Reasonable Accommodation Quotes

God is the highest good of the reasonable creature. The enjoyment of him is our proper; and is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven, fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Better than fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, or children, or the company of any, or all earthly friends. These are but shadows; but the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams; but God is the sun. These are but streams; but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

It is time we admitted, from kings and presidents on down, that there is no evidence that any of our books was authored by the Creator of the universe. The Bible, it seems certain, was the work of sand-strewn men and women who thought the earth was flat and for whom a wheelbarrow would have been a breathtaking example of emerging technology. To rely on such a document as the basis for our worldview-however heroic the efforts of redactors- is to repudiate two thousand years of civilizing insights that the human mind has only just begun to inscribe upon itself through secular politics and scientific culture. We will see that the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.

The people naturally adhere most to doctrines which demand the least self-exertion and the least use of their own reason, and which can best accommodate their duties to their inclinations.

The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

But, the true reason for the success of such new expositions [translated Eastern religious texts] is to be found where they are the most accommodating, least rigid, least severe, most vague, and ready to come to easy terms with the prejudices and weaknesses of the modern world. Let everyone have the courage to look deeply into himself and to see what it is that he really wants.

As Heinz Pagels has said, The challenge to our civilization which has come from our knowledge of the cosmic energies that fuels the stars, the movement of light and electrons through matter, the intricate molecular order which is the biological basis of life, must be met by the creation of a moral and political order which will accommodate these forces or we shall be destroyed. It will try our deepest resources of reason and compassion.

You can't accommodate a hundred different opinions, and you can't ignore them. All you can do is provide people with the illusion that they participated in the decision. For some reason, that's enough to make people happy." This is the basis for all democracies.

You learned that it was easy frighteningly easy to get lost in someone else's life accommodating him and stop being yourself. You learned to be wary about falling in love. And you learned that someone who loved you could stop loving you for some dark reason and even though that was bruising you were more resilient than you knew. Eventually you would get over it more or less.

It's easy to look back and say if things had been perfect, I could have accommodated all of those things into my life. But as a therapist I do not allow that word to be uttered in my office after the first session, because I believe the only reason for the existence of that word is to make us feel bad. It's the only word in the language (that I know of) that is defined in common usage by what can't be. It sets a vague standard that can't be met because it is never truly characterized. I prefer to think that we're all out here doing our best under the circumstances, looking at our world through the only eyes through which we can look at it: our own.

It is no use thinking that writing of poems – the actual writing – can accommodate itself to a social setting, even the most sympathetic social setting of a workshop composed of friends. It cannot. The work improves there and often the will to work gets valuable nourishment and ideas. But, for good reasons, the poem requires of the writer not society or instruction, but a patch of profound and unbroken solitude.

America has given us a pretty decent modern world and doesn’t always get enough thanks for that. But for reasons that genuinely escape me, it has also become spectacularly accommodating to stupidity. Where

We are supernaturalists first, not naturalists. The only reason we feel compelled to accommodate science is that science says we ought to. But it is science that should accommodate revelation. Revelation has been around much longer.

Resisting, identifying with, and suppressing emotions is the number one reason why we become so sick and overwhelmed as empaths. But the more embracing and accommodating you are towards the emotions you feel, without identifying with them, the more quickly they leave.

Reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye in time is accommodated to darkness.

The Christian theory is little else than the idolatry of the ancient mythologists, accommodated to the purposes of power and revenue; and it yet remains to reason and philosophy to abolish the amphibious fraud.

But maybe this is what Hannah has always wanted: a man who will deny her. A man of her own who isn't hers. Isn't it the real reason she broke up with Mike--not because he moved to North Carolina for law school (he wanted her to go with him, and she said no) but because he adored her? If she asked him to get out of bed and bring her a glass of water, he did. If she was in a bad mood, he tried to soothe her. It didn't bother him if she cried, or if she didn't wash her hair or shave her legs or have anything interesting to say. He forgave it all, he always thought she was beautiful, he always wanted to be around her. It became so boring! She'd been raised, after all, not to be accommodated but to accommodate, and if she was his world, then his world was small, he was easily satisfied. After a while, when he parted her lips with his tongue, she'd think, Thrash, thrash, here we go. She wanted to feel like she was striving cleanly forward, walking into a bracing wind and learning from her mistakes, and she felt instead like she was sitting in a deep, squishy sofa, eating Cheetos, in an overheated room. With Oliver, there is always contrast to shape their days, tension to keep them on their toes: You are far form me, you are close to me. We are fighting, we are getting along.

An imaginary circle of empathy is drawn by each person. It circumscribes the person at some distance, and corresponds to those things in the world that deserve empathy. I like the term "empathy" because it has spiritual overtones. A term like "sympathy" or "allegiance" might be more precise, but I want the chosen term to be slightly mystical, to suggest that we might not be able to fully understand what goes on between us and others, that we should leave open the possibility that the relationship can't be represented in a digital database. If someone falls within your circle of empathy, you wouldn't want to see him or her killed. Something that is clearly outside the circle is fair game. For instance, most people would place all other people within the circle, but most of us are willing to see bacteria killed when we brush our teeth, and certainly don't worry when we see an inanimate rock tossed aside to keep a trail clear. The tricky part is that some entities reside close to the edge of the circle. The deepest controversies often involve whether something or someone should lie just inside or just outside the circle. For instance, the idea of slavery depends on the placement of the slave outside the circle, to make some people nonhuman. Widening the circle to include all people and end slavery has been one of the epic strands of the human story - and it isn't quite over yet. A great many other controversies fit well in the model. The fight over abortion asks whether a fetus or embryo should be in the circle or not, and the animal rights debate asks the same about animals. When you change the contents of your circle, you change your conception of yourself. The center of the circle shifts as its perimeter is changed. The liberal impulse is to expand the circle, while conservatives tend to want to restrain or even contract the circle. Empathy Inflation and Metaphysical Ambiguity Are there any legitimate reasons not to expand the circle as much as possible? There are. To expand the circle indefinitely can lead to oppression, because the rights of potential entities (as perceived by only some people) can conflict with the rights of indisputably real people. An obvious example of this is found in the abortion debate. If outlawing abortions did not involve commandeering control of the bodies of other people (pregnant women, in this case), then there wouldn't be much controversy. We would find an easy accommodation. Empathy inflation can also lead to the lesser, but still substantial, evils of incompetence, trivialization, dishonesty, and narcissism. You cannot live, for example, without killing bacteria. Wouldn't you be projecting your own fantasies on single-cell organisms that would be indifferent to them at best? Doesn't it really become about you instead of the cause at that point?

It may be considered as an honour to the animal faculties of man to obtain redress by courage and danger, but it is far greater honour to the rational faculties to accomplish the same object by reason, accommodation, and general consent.

No matter our personal dedication to goodness and justice, we are all, in greater or lesser measure, complicit in the injustices of the society which we tolerate. Even if we tolerate it for the best of reasons, it is a constant struggle not to be consumed by the self-contempt that such accommodation threatens to breed in any person of conscience.

One reason for unanswered prayers is insufficient capacity to accommodate and handle what we are praying for and desiring in our hearts.

The biologist J.B.S. Haldane once said that there are two reasons why humans do not turn into angels: moral imperfection and a body plan that cannot accommodate both arms and wings.

the greatest problem confronting civilization is not merely religious extremism: rather, it is the larger set of cultural and intellectual accommodations we have made to faith itself.

Every sane person has to find every day some manner of accommodating the impossible, some way of covering up for the failures of the rational world. This might actually be a reasonable definition of sanity.

How thoroughly the chimps and bonobos have erased the list of purported human distinctions!-self-awareness, language, ideas and their association, reason, trade, play, choice, courage, love and altruism, laughter, concealed ovulation, kissing, face-to-face sex, female orgasm, division of labor, cannibalism, art, music, politics, and featherless bipedalism, besides tool using, tool making, and much else. Philosophers and scientists confidently offer up traits said to be uniquely human, and the apes casually knock them down--toppling the pretension that humans constitute some sort of biological aristocracy among the beings of Earth. Instead, we are more like the nouveau riche, incompletely accommodated to our recent exalted state, insecure about who we are, and trying to put as much distance as possible between us and our humble origins. It's as if our nearest relatives, by their very existence, refute all our explanations and justifications. So as counterweights to human arrogance and pride, it is good for us that there are still apes on Earth.

