparent willingness to produce works conforming to her publisher Marshall's commercial formulas.1 After reading commentary by modern scholars on Lady Fenn, one comes away with the impression that she has been grudgingly included because she belongs to that group of late eighteenth-century writers for children that Percy Muir dubbed "a monstrous regiment of women" (Muir 82). Yet their contemporaries writing for the two leading eighteenth-century review journals, the Monthly and the Critical, present these women's accomplishments in quite a different light. For example, the respected dissenting divine and educator William Enfield observes in his article on Edgeworth's Parent's Assistant that writers for children are now considered citizens of the republic of letters: "It is not [End Page 215] now deemed an unworthy employment for writers of the most distinguished abilities, to draw up instructive and amusing books even for children. . . . At present, writers of the first order do not feel themselves degraded by employing their talents in this way; and the public is well inclined to bestow due praise on such useful exertions" (MR 21, ser. 2 [Sept. 1796]: 89). Another reviewer says in a notice of Mrs. Trimmer's Footsteps (1786) that the growing body of elementary works for children constitutes "one of the most important, though not the most brilliant, among the literary improvements of the present age. . . . This province, humble as it may seem, requires more than ordinary talents" (CR 62 [1786]: 152). Contemporary reviewers praised Lady Fenn as one of those authors like Anna Letitia Barbauld, Sarah Trimmer, and Maria Edgeworth who had the special gifts needed to write for very young readers.2 In a thoughtful review of Fenn's Parsing Lessons for the Monthly, Jabez Hirons writes that she "designs well; her method is amusing; and she has already, we are told, had the satisfaction of finding that her labours have been acceptable" (MR 28, ser. 2 [1799]: 334). The reputations of all four women were in eclipse by the end of the nineteenth century, but Fenn is the only major member of the "monstrous regiment" whose work critics have yet to reexamine. The most obvious explanation is that the majority of her works were out of print by the mid-nineteenth century.3 Another more pertinent reason may be that much of her oeuvre falls outside the purview of children's literature scholarship: Fenn's most successful books were not fiction but readers, grammars, and introductions to natural history for small children. Ironically, modern critics have not judged her by the titles contemporaries valued most highly, but rather by the handful of imaginative works written early in her career—genres to which she never returned.4 On the other hand, it may be that Fenn's achievements as a writer for children have been misunderstood rather than underestimated. Her long career coincides with the late eighteenth-century boom in the production of children's books and toys, but scholars have never noticed that by the 1790s she had become quite as interested in designing educational toys as in writing books.5 Unfortunately, fewer of the era's toys have survived than its books; as a result, it has been difficult to reappraise Fenn's career because almost all of her various "schemes for teaching" are known only from publishers' advertisements [End Page 216] or...

New Economic Order in Indochina

T he states of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, collectively referred to here as Indochina, have implemented highly significant economic reforms over the last decade. Unfortunately, the origins, scope, sequence, and effects of these changes, though far-reaching, have received limited recognition-and even less support-from the nonsocialist world. The dramatic changes taking place in China, Eastern Europe, and the former Soviet Union captured the attention of the world. Far less notice was paid to the economic reforms in progress in Vietnam let alone the parallel reforms instituted in Cambodia and especially in Laos. Focused until recently on the controversial issue of when to lift the economic embargo on Vietnam, American observers in particular have largely underestimated, and even ignored, the depth and breadth of change taking place throughout Indochina. Almost two decades after the end of the Vietnam War, American policy remains deeply rooted in the past, most often characterized by indecision and lack of imagination. The real irony of the American-led embargo, especially in its later stages, was that its major impact was to slow implementation of the very reforms for which the Vietnamese in particular were then criticized for not putting into place. On the other hand, the embargo did enable the Vietnamese to achieve an admirable independence from U.S. aid and investment.

