THE ORDEAL and spectacular death of King Kong, the giant ape, undoubtedly have been witnessed by more Americans than have ever seen a performance of Hamlet, Iphigenia at Aulis, or even Tobacco Road. Since RKO-Radio Pictures first released King Kong, …
THE RISE OF THE MERITOCRACY, by Michael Young. Random House, New York Neither socialists nor sociologists have done full justice to the ambiguities of the idea of human equality. “Socialists,” writes Michael Young, “did not see that, as it was …
We have survived yet another crisis in France. I use the passive form feelingly. It shows how far we have come since May 13, 1958 [the date of the Gaullist coup] and indeed since long before then. To some of …
One of the most significant political events of the 1950s was the movement of the African states, and in particular the Negro peoples of sub-Sahara Africa, toward independence. As the previous decade belonged to the liberation movements of Asia, so …
Successful co-existence of capitalist countries with the Soviet bloc depends on the realization in the former that the non-totalitarian ecnonomic system has been put on the defensive. The rising standard of comfort and ease in rich capitalist countries and the …
When the Roman Empire had grown old and tired it began to rely, for the defense of its ramparts, less and less on the prowess of its citizens; instead, it paid subsidia to its minor allies, and even tributum to …
According to UN statistics, the nations of the world are spending about $90 billion annually in preparation for the kind of thermonuclear war which would destroy civilization and perhaps mankind— this in a world where 70 per cent of its …
Young people today have no spokesmen. The day of the youth league and its ideology seems to be over. Today we have the club again, and the gang, and perhaps the family. It might even be wrong to say that …
it is believed in New York that Puerto-Rican immigration is one of the main causes of the city’s rapidly increasing juvenile delinquency. In London, a similar social phenomenon has been attributed, at various times and in various neighborhoods, to the …
Many students today are more interested in examples to follow than ideas to promote. They look for styles of life that will allow them the substance or illusion of personality. They search for external marks that may validate a hoped-for …
Whatever its deficiencies, the younger generation has not suffered from a lack of labels. The era has been called shook-up and apathetic; white-collared and black-leather-jacketed; organized and uncommitted. But in all this generation-labeling perhaps the largest and most important segment …
If there is to be an American political left in the 1960s and 70s it will be led, for the most part, by radical students of today and tomorrow, rather than by those who received their political training in the …
In the last decade or so the American university has been put to unprecedented use by industry, the mass media and research teams, as well as by intellectuals who find it a handy home base. One result has been a …
Growing up as a human being, a “human nature” assimilates a culture, just as other animals grow up in strength and habits in their appropriated environments, that complete their natures. Present-day sociologists and anthropologists don’t talk much about this process, …
Durham, North Carolina is probably a town like many others; I doubt that ordinarily I would have found it unfamiliar. I saw it, however, only at night and carried away only two memories. The…