I am one of those persons who, when sexually immersed, require serious silence, the hush of impeccable concentration. Perhaps it is due to my pubescent training as a Hershey Bar whore, and because I have consistently willed myself to accommodate unscintillating partners - whatever the reason, for me to reach an edge and fall over, all the mechanics must be assisted by the deepest fantasizing, an intoxicating mental cinema that does not welcome lovemaking chatter. The truth is, I am rarely with the person I am with, so to say; and dependence upon an inner scenery, imagined and remembered erotic fragments, shadows irrelevant to the body above or beneath us - those images our minds accept inside sexual seizure but exclude once the beast has been routed, for, regardless of how tolerant we are, these cameos are intolerable to the meanspirited watchmen within us.

For centuries, no one was concerned that books weren’t girl-friendly, because no one really cared if girls read; but even so, we persisted for long enough that literature has slowly come to accommodate us. Modern boys, by contrast, are not trying to read in a culture of opposition. Nobody is telling them reading doesn’t matter, that boys don’t need to read and that actually, no prospective wife looks for literacy in a husband. Quite the opposite! Male literary culture thrives, both teachers and parents are throwing books at their sons, and the fact that the books aren’t sticking isn’t, as the nature of the complaint makes clear, because boys don’t like reading – no. The accusation is that boys don’t like reading about girls, which is a totally different matter. Because constantly, consistently, our supposedly equal society penalises boys who express an interest in anything feminine. The only time boys are discouraged from books all together is in contexts where, for whatever reason, they’ve been given the message that reading itself is girly – which is a wider extrapolation of the same problem.

The choice-obsessed modern West is probably more accommodating to individuals who choose to eat differently than any other culture has ever been, but ironically, the utterly unselective omnivore - “I’m easy; I’ll eat anything” - can appear more socially sensitive than the individual who tries to eat in a way that is good for society. Food choices are determined by many factors, but reason (even consciousness) is not generally high on the list.

Jesus' willingness to accommodate Thomas' unbelief is a reminder that God can handle our doubt. And that the rationalist doesn't need to see, touch, or run a lab test in order to believe in the resurrected Christ. Jesus told him, “You believe because you have seen me. Blessed are those who believe without seeing me” (Jn 20:29) This is not a plea to accept what goes against reason, but it is an invitation to discover a faith that goes beyond it. The example of Thomas is for the stubborn skeptic in us all.

There they are, down there every night at eight bells, praying for fair winds—when they know as well as I do that this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming west—what's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them—the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one—and she a steamship at that! It ain't good sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common human charity. Avast with such nonsense!

That in time good and evil should become accommodated to each other is perhaps only human nature. Take things far enough and evil becomes good. Against the backdrop of such a reality, human character was no doubt likely to come up short as the wheels of reason spun off their bearings.

One response was given by the innkeeper when Mary and Joseph wanted to find a room where the Child could be born. The innkeeper was not hostile; he was not opposed to them, but his inn was crowded; his hands were full; his mind was preoccupied. This§ is the answer that millions are giving today. Like a Bethlehem innkeeper, they cannot find room for Christ. All the accommodations in their hearts are already taken up by other crowding interests. Their response is not atheism. It is not defiance. It is preoccupation and the feeling of being able to get on reasonably well without Christianity.

I’m just myself, writing my own things in my own world. If originality doesn’t sell, so be it. Changing my style or my view on things to accommodate wishes, to be more mainstream and sell more books is not the reason I write. I write because I love it, because the story comes from my heart and soul.

Our lives are brief, and so it is the quality of our experiences, rather than the extent of our possessions, that matters. The more things we own, the more we are exposed to misfortune: a fashionable home will soon be outdated, our prestige in the eyes of others will fluctuate for trivial reasons and the monuments we hope to be remembered by will be misinterpreted or torn down. The hut is an impermanent accommodation – it might be blown down in a storm or washed away in a flood, officials might arrive at our door and force us to leave – but by living here our needs become so simple that chance has less to work on.

Each of us wages a private battle to thrive. Whenever a person fully immerses oneself in life’s aromatic flower garden of pleasures and encounters life’s warship of armor-plated rigors, they blend and bend to make reasonable accommodations for surviving. Scripted and unscripted encounters with superior militant forces bruise us mightily and eventually cut us to the core. Every person’s life contains a minefield of obstacles that function as potential barriers to achieving our ultimate manifestation. The expended labor of continuously hefting oneself over one contentious hurdle after another is what leads a conscientious person onto the path of needing to write in order to create emotional poultices to ameliorate painful wounds.

The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence, will respect the established powers and privileges even of individuals, and still more those of the great orders and societies, into which the state is divided. Though he should consider some of them as in some measure abusive, he will content himself with moderating what he often cannot annihilate without great violence. When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe what, by Cicero, is justly called the divine maxim of Plato, never to use violence to his country no more than to his parents. He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy, as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will try to establish the best that the people can bear.

this is the only ship going east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming west—what's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them—the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thousand vessels, and this tribe wants him to turn it clear around so as to accommodate one—and she a steamship at that! It ain't good sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Christianity, it ain't common human charity.

But for reasons that genuinely escape me, it has also become spectacularly accommodating to stupidity. Where this thought most recently occurred to me was in a hotel coffee shop in Baltimore, where I was reading the local paper, the Sun, and I saw a news item noting that Congress had passed a law prohibiting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services from funding research that might lead, directly or indirectly, to the introduction of gun controls. Let me repeat that but in slightly different words. The government of the United States refuses to let academics use federal money to study gun violence if there is a chance that they might find a way of reducing the violence. It isn’t possible to be more stupid than that. If you took all the commentators from FOX News and put them together in a room and told them to come up with an idea even more pointlessly idiotic, they couldn’t do it. Britain isn’t like that, and thank goodness. On tricky and emotive issues like gun control, abortion, capital punishment, the teaching of evolution in schools, the use of stem cells for research, and how much flag waving you have to do in order to be considered acceptably patriotic, Britain is calm and measured and quite grown up, and for me that counts for a great deal. —

I hail and caress truth in what quarter soever I find it, and cheerfully surrender myself, and open my conquered arms as far off as I can discover it; and, provided it be not too imperiously, take a pleasure in being reproved, and accommodate myself to my accusers, very often more by reason of civility than amendment, loving to gratify and nourish the liberty of admonition by my facility of submitting to it, and this even at my own expense.

​ "This place is fun, Downtown is fun!" I said, looking at the blurred lights of the lamps on the street. "No wonder you left me for this… I wouldn't be surprised if a ghost came out." I closed my fist, trying to catch the lights. "Now I get it, Dan! You're a ghost!" ​ "Am I?" he talked to me in an accommodating way, like anyone would do with a friend too drunk to think clearly. ​ "Yes! There's even two of you now." ​ "Of course, that would be the only possible reason." We reached the parking lot. ​ "Say Dan, have you come back to help me with Shallie? But if you're a ghost, can you just call her for me?" I grabbed his arm. "Can you? Can you bring her to me?" Suddenly all the fake happiness I was feeling before left me in a deep, black desperation. Dan's expression changed too, and got darker. ​ "I'm not a ghost, Drew," he said, calmly, securing the helmet under my chin. "I'm sorry," he added.

For though I was then kneeling beside her bed, heretic and outcast, the heart of me was religious in its very fervour of repudiation of a religion, and in its rebellious uprising against dogmas that crushed the reason and did not satisfy the soul. I went out into the darkness alone, not because religion was too good for me, but because it was not good enough; it was too meagre, too commonplace, too little exacting, too bound up with earthly interests, too calculating in its accommodations to social conventionalities.

God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

Every king had tried to put his imprint on the city and the mosque; some were worse than others. King Faisal had been a parsimonious man and the expansion works reflected as much—measured and reasonable, nothing too ostentatious. The current ruler, King Fahd, was a spender who disliked all that was old. He loved glitz and gold. More ancient neighborhoods were being torn down, and Mecca’s classical Islamic architecture was vanishing rapidly. Ugly modern buildings were rising, and more chain hotels were being built to accommodate yet more pilgrims.

The executive officer said the pilgrims had no charity: " There they are, down there every night at eight bells, praying for fair winds - when they know as well as I do that this is the only ship goşng east this time of the year, but there's a thousand coming west - what's a fair wind for us is a head wind to them - the Almighty's blowing a fair wind for a thousand of vessels, and this tribe wants him turn it clear around so as to accommodate one and she a steamship at that! It ain't good sense, it ain't good reason, it ain't good Chirtianity, it ain't common human charity. Avast with such nonsense!

