Suchergebnisse

Our french revolution -- The new alienation -- A society of Hobos -- The tin man -- A fetish for commodities -- When Christianity becomes ideology -- Marx for America -- Bibliography -- About the author -- Index

The medical profession now estimates that 116 million Americans suffer from chronic pain and merit some kind of treatment -- more than a third of the entire population. This number doesn't even include sufferers of acute pain, or children. Already eight million Americans use drugs to manage this pain, representing a tenfold increase in the last fifteen years. Pain that a generation ago would have been overlooked as a natural part of everyday life now has the attention of physicians, leading to an enormous increase in both narcotic and nonnarcotic prescriptions, with narcotics now representing the most widely prescribed class of medications in the U.S. Indeed, $600 billion is spent annually on the chronic pain problem. Adapted from the source document.

Once unheard of, the goal of early retirement is now ubiquitous across the income range. Indeed, the public employees pension system makes news not just because it risks insolvency, but because people working in the private sector are shocked to discover that public employees have a better chance at early retirement than they do. The numbers confirm the trend. From 1960 to 1990, the percentage of 62-year-old men in the U.S. labor force dropped from 75 to 55; among 58-year-old men from 83 to 72; and among 55-year-old men from 86 to 80. A similar trend has occurred among women. More telling is the change in people's goals. In 1941, three percent of American men preferred leisure to work; by 1982, that number had shot up to 48 percent. Europeans show a similar trend. True, the American experience may be reversing now because of the economic downturn. People will have to work longer. But this fact makes news precisely because it goes against people's expectations. Indeed, a story is unfolding in the West about the future of capitalism, one with two main characters, Karl Marx and medical science. Marx believed capitalism's days were numbered. He might have been right, had medical science not been there to rescue it. Adapted from the source document.

It is argued that the close relationship between religion & medicine will undermine religion. Drugs are being used to promote mental well-being & alternative medicine uses elements of medicine and religion. In a new phenomenon, doctors are suggesting that religion or spirituality is beneficial to people's physical health. Some people in organized religion are embracing this new alliance between religion & medicine. It is argued that when religion is connected to science, religion is less able to meet people's need to understand life's mysteries. In addition, people who become religious in order to promote their health do not fully internalize their religion or experience its full meaning. It is argued that science will undermine religion by looking at religion in a rational way, & by treating the existence of God as conjecture. Medical science will turn religion into an "altered perception," or a kind of trance or sensation. Science can also undermine religion by allowing people to look at their delusions, such as a belief in angels, as natural. Medicine also eliminates the communal elements of religion. An alliance between medicine & religion will eliminate religion's role as a guardian of bioethics. It is argued that an alliance with medicine will weaken religion's view of all life as innately valuable. H. Ramer

Verlagsinfo: In the fall of 1998, one year after the death of Isaiah Berlin, the New York Institute for the Humanities organized a conference to consider his intellectual legacy. The scholars who participated devoted much of their attention to the question of pluralism, which for Berlin was central to liberal values. His belief in pluralism was at the core of his philosophical writings as well as his studies of contemporary politics and the history of ideas. The papers given at the conference and collected in this volume concentrate on three aspects of Berlin's concept of pluralism. Aileen Kelly, Mark Lilla, and Steven Lukes trace the development and consequences of his distinction between "hedgehogs," thinkers who have a single, unified theory of human action and history, and "foxes," who believe in multiplicity and resist the impulse to subject humanity to a universal vision. Ronald Dworkin, Bernard Williams, Thomas Nagel, and Charles Taylor examine how liberalism can be sustained in the face of Berlin's insight that equally legitimate values, such as liberty and equality, may come into irreconcilable conflict. Avishai Margalit, Richard Wollheim, Michael Walzer, and Robert Silvers take up Berlin's advocacy for the State of Israel and his hopes for it as a place where the often contrary values of liberalism and nationalism might find harmonious resolution. The Legacy of Isaiah Berlin includes not only the panelists' contributions but also transcripts of the lively exchanges among themselves and with audience members following each session. The two days of discussion preserved here demonstrate the continuing vitality and relevance of Isaiah Berlin's thought in today's social and political debates.