It Has Been Said

IT HAS BEEN SAID and collected by WILLIAM H. BRUNIE* "What is an epigram? a dwarfish whole, its body brevity, and wit its soul."—Coleridge "Proverb gives no reason because none is necessary; it is the summation of the wisdom of the past. Aphorism gives no reason because none is possible; it is the formulation of the wisdom of the future."—John Dominic Crossan "The aphorism's ineludible isolation renders any failure glaringly evident ."—John Dominic Crossan "An aphorism (this one of course excepted) can contain only as much wisdom as overstatement will permit."—Clifton Fadiman "Aphorism is exaggeration, extravagant language, the road of excess which leads to the palace of wisdom."—Norman O. Brown "An aphorism defies all coherence wider than itself . . . To one side of it loom empty puns, to the other fragmentary reflections ... It gives one insight while suggesting many."—Joseph Peter Stern "An aphorism need not be true but it should surpass the truth. It must go beyond it with one leap."—Karl Kraus "One who can write aphorisms should not waste his time writing essays ."—Karl Kraus "An aphorism is a link from a chain of thoughts; it demands that the reader re-establish this chain from his own resources."—Nietzsche»Address: 1530 East Chevy Chase Drive, Suite 208, Glendale, California 91206. Material appearing under this title is collected with the aim of making the serious a bit less serious, the ponderous a bit less heavy, and the reading hours a bit more fun. Toward this goal we invite a guest editor of this feature for each issue. Will readers volunteer to share their sense of humor by collecting or recollecting items that have brought smiles to their faces? We invite your participation. Originals are also welcomed. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 37, 2 ¦ Winter 1994 | 259 "? have done that,' says my memory. ? cannot have done that,' says my pride, and remains adamant. At last—memory yields."—Nietzsche "Sometimes we have to change the truth in order to remember it."— Santayana "The best memories are those we have forgotten."—Albert Camus "Memory is always deceptive."—Wilfred R. Bion "A poem is never finished; it's always an accident that puts a stop to it—i.e., gives it to the public."—Paul Valéry "To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written."—Rousseau "I had to grow old in order to learn what I wanted to know, and I should need to be young to say well what I know."—Joseph Joubert I collected by RICHARD D. KENNEY* "Knowledge makes one arrogant; Education makes one humble."—H. G. Creutzfeldt "Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument ."—Samuel Johnson ". . . with the doing, all is transformed, and yet, but the moment before, all is possibility, subject to revision, whim, reflection, timorousness. A moment later, ... a boundary is crossed from which there is no return."—Thomas Flanagan "The distance between possibility and actuality is infinity."—R. D. Kenney "... the parent . . . expresses for the child in imperatives the prayers he makes for himself."—E. L. Doctorow "If I could get to the highest place in Athens, I would lift my voice and say: 'What mean ye, fellow citizens, that ye turn every stone to scrape wealth together , and take so little care for your children, to whom ye must one day relinquish all.'"—Socrates»Carolinas Medical Center, PO Box 32861, Charlotte, North Carolina 28232-2861. 260 It Has Been Said "The creative child is regarded as rebellious, wild, naughty, silly, undependable , lacking in seriousness or even promise."—Winston S. Churchill "Teenagers are the current scapegoats for adult apathy, indifference, lack of responsibility, and lack of imagination."—Margaret Mead "Each child represents either a potential addition to the productive capacity and enlightened citizenship of the nation or, if allowed to suffer from neglect, a potential addition to the destructive forces of a community."—Theodore Roosevelt "Idleness is the mother of lechery."—William Osler "Complete idleness is the root of all energy."—Robert S. Bridges "This was decreed by superior powers In a moment of wisdom sidereal That those...

Advanced Reproductive Technologies in South American Camelids

The authors chose to discuss only a small portion of the potential advanced reproductive technologic procedures that hold promise in fertility management of llamas. The future of this area is very bright; one's lack of imagination, simple prejudice, or careless planning are the only factors that will limit progress. As these techniques are accepted, they should be used carefully and judiciously to maximize reproductive potential, and not simply to maximize profits by unscrupulous individuals.