Social traditions, Burke pointed out, are forms of knowledge. They contain the residues of many trials and errors, and the inherited solutions to problems that we all encounter. Like those cognitive abilities that pre-date civilisation they are *adaptations*, but adaptations of the community rather than of the individual organism. Social traditions exist because they enable a society to reproduce itself. Destroy them heedlessly and you remove the guarantee offered by one generation to the next. .... [F]or Burke, traditions and customs distil information about the indefinitely many strangers living *then*, information that we need if we are to accommodate our conduct to the needs of absent generations. Moreover, in discussing tradition, we are not discussing arbitrary rules and conventions. We are discussing *answers* that have been discovered to enduring *questions*. These answers are tacit, shared, embodied in social practices and inarticulate expectations. Those who adopt them are not necessarily able to explain them, far less justify them. Hence Burke described them as 'prejudices', and defended them on the grounds that, though the stock of reason in each individual is small, there is an accumulation of reason in society that we question and reject at our peril.

Roosevelt fought hard for the United States to host the opening session [of the United Nations]; it seemed a magnanimous gesture to most of the delegates. But the real reason was to better enable the United States to eavesdrop on its guests. Coded messages between the foreign delegations and their distant capitals passed through U.S. telegraph lines in San Francisco. With wartime censorship laws still in effect, Western Union and the other commercial telegraph companies were required to pass on both coded and uncoded telegrams to U.S. Army codebreakers. Once the signals were captured, a specially designed time-delay device activated to allow recorders to be switched on. Devices were also developed to divert a single signal to several receivers. The intercepts were then forwarded to Arlington Hall, headquarters of the Army codebreakers, over forty-six special secure teletype lines. By the summer of 1945 the average number of daily messages had grown to 289,802, from only 46,865 in February 1943. The same soldiers who only a few weeks earlier had been deciphering German battle plans were now unraveling the codes and ciphers wound tightly around Argentine negotiating points. During the San Francisco Conference, for example, American codebreakers were reading messages sent to and from the French delegation, which was using the Hagelin M-209, a complex six-wheel cipher machine broken by the Army Security Agency during the war. The decrypts revealed how desperate France had become to maintain its image as a major world power after the war. On April 29, for example, Fouques Duparc, the secretary general of the French delegation, complained in an encrypted note to General Charles de Gaulle in Paris that France was not chosen to be one of the "inviting powers" to the conference. "Our inclusion among the sponsoring powers," he wrote, "would have signified, in the eyes of all, our return to our traditional place in the world." In charge of the San Francisco eavesdropping and codebreaking operation was Lieutenant Colonel Frank B. Rowlett, the protégé of William F. Friedman. Rowlett was relieved when the conference finally ended, and he considered it a great success. "Pressure of work due to the San Francisco Conference has at last abated," he wrote, "and the 24-hour day has been shortened. The feeling in the Branch is that the success of the Conference may owe a great deal to its contribution." The San Francisco Conference served as an important demonstration of the usefulness of peacetime signals intelligence. Impressive was not just the volume of messages intercepted but also the wide range of countries whose secrets could be read. Messages from Colombia provided details on quiet disagreements between Russia and its satellite nations as well as on "Russia's prejudice toward the Latin American countries." Spanish decrypts indicated that their diplomats in San Francisco were warned to oppose a number of Russian moves: "Red maneuver . . . must be stopped at once," said one. A Czechoslovakian message indicated that nation's opposition to the admission of Argentina to the UN. From the very moment of its birth, the United Nations was a microcosm of East-West spying. Just as with the founding conference, the United States pushed hard to locate the organization on American soil, largely to accommodate the eavesdroppers and codebreakers of NSA and its predecessors.

I had to ask Scottie what TYVM meant, because now that I’ve narrowed into her activities, I notice she is constantly text-messaging her friends, or at least I hope it’s her friends and not some perv in a bathrobe. “Thank you very much,” Scottie said, and for some reason, the fact that I didn’t get this made me feel completely besieged. It’s crazy how much fathers are supposed to know these days. I come from the school of thought where a dad’s absence is something to be counted on. Now I see all the men with camouflage diaper bags and babies hanging from their chests like little ship figureheads. When I was a young dad, I remember the girls sort of bothered me as babies, the way everyone raced around to accommodate them. The sight of Alex in her stroller would irritate me at times—she’d hang one of her toddler legs over the rim of the safety bar and slouch down in the seat. Joanie would bring her something and she’d shake her head, then Joanie would try again and again until an offering happened to work and Alex would snatch it from her hands. I’d look at Alex, finally complacent with her snack, convinced there was a grown person in there, fooling us all. Scottie would just point to things and grunt or scream. It felt like I was living with royalty. I told Joanie I’d wait until they were older to really get into them, and they grew and grew behind my back.

Dialogue with Catholics and other nonevangelical Christians offered some correction to the Church Growth movement's fixation on cultural accommodation and baptism rates. However - save for those few who converted - evangelicals attracted to other Christian traditions have made those traditions their own. They assemble do-it-yourself liturgies from a hodgepodge of monastic prayers and mystics' visions. They lionize medieval dissenters - Celtic monks, or renegade Franciscans - but don't understand their broader Catholic context. Without quite realizing what they have done, evangelicals often use these ancient teachings and practices to confirm, rather than challenge, their own assumptions. History becomes a sidekick to one's twenty-first-century journey with Jesus.

Most people-all, in fact, who regard the whole heaven as finite-say it lies at the centre. But the Italian philosophers known as Pythagoreans take the contrary view. At the centre, they say, is fire, and the earth is one of the stars, creating night and day by its circular motion about the centre. They further construct another earth in opposition to ours to which they give the name counterearth. In all this they are not seeking for theories and causes to account for observed facts, but rather forcing their observations and trying to accommodate them to certain theories and opinions of their own. But there are many others who would agree that it is wrong to give the earth the central position, looking for confirmation rather to theory than to the facts of observation. Their view is that the most precious place befits the most precious thing: but fire, they say, is more precious than earth, and the limit than the intermediate, and the circumference and the centre are limits. Reasoning on this basis they take the view that it is not earth that lies at the centre of the sphere, but rather fire. The Pythagoreans have a further reason. They hold that the most important part of the world, which is the centre, should be most strictly guarded, and name it, or rather the fire which occupies that place, the 'Guardhouse of Zeus', as if the word 'centre' were quite unequivocal, and the centre of the mathematical figure were always the same with that of the thing or the natural centre. But it is better to conceive of the case of the whole heaven as analogous to that of animals, in which the centre of the animal and that of the body are different. For this reason they have no need to be so disturbed about the world, or to call in a guard for its centre: rather let them look for the centre in the other sense and tell us what it is like and where nature has set it. That centre will be something primary and precious; but to the mere position we should give the last place rather than the first. For the middle is what is defined, and what defines it is the limit, and that which contains or limits is more precious than that which is limited, see ing that the latter is the matter and the former the essence of the system. (2-13-1) There are similar disputes about the shape of the earth. Some think it is spherical, others that it is flat and drum-shaped. For evidence they bring the fact that, as the sun rises and sets, the part concealed by the earth shows a straight and not a curved edge, whereas if the earth were spherical the line of section would have to be circular. In this they leave out of account the great distance of the sun from the earth and the great size of the circumference, which, seen from a distance on these apparently small circles appears straight. Such an appearance ought not to make them doubt the circular shape of the earth. But they have another argument. They say that because it is at rest, the earth must necessarily have this shape. For there are many different ways in which the movement or rest of the earth has been conceived. (2-13-3)

He spoke a kind of ecclesiastical jargon; a debased rhetoric that explained nothing but brought the truth into disrepute. It begged all the questions and answered none. The massive structure of reason and revelation on which the church was founded was reduced to ritual incantation, formless, fruitless and essentially false. Peppermint piety. It deceived no one but the man who peddled it. It satisfied no one but old ladies and girls in green-sickness; yet it flourished most rankly where the Church was most firmly entrenched in the established order. It was the mark of accommodation, compromise, laxity among the clergy, who find it easier to preach devotion than to affront the moral and social problems of the time. It covered fatuity and lack of education. It left people naked and unarmed in the face of terrifying mysteries: pain, passion, death and the great perhaps of the hereafter.

The Right in the United States today is a social and political movement controlled almost totally by men but built largely on the fear and ignorance of women. The quality of this fear and the pervasiveness of this ignorance are consequences of male sexual domination over women. Every accommodation that women make to this domination, however apparently stupid, self-defeating, or dan- gerous, is rooted in the urgent need to survive somehow on male terms. Inevitably this causes women to take the rage and contempt they feel for the men who actually abuse them, those close to them, and project it onto others, those far away, foreign, or different. Some women do this by becoming right-wing patriots, nationalists determined to triumph over populations thousands of miles removed. Some women become ardent racists, anti-Semites, or homophobes. Some women develop a hatred of loose or destitute women, pregnant teenage girls, all persons unemployed or on welfare. Some hate individuals who violate social conventions, no matter how superficial the violations. Some become antagonistic to ethnic groups other than their own or to religious groups other than their own, or they develop a hatred of those political convictions that contradict their own. Women cling to irrational hatreds, focused particularly on the unfamiliar, so that they will not murder their fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, lovers, the men with whom they are intimate, those who do hurt them and cause them grief. Fear of a greater evil and a need to be protected from it intensify the loyalty of women to men who are, even when dangerous, at least known quantities. Because women so displace their rage, they are easily controlled and manipulated haters. Having good reason to hate, but not the courage to rebel, women require symbols of danger that justify their fear. The Right provides these symbols of danger by designating clearly defined groups of outsiders as sources of danger. The identities of the dangerous outsiders can can change over time to meet changing social circumstances--for example, racism can be encouraged or contained; anti-Semitism can be provoked or kept dormant; homophobia can be aggravated or kept under the surface—but the existence of the dangerous outsider always functions for women simultaneously as deception, diversion, painkiller, and threat.

Kevin Arthur liked cutting hair. I reckoned his desire was a good one, considering he was a barber. However, Kevin always wanted to cut more inches off my hair than requested. We argued every time I came into his shop. I told him my hair needed weight, otherwise it stood straight up and out, and my head—which was larger than average already, likely to accommodate my massive brain—resembled a cantaloupe on a toothpick, with cantaloupes being the least esteemed of all fruit. He maintained I needed a short cut, with the sides clipped close, and the top longer and thinned. He said the thickness of my hair was responsible for its propensity to misbehave. He said the cut would bring all the girls to my yard. This was doubtful. First of all, I didn’t want girls in my yard. I didn’t want anyone in my yard. My yard was fine just as it was: self-maintained. Secondly, I’d never been popular with the women folk. Women, or at least the women I knew, didn’t much enjoy my lack of willingness to deal with bullshit. For that matter, most men I knew didn’t enjoy this about me either. Bullshit was the adult version of Santa Claus. For reasons I’ll never comprehend,the general population seemed to enjoy wallowing, spouting, and believing in bullshit. But back to my barber

By the same token, in refusing gifts we seem to excuse ourselves from the obligations that arise naturally with gratitude. The taxicab driver Stewart Millard observes, The first conclusion I reached is that money makes us exquisitely inept at real human relationship. If I have just gotten a new set of tires from my friend Greg at his tire shop (I, indeed, was sitting in his parking lot thinking about this!) and no money was exchanged, then how would I repay Greg? And, a bit more subtle question arose: What if I didn’t accept this offer (gift) of tires from Greg? By accepting the gift of tires without money, then an automatic set of behaviors and consideration arise. What can I offer in return? I could wait for him to ask, or I can do the more arduous task of actually getting to know Greg, and thus allowing a more organic exchange to take place. Money means I can pay, and then pay no more attention to my fellow human across the counter. No getting to know him, no exchange of life to accommodate a natural mingling of flows in dependence and appreciation. A reason we are so intolerant of each other is simply because we have money. If that person is displeasing, we just take our money elsewhere—and the original is just left blowing in the wind. One of the most important gifts you can give is to fully receive the gift of another.

Personally, I’ve never met a person who was evil in the classic Hollywood mode, who throws down happily on the side of evil while cackling, the sworn enemy of all that is good because of some early disillusionment. Most of the evil I’ve seen in the world—most of the nastiness I’ve been on the receiving end of (and, for that matter, the nastiness I, myself, have inflicted on others)—was done by people who intended good, who thought they were doing good, by reasonable people, staying polite, making accommodations, laboring under slight misperceptions, who haven’t had the inclination or taken the time to think things through, who’ve been sheltered from or were blind to the negative consequences of the belief system of which they were part, bowing to expedience and/or “commonsense” notions that have come to them via their culture and that they have failed to interrogate. In other words, they’re like the people in Gogol. (I’m leaving aside here the big offenders, the monstrous egos, the grandiose-idea-possessors, those cut off from reality by too much wealth, fame, or success, the hyperarrogant, the power-hungry-from-birth, the socio- and/or psychopathic.) But on the mundane side of things, if we want to understand evil (nastiness, oppression, neglect) we should recognize that the people who commit these sins don’t always cackle while committing them; often they smile, because they’re feeling so useful and virtuous.

IT is worth remembering that the rise of what we call literary fiction happened at a time when the revealed, authenticated account of the beginning was losing its authority. Now that changes in things as they are change beginnings to make them fit, beginnings have lost their mythical rigidity. There are, it is true, modern attempts to restore this rigidity. But on the whole there is a correlation between subtlety and variety in our fictions and remoteness and doubtfulness about ends and origins. There is a necessary relation between the fictions by which we order our world and the increasing complexity of what we take to be the 'real' history of that world. I propose in this talk to ask some questions about an early and very interesting example of this relation. There was a long-established opinion that the beginning was as described in Genesis, and that the end is to be as obscurely predicted in Revelation. But what if this came to seem doubtful? Supposing reason proved capable of a quite different account of the matter, an account contradicting that of faith? On the argument of these talks so far as they have gone, you would expect two developments: there should be generated fictions of concord between the old and the new explanations; and there should be consequential changes in fictive accounts of the world. And of course I should not be troubling you with all this if I did not think that such developments occurred. The changes to which I refer came with a new wave of Greek influence on Christian philosophy. The provision of accommodations between Greek and Hebrew thought is an old story, and a story of concord-fictions--necessary, as Berdyaev says, because to the Greeks the world was a cosmos, but to the Hebrews a history. But this is too enormous a tract in the history of ideas for me to wander in. I shall make do with my single illustration, and speak of what happened in the thirteenth century when Christian philosophers grappled with the view of the Aristotelians that nothing can come of nothing--ex nihilo nihil fit--so that the world must be thought to be eternal. In the Bible the world is made out of nothing. For the Aristotelians, however, it is eternal, without beginning or end. To examine the Aristotelian arguments impartially one would need to behave as if the Bible might be wrong. And this was done. The thirteenth-century rediscovery of Aristotle led to the invention of double-truth. It takes a good deal of sophistication to do what certain philosophers then did, namely, to pursue with vigour rational enquiries the validity of which one is obliged to deny. And the eternity of the world was, of course, more than a question in a scholarly game. It called into question all that might seem ragged and implausible in the usual accounts of the temporal structure of the world, the relation of time to eternity (certainly untidy and discordant compared with the Neo-Platonic version) and of heaven to hell.

In the spread of gender-identity ideology, developments in academia played a crucial role. This is not the place for an extended critique of the thinking that evolved on American campuses out of the 1960s French philosophy and literary criticism into gender studies, queer theory, critical race theory and the like. I will merely focus on what some have dubbed 'applied postmodernism' and the form of activism, known as 'social justice', that seeks to remake humanity along ideological lines. And I will lay out the key elements that have enable transsexuality, once understood as a rare anomaly, to be converted into an all-encompassing theory of sex and gender, and body and mind. Within applied postmodernism, objectivity is essentially impossible. Logic and reason are not ideals to be striven for, but attempts to shore up privilege. Language is taken to shape reality, not describe it. Oppression is brought into existence by discourse. Equality is no longer achieved by replacing unjust laws and practices with new ones that give everyone the chance to thrive, but by individuals defining their own identities, and 'troubling' or 'queering' the definitions of oppressed groups. A dualistic ideology can easily be accommodated within such a framework. Being a man or woman – or indeed non-binary or gender-fluid - becomes a matter of finding your own gender identity and revealing it to the world by the medium of preferred pronouns. It is a feeble form of dualism to be sure: the grandeur of Descartes' 'I think, therefore I am' replaced by 'they/them' on a pronoun badge.

served as CEO of two public companies, even temporarily, and I wasn’t even sure it was legal. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was enjoying spending more time with my family. I was torn. I knew Apple was a mess, so I wondered: Do I want to give up this nice lifestyle that I have? What are all the Pixar shareholders going to think? I talked to people I respected. I finally called Andy Grove at about eight one Saturday morning—too early. I gave him the pros and the cons, and in the middle he stopped me and said, “Steve, I don’t give a shit about Apple.” I was stunned. It was then I realized that I do give a shit about Apple—I started it and it is a good thing to have in the world. That was when I decided to go back on a temporary basis to help them hire a CEO. The claim that he was enjoying spending more time with his family was not convincing. He was never destined to win a Father of the Year trophy, even when he had spare time on his hands. He was getting better at paying heed to his children, especially Reed, but his primary focus was on his work. He was frequently aloof from his two younger daughters, estranged again from Lisa, and often prickly as a husband. So what was the real reason for his hesitancy in taking over at Apple? For all of his willfulness and insatiable desire to control things, Jobs was indecisive and reticent when he felt unsure about something. He craved perfection, and he was not always good at figuring out how to settle for something less. He did not like to wrestle with complexity or make accommodations. This was true in products, design, and furnishings for the house. It was also true when it came to personal commitments. If he knew

We’d just taken Pixar public, and I was happy being CEO there. I never knew of anyone who served as CEO of two public companies, even temporarily, and I wasn’t even sure it was legal. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was enjoying spending more time with my family. I was torn. I knew Apple was a mess, so I wondered: Do I want to give up this nice lifestyle that I have? What are all the Pixar shareholders going to think? I talked to people I respected. I finally called Andy Grove at about eight one Saturday morning—too early. I gave him the pros and the cons, and in the middle he stopped me and said, “Steve, I don’t give a shit about Apple.” I was stunned. It was then I realized that I do give a shit about Apple—I started it and it is a good thing to have in the world. That was when I decided to go back on a temporary basis to help them hire a CEO. The claim that he was enjoying spending more time with his family was not convincing. He was never destined to win a Father of the Year trophy, even when he had spare time on his hands. He was getting better at paying heed to his children, especially Reed, but his primary focus was on his work. He was frequently aloof from his two younger daughters, estranged again from Lisa, and often prickly as a husband. So what was the real reason for his hesitancy in taking over at Apple? For all of his willfulness and insatiable desire to control things, Jobs was indecisive and reticent when he felt unsure about something. He craved perfection, and he was not always good at figuring out how to settle for something less. He did not like to wrestle with complexity or make accommodations. This was true in products, design, and furnishings for the house. It was also true when it came to personal commitments. If he knew for sure a course of action was right, he was unstoppable. But if he had doubts, he sometimes withdrew, preferring not to think about things that did not perfectly suit him. As happened when Amelio had asked him what role he wanted to play, Jobs would go silent and ignore situations that made him uncomfortable.

He had brought her to this house, “and,” continued the priest, while genuine tears rose to his eyes, “here, too, he shelters me, his old tutor, and Agnes, a superannuated servant of his father’s family. To our sustenance, and to other charities, I know he devotes three-parts of his income, keeping only the fourth to provide himself with bread and the most modest accommodations. By this arrangement he has rendered it impossible to himself ever to marry: he has given himself to God and to his angel-bride as much as if he were a priest, like me.” The father had wiped away his tears before he uttered these last words, and in pronouncing them, he for one instant raised his eyes to mine. I caught this glance, despite its veiled character; the momentary gleam shot a meaning which struck me. These Romanists are strange beings. Such a one among them—whom you know no more than the last Inca of Peru, or the first Emperor of China—knows you and all your concerns; and has his reasons for saying to you so and so, when you simply thought the communication sprang impromptu from the instant’s impulse: his plan in bringing it about that you shall come on such a day, to such a place, under such and such circumstances, when the whole arrangement seems to your crude apprehension the ordinance of chance, or the sequel of exigency. Madame Beck’s suddenly-recollected message and present, my artless embassy to the Place of the Magi, the old priest accidentally descending the steps and crossing the square, his interposition on my behalf with the bonne who would have sent me away, his reappearance on the staircase, my introduction to this room, the portrait, the narrative so affably volunteered—all these little incidents, taken as they fell out, seemed each independent of its successor; a handful of loose beads: but threaded through by that quick-shot and crafty glance of a Jesuit-eye, they dropped pendent in a long string, like that rosary on the prie-dieu. Where lay the link of junction, where the little clasp of this monastic necklace? I saw or felt union, but could not yet find the spot, or detect the means of connection.

Trying to trick the creature, hoping that it would react without hesitation to the first sign of movement in the door way, Travis tucked the revolver under his belt, quietly picked up one of the dining-room chairs, eased to within six feet of the kitchen, and pitched the chair through the open door. He snatched the revolver out of his waistband and, as the chair sailed into the kitchen, assumed a shooter's stance. The chair crashed into the Formica-topped table, clattered to the floor, and banged against the dishwasher. The lantern-eyed enemy did not go for it. Nothing moved. When the chair finished tumbling, the kitchen was again marked by a hushed expectancy . Einstein was making a curious sound, a quiet shuddery huffing, and after a moment Travis realized the noise was a result of the dog's uncontrollable shivering. No question about it: the intruder in the kitchen was the very thing that had pursued them through the woods more than three months ago. During the intervening weeks, it had made its way north, probably traveling mostly in the wildlands to the east of the developed part of the state, relentlessly tracking the dog by some means that Travis could not understand and for reasons he could not even guess. In response to the chair he had thrown, a large white-enameled canister crashed to the floor just beyond the kitchen doorway, and Travis jumped back in surprise, squeezing off a wild shot before he realized he was only being taunted. The lid flew off the container when it hit the floor, and flour spilled across the tile. Silence again. By responding to Travis's taunt with one of its own, the intruder had displayed unnerving intelligence. Abruptly Travis realized that, coming from the same research lab as Einstein and being a product of related experiments, the creature might be as smart as the retriever. Which would explain Einstein's fear of it. If Travis had not already accommodated himself to the idea of a dog with humanlike intelligence, he might have been unable to credit this beast with more than mere animal cleverness; however, events of the past few months had primed him to accept-and quickly adapt to-almost anything.

Beginning in 2011, SpaceX won a series of contracts from NASA to develop rockets that could take humans to the International Space Station, a task made crucial by the retirement of the Space Shuttle. To fulfill that mission, it needed to add to its facilities at Cape Canaveral’s Pad 40, and Musk set his sights on leasing the most storied launch facility there, Pad 39A. Pad 39A had been center stage for America’s Space Age dreams, burned into the memories of a television generation that held its collective breath when the countdowns got to “Ten, nine, eight…” Neil Armstrong’s mission to the moon that Bezos watched as a kid blasted off from Pad 39A in 1969, as did the last manned moon mission, in 1972. So did the first Space Shuttle mission, in 1981, and the last, in 2011. But by 2013, with the Shuttle program grounded and America’s half-century of space aspirations ending with bangs and whimpers, Pad 39A was rusting away and vines were sprouting through its flame trench. NASA was eager to lease it. The obvious customer was Musk, whose Falcon 9 rockets had already launched on cargo missions from the nearby Pad 40, where Obama had visited. But when the lease was put out for bids, Jeff Bezos—for both sentimental and practical reasons—decided to compete for it. When NASA ended up awarding the lease to SpaceX, Bezos sued. Musk was furious, declaring that it was ridiculous for Blue Origin to contest the lease “when they haven’t even gotten so much as a toothpick to orbit.” He ridiculed Bezos’s rockets, pointing out that they were capable only of popping up to the edge of space and then falling back; they lacked the far greater thrust necessary to break the Earth’s gravity and go into orbit. “If they do somehow show up in the next five years with a vehicle qualified to NASA’s human rating standards that can dock with the Space Station, which is what Pad 39A is meant to do, we will gladly accommodate their needs,” Musk said. “Frankly, I think we are more likely to discover unicorns dancing in the flame duct.” The battle of the sci-fi barons had blasted off. One SpaceX employee bought dozens of inflatable toy unicorns and photographed them in the pad’s flame duct. Bezos was eventually able to lease a nearby launch complex at Cape Canaveral, Pad 36, which had been the origin of missions to Mars and Venus. So the competition of the boyish billionaires was set to continue. The transfer of these hallowed pads represented, both symbolically and in practice, John F. Kennedy’s torch of space exploration being passed from government to the private sector—from a once-glorious but now sclerotic NASA to a new breed of mission-driven pioneers.

propose that we consider our farmers on a spectrum, let’s say, of agrarianism. On one end of the spectrum we have farmers like James, interested in producing the finest foodstuffs that they can, given the soil, the climate, the water, the budget, and their talent. They observe how efficacious or not their efforts are proving, and they adapt accordingly. Variety is one of the keys to this technique, eschewing the corporate monocultures for a revolving set of plants and animals, again, to mimic what was already happening on the land before we showed up with our earth-shaving machinery. It’s tough as hell, and in many cases impossible, to farm this way and earn enough profit to keep your bills paid and your family fed, but these farmers do exist. On the other end of the spectrum is full-speed-ahead robo-farming, in which the farmer is following the instructions of the corporation to produce not food but commodities in such a way that the corporation sits poised to make the maximum financial profit. Now, this is the part that has always fascinated me about us as a population: This kind of farmer is doing all they can to make their factory quota for the company, of grain, or meat, or what have you, despite their soil, climate, water, budget, or talent. It only stands to reason that this methodology is the very definition of unsustainable. Clearly, this is an oversimplification of an issue that requires as much of my refrain (nuance!) as any other human endeavor, but the broad strokes are hard to refute. The first farmer is doing their best to work with nature. The second farmer is doing their best despite nature. In order for the second farmer to prosper, they must defeat nature. A great example of this is the factory farming of beef/pork/chicken/eggs/turkey/salmon/etc. The manufacturers of these products have done everything they can to take the process out of nature entirely and hide it in a shed, where every step of the production has been engineered to make a profit; to excel at quantity. I know you’re a little bit ahead of me here, but I’ll go ahead and ask the obvious question: What of quality? If you’re willing to degrade these many lives with impunity—the lives of the animals themselves, the workers “growing” them, the neighbors having to suffer the voluminous poisons being pumped into the ecosystem/watershed, and the humans consuming your products—then what are you about? Can that even be considered farming? Again, I’m asking this of us. Of you and me, because what I have just described is the way a lot of our food is produced right now, in the system that we all support with our dollars. How did we get here, in both the US and the UK? How can we change our national stance toward agriculture to accommodate more middle-size farmers and less factory farms? How would Aldo Leopold feel about it?

God is the highest good of the reasonable creature, and the enjoyment of him is the only happiness with which our souls can be satisfied. To go to heaven fully to enjoy God, is infinitely better than the most pleasant accommodations here. Fathers and mothers, husbands, wives, children, or the company of earthly friends, are but shadows. But the enjoyment of God is the substance. These are but scattered beams, but God is the sun. These are but streams, but God is the fountain. These are but drops, but God is the ocean.

Although I had become disillusioned with certain aspects of Roman Catholicism, yet I was finding similarities between that religious system and my new-found philosophies. I sought to clear up my own confusions by developing an ecumenical reasoning, accommodating both Christian and Hindu schools of thought. This led to a sense of spiritual superiority for being 'tolerant' both of Eastern and Western religions. I welcomed the idea that all paths led to the same God and that all beliefs were equal.

Rorty distinguishes two different attitudes that we can take toward intuitions: (a) an ecumenical attitude where we try to harmonize intuitions and to accommodate as many of these as possible; and (b) a more revolutionary stance where by we are fully prepared to turn a deaf ear to what our opponents claim to be their primary intuitions. Sometimes, it is necessary to say, “so much the worse for your old intuitions; start working up some new ones.” It is desirable to be ecumenical as long as it is reasonable. (This is always a matter of judgment.) As reasonable disputants, we ought to try to do justice to those strongly held intuitions of our opponents. But if someone “digs in” obstinately and is unable to come up with reasonable arguments to support their intuitions, then it is fair game to say “so much the worse for your old intuitions.

More is sacrificed by defecting from the truth of revelation than simply the truth about God and man and the world; loss of the truth and Word of God plunges into darkness the very truth of truth, the meaning of meaning, and even the significance of language. To sever the concerns of reason and life from the revelation of God as the final ground and source of truth and the good accommodates and accelerates the contemporary drift to nihilism. It is not merely Christianity that stands or falls with the reality of revelation. To avert a nihilistic loss of enduring truth and good, only the recovery of revelation will suffice.

Action Steps 1. Evaluate your progress regarding the tasks on your to-do list before offering to help other people. Note how much time you’ve allocated to each task and determine whether you have enough time left in the day to address them as planned. If you’re ahead of schedule, offer your help to the person asking for it. Otherwise, tactfully say “no” and explain your reason. Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with helping people. You should do so whenever you can. But you need to make sure you’re not jeopardizing the quality or timeliness of your own work in the process. 2. Remind yourself that few requests are truly emergencies. People seeking help usually want to receive it immediately. Their urgency rarely stems from a crisis. Rather, most people simply want whatever they seek sooner rather than later. It’s human nature. Before offering your help, determine whether a true crisis exists that warrants your swift attention. Again, most “emergencies” aren’t emergencies at all. 3. Ask whether you can help the person later. That allows you to say “no” and simultaneously appear willing to accommodate the individual. This approach also helps you to retain control of your time, a crucial part of working productively. People who hear this response will find it to be more palatable than a simple “no.” 4. Find out what you’re being asked to commit yourself to. When people ask for help, they often downplay the amount of time it will take. For example, consider the times you’ve heard someone ask you, “Got a second for a quick question?” Ask the person seeking your help to clearly describe what he or she wants you to do for them. If the tasks involved require more time than you have to offer, you’ll have a suitable reason to decline. 5. Decide in advance the activities you won’t help others with. Placing limits on the types of work you’re willing to address will make it easier to rebuff requests for help. For example, you might decide to shun making phone calls before 10:00 a.m. because you know such calls expose you to potential time sinks. A planned 3-minute call can easily turn into 20 minutes if the person you’ve called is chatty. If a coworker asks you to call a vendor or client for him or her, tactfully decline and explain your reason.

You're too kind-hearted. If you keep up this kind of accommodating attitude, then you'll just give them more reason to bully you. You think your little smiles and goodwill can reform them? Stop being foolish! They only think that you're terrified! That you're afraid of them! You should resist. Do you understand what resisting is?! If you don't fight for your own dignity, who else would bother with you?

Typically only the incivility of the less powerful toward the more powerful can be widely understood as such, and thus be subject to such intense censure. Which is what made #metoo so fraught and revolutionary. It was a period during which some of the most powerful faced repercussion. The experience of having patriarchal control compromised felt, perhaps ironically, like a violation, a diminishment, a threat to professional standing—all the things that sexual harassment feels like to those who’ve experienced it. Frequently, in those months, I was asked about how to address men’s confusion and again, their discomfort: How were they supposed to flirt? What if their respectful and professional gestures of affiliation had been misunderstood? Mothers told me of sons worried about being misinterpreted, that expression of their affections might be heard as coercion, their words or intentions read incorrectly, that they would face unjust consequences that would damage their prospects. The amazing thing was the lack of acknowledgment that these anxieties are the normal state for just about everyone who is not a white man: that black mothers reasonably worry every day that a toy or a phone or a pack of Skittles might be seen as a gun, that their children’s very presence—sleeping in a dorm room, sitting at a Starbucks, barbecuing by a river, selling lemonade on the street—might be understood as a threat, and that the repercussions might extend far beyond a dismissal from a high-paying job or expulsion from a high-profile university, and instead might result in arrest, imprisonment, or execution at the hands of police or a concerned neighbor. Women enter young adulthood constantly aware that their inebriation might be taken for consent, or their consent for sluttiness, or that an understanding of them as having been either drunk or slutty might one day undercut any claim they might make about having been violently aggressed upon. Women enter the workforce understanding from the start the need to work around and accommodate the leering advances and bad jokes of their colleagues, aware that the wrong response might change the course of their professional lives. We had been told that our failures to extend sympathy to the white working class—their well-being diminished by unemployment and drug addictions—had cost us an election; now we were being told that a failure to feel for the men whose lives were being ruined by harassment charges would provoke an angry antifeminist backlash. But with these calls came no acknowledgment of sympathies that we have never before been asked to extend: to black men who have always lived with higher rates of unemployment and who have faced systemically higher prison sentences and social disapprobation for their drug use; to the women whose careers and lives had been ruined by ubiquitous and often violent harassment. Now the call was to consider the underlying pain of those facing repercussions. Rose McGowan, one of Weinstein’s earliest and most vociferous accusers, recalled being asked “in a soft NPR voice, ‘What if what you’re saying makes men uncomfortable?’ Good. I’ve been uncomfortable my whole life. Welcome to our world of discomfort.”34 Suddenly, men were living with the fear of consequences, and it turned out that it was not fun. And they very badly wanted it to stop. One of the lessons many men would take from #metoo was not about the threat they had posed to women, but about the threat that women pose to them.

This raises a recurring problem in the history of Marxism, i.e., the relation of Marxism to non-Marxist trends. This, it must be said, is a problem that Marxists have not always handled very well. Most have unfortunately gone to the one extreme or the other, either accommodating themselves too far in the direction of recurrences of modes of thought superseded by Marxism and compromising the very distinctiveness of Marxism beyond recognition without sufficient reason for doing so or considering Marxism a closed world, with nothing to learn from other schools of thought and heaping abuse and invective upon anyone who has suggested otherwise.

McCulloch would have put him on notice that "it is a constitution we are expounding," one that was "intended to endure for ages to come, and consequently, to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs," and which did not "deprive the legislature of the capacity to avail itself of experience, to exercise its reason, and to accommodate its legislation to circumstances." It had become clear by 1868, if not before then, that the Constitution was not chained to the original expectations as to what powers the legislature could exercise. This recognition, in turn, suggests a more durable basis for a doctrine of substantive due process than simply labeling everything one finds distasteful or wrongheaded as "arbitrary." The eighteenth-century understanding of due process may have been primarily, if not exclusively, procedural, but it had evolved in a legal system where the legislature exercised unfettered power over substantive law. The new Constitution's Supremacy Clause, however, subordinated legislative power to the Constitution itself. As I suggested in my opening essay, in a republic, "due process," when it comes to the wisdom of government policy, is ordinarily provided by the political process, but it is likely the case that we do not regard every issue as properly resolved by majoritarian institutions. As

Before the day I didn't fit, this conversation was largely an abstraction for me. My stance was the same as it is now (if people pay for a service, it's the seller's obligation to accommodate those people and provide the service they paid for), but I didn't understand what that panicky, uncertain walk down the aisle actually felt like. How inhumane it is. I'm telling you this not to garner sympathy or pity, or even to change your opinion about how airplanes should accommodate larger passengers. I'm just telling you, human to human, that life is complicated and fat people are trying to live. Same as you. Reasons I have had to fly within the past five years: For work (often). To see beloved friends get married. To speak to college students about rape culture and body image. To hold my father's hand while he died. I'm sorry, but I'm not constraining and rearranging my life just because no one cares enough to make flying accessible to all bodies.

First, just because people’s religious beliefs can be easily accommodated, it does not follow that they should. Sometimes accommodations reinforce sentiments that ought to be repudiated. Second, given that one of the best reasons for religious accommodations is the history of antireligious discrimination, religious accommodations ought not be used as a license to discriminate.

Come, let’s get in the house. You never know with those savages. They’re just as likely to double back to catch us unaware.” The door to the cabin stood open, and Loretta followed the others inside. Turning, she faced the men, her eyes full of questions. Henry leaned his rifle against the all. “Ain’t no rhyme nor reason to what them critters do sometimes. I don’t reckon they’ll be back.” Tom, still standing by the window, frowned and shook his head, his gaze fastened on the lance in the yard. “I ain’t so sure. A Comanch’ don’t leave his mark just anywheres. Couldn’t have said it plainer. Loretta’s just got herself betrothed.” Amy giggled, a high, shrill laugh that echoed Loretta’s own feeling of unreality. “You mean he wants Loretta as a squaw? Why, that’d be worse than her marryin’ up with Mr. Wea--” Amy’s eyes bugged, and her cheeks flamed. “I mean…well…” “Hush, Amy!” Worrying her apron, Rachel shot Tom a questioning glance. “What makes you say such a thing?” “We all heard him lay claim to her and say he’d be back.” Tom avoided Loretta’s gaze. “Comanches don’t make false promises. My guess is he’ll bring a couple of blankets and a horse or two in trade. That’s the way they do things amongst themselves when they buy a wife. Not to say he’ll stay so polite if you don’t accommodate him and turn her over.” Rachel clamped a hand over her heart. “Oh, mercy, we’ve got to get Loretta out of here then, to Fort Belknap, perhaps.” “Ain’t no use, Rachel,” Tom said softly. “They’ll have sentries posted. You try to leave with her, and they’ll run you to the ground. Ain’t nobody gonna take a Comanche’s woman.

Emphasizing that “people make decisions for emotional reasons not rational ones,” the GCHQ contends that online behavior is driven by “mirroring” (“people copy each other while in social interaction with them”), “accommodation,” and “mimicry” (“adoption of specific social traits by the communicator from the other participant”). The document then lays out what it calls the “Disruption Operational Playbook.

JOURNALIST— (3) TERRIFIED TO DISAPPOINT MISS HABER AND HER READERS, WE WILL TRY TO ACCOMMODATE HER “FASCINATING RUMORS, SO FAR UNCHECKED” BY BUSTING UP OUR MARRIAGE EVEN THOUGH WE STILL LIKE EACH OTHER. JOANNE & PAUL NEWMAN This was a stunner, and it got folks talking. The Newmans’ marriage, then eleven years along, was considered stable: all those kids, the famed Connecticut home, the films they’d worked on together, the collaborative success of Rachel, Rachel. It didn’t seem right. Gossipy movie fan magazines had often tried to goose a few sales out of articles speculating that the Newmans were at odds with each other (“Shout by Shout: Paul Newman’s Bitter Fights with His Wife”; “Strange Rumors About Hollywood’s ‘Happiest Marriage’”) or that forty-three-year-old Newman was feeling randy and seeking consolations outside the home (“Paul Newman’s Just at That Age”; “Is Paul Newman’s Joanne Too Possessive?”). Invariably, they all stopped short of actually announcing real trouble or accusing Newman of adultery. The Newmans were supposed to be examples. But this strange advertisement didn’t so much squelch rumors as give people reason to wonder about them. They didn’t have to wait long for a fuller story. Later that year a gossip magazine

A pessimistic orientation does not seek accommodations with the system. We share the goal of the undercommons, which “is not to end the troubles but to end the world that created those particular troubles as the ones that must be opposed” (Halberstam 2013, 9). Moten and Harney don’t play the liberal game of reform; they are constantly reframing the problems at hand. What questions we ask are crucial—for bad questions yield worse answers, ones that compound the problem. On prison abolition, their intervention is decisive and reconfigures the coordinates of the debate: for them, it is “not so much the abolition of prisons but the abolition of a society that could have prisons, that could have slavery” (Moten and Harney 2013, 42). How do you abolish a society? How do you fight state power? Is anti-statism, ethical (that is, nonviolent) anarchism, the only solution? Is it a solution? Or do you dare to seize power, as with the example of Morales? A universal politics takes these questions to heart. For this reason, its skeptical negativity is put into the service of a more virtuous end: locating antagonisms, rather than settling for conflicts or pseudo-struggles. Its challenge is to sustain the antagonistic logic of class struggle, and avoid the comfort of static oppositions. The cultural Left has its enemies (Trump, Putin, Le Pen, Erdoğan, Modi, Duterte, Netanyahu, Orbán, Bolsonaro, Suu Kyi, MBS, etc.)—and, conversely, notorious leaders blame liberal media, demonizing bad press with the “enemy of the people” charge—but nothing really changes; the basic features or coordinates of the current society remain the same. Worse, the liberal capitalist system is legitimized (only in a free democracy can you, as a citizen, criticize tyrants abroad and, more importantly, express your outrage at the president, politicians, or state power without the fear of retribution) and the cultural Left is tacitly compensated for playing by the rules—for practicing non-antagonistic politics, for forgoing class insurgency and not engaging in class war (Žižek 2020f)—rewarded with “libidinal profit” (Žižek 1997b, 47), with what Lacan calls a “surplus-enjoyment” (2007, 147), an enjoyment-in-sacrifice. That is to say, cultural leftists, with their “Beautiful Souls” intact, enjoy not being a racist, a misogynist, a transphobe, an ableist, and so on. Hating the haters, the morally repulsive, the fascists of the world, is indeed an endless source of libidinal satisfaction for “woke” liberals. But what changes does it actually produce?

When you have a boat or RV, you need to find a storage unit that can accommodate it. But with all of the options out there, how do you decide which one is right for you? You should consider the size of the storage unit and make sure the storage unit is big enough to fit your boat or RV. Also, pay attention to the location to find a storage unit such as boat storage Mobile AL that is close to you, so it is easy to get to. When you are not using your boat or RV, it is best to store it in an indoor storage unit. There are so many reasons to store your vehicle in an indoor storage unit and some of them are as follow: Protection From Extreme Weather This will protect it from the weather and keep it in good condition. It means that you do not need to worry about damage to your expensive vehicle due to bad weather conditions. You will also have peace of mind knowing that your boat or RV is not exposed to the elements. Ensure Safety Most indoor storage units such as RV storage Mobile have security features, such as surveillance cameras and gated access, to keep your boat or RV safe. Thus, it's a great way to protect your investment from thieves and criminals. Peace Of Mind You do not need to frequently keep checking your RV. When you have parked your expensive vehicle at a secure place, then you do not need to worry about anything. Thus, you should start looking for the best trailer storage near me. After shortlisting a few, you should pick the right one for your boat or RV.

To India has been given her problem from the beginning of history—it is the race problem. Races ethnologically different have in this country come into close contact. This fact has been and still continues to be the most important one in our history. It is our mission to face it and prove our humanity by dealing with it in the fullest truth. Until we fulfil our mission all other benefits will be denied us. There are other peoples in the world who have to overcome obstacles in their physical surroundings, or the menace of their powerful neighbours. They have organized their power till they are not only reasonably free from the tyranny of Nature and human neighbours, but have a surplus of it left in their hands to employ against others. But in India, our difficulties being internal, our history has been the history of continual social adjustment and not that of organized power for defence and aggression. Neither the colourless vagueness of cosmopolitanism, nor the fierce self-idolatry of nation-worship, is the goal of human history. And India has been trying to accomplish her task through social regulation of differences, on the one hand, and the spiritual recognition of unity on the other. She has made grave errors in setting up the boundary walls too rigidly between races, in perpetuating in her classifications the results of inferiority; often she has crippled her children's minds and narrowed their lives in order to fit them into her social forms; but for centuries new experiments have been made and adjustments carried out. Her mission has been like that of a hostess who has to provide proper accommodation for numerous guests, whose habits and requirements are different from one another.

When you rent a unit to a person with a disability, the Fair Housing Act requires that you accommodate reasonable requests for changes in rules, policies, practices, or services, and that you accommodate the tenant should they have a reasonable request to modify the dwelling or common areas—at their expense—to better suit their needs. Should the tenant choose to make modifications to the rental, they are legally obligated, when reasonable, to return the unit to it’s previous condition once they have vacated.

We can’t just spend our way out of this. Over the past fifty years, we’ve tried that—doubling antipoverty aid per capita—and the poverty line hasn’t meaningfully budged. A big reason why is that we insist on supporting policies that accommodate poverty, not ones that disrupt it.

The fundamental cause of campus intolerance," [Eric Adler] suggests... is "a market-driven decision by universities... to treat students as consumers-- who pay up to $60,000 per year for courses, excellent cuisine, comfortable accommodations, and a lively campus life."... he explains: Even at public universities, 18-year-olds are purchasing what is essentially a luxury product. Is it any wonder they feel entitled to control the experience?... Students, accustomed to authoring every facet of their college experience, now want their institutions to mirror their views. If the customers can determine the curriculum and select all their desired amenities, it stands to reason that they should also determine which speakers ought to be invited to campus and what opinions can be articulated in their midst.

We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude. But the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor, and reason by degrees submits to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.

There is one mind common to all individual men.” This is Platonism; Emerson means we all have reason in common. Communication is possible because all human minds are, in important respects, similarly constituted. The second of Emerson’s Goose Pond principles is the Stoic ground law: “There is a relation between man and nature so that whatever is in matter is in mind.” This is the basis for language and for what the writer does. The third point is that expression is as basic a human drive as sex: “It is a necessity of the human nature that it should express itself outwardly and embody its thought.” “As all creatures are allured to reproduce themselves, so must the thought be imparted in speech.” He adds, as a corollary, “Action is as great a pleasure and cannot be foreborne.” Point four says, “It is the constant endeavor of the mind to idealize the actual, to accommodate the shows of things to the desires of the mind.” He gives architecture and art as examples.6 Point five is the theory of classification: “It is the constant tendency of the mind to unify all it beholds, or to reduce the remotest facts to a single law.” Point six extends point five and is a specific application of point two: “There is a parallel tendency/corresponding unity in nature which makes this [unification] just, as in the composition of a compound shell or leaf or animal from few elements.” Point seven describes, in Baconian fashion, an idol of the mind, the tendency to “separate particulars” and magnify them, from which come “all false views and particular sects.” Emerson’s last point is the intellectual parallax or corrective postulate for the previous point: “The remedy for all abuses, all error in thought or practice, is the conviction that underneath all appearances and causing all appearances are certain eternal laws which we call the Nature of Things.

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Guiding children’s behaviour is always a balancing act between what they have to do and what can be reasonably let go and accommodated.

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The analogy between infertile heterosexuals and same-sex couples misses the point. The extension of marriage to infertile heterosexual couples serves not to deprecate same-sex couples, but to preserve the equal status of women in marriage. A test for fertility would be unfair to women because all women spend most of their adult lives in a state of infertility. Fertile women are infertile most days of a month, and postmenopausal women are always infertile. A fertility requirement would also render women susceptible to enormous abuse by men, providing a ready excuse for men who would trade in older women for nubile brides. The status of women in marriage would be intolerably diminished through this practice. Infertility is less common among men, as they can sire children into old age. Moreover, men, like women, typically do not discover that they are infertile until they attempt to sire children, at which time they ought already to be married. A measure that serves primarily to protect women and to preserve their equal status within the institution of marriage is not a measure that is an appropriate basis by which to judge that the same should go for same-sex couples. One of the great challenges men and women face in marriage is in coming to terms with their differences while respecting the status of the other as an equal. Acceptance of infertility is a measure promoting this end. A measure to accommodate the reality of sex-based difference in marriage is no reason to extend marriage to same-sex couples. Moreover, accommodation for infertility in no way diminishes the reality that the inequality of the parent-child relationship is what differentiates marriage from other contractual relationships. It is the parent-child relation, as it emerges from sexual difference and procreation, which elevates marriage above a mere contract, and renders it a sacred duty.

Measurement aside, there are two reasons aggregate growth might matter. The first is to create jobs to assimilate the unemployed and anticipate increases in population. The second is to improve living standards. Economic logic does not require overall expansion to achieve either of these objectives. An expanding labour force can be accommodated if hours of work fall. And it's productivity growth, rather than the overall size of the economy, that drives improvements in living standards. Getting bigger doesn't necessarily yield wealth; improving productivity does.

For this reason we should not take any confidence from the fact that our soul is contented and satisfied with what we have, given that it has no way of knowing its illness and its imperfection in this, if there is one. It is impossible to say anything to that blind man by reasoning, argument, or analogy that accommodates in his imagination any apprehension of light, color, and vision. There is nothing further that can make the sense evident.

the reason we in the West do not suffer more persecution is because we have accommodated ourselves too much to the world around us.

On this reasoning, legislatures could not be trusted to protect religious liberty. But, wait. First, in RFRA, Congress enacted the most far-reaching statute in favor of religious entities in United States history. Second, at the same time, the very religious practice unprotected by the First Amendment in Smith was legislatively accommodated across the country. Third, lawmakers knew religious entities have political power and experience, because their lobbyists meet with them all the time, whether in legislative offices or the ubiquitous prayer breakfasts and annual Red Masses.

I want you, and you say you want me, and the only thing standing in our way is you. Don’t tell me that you survived all those battles, and suffered through so much, merely to come home for this--” He laid his fingers against her mouth. “Quiet. Let me think.” “What is there to--” “Beatrix,” he warned. She fell silent, her gaze locked on his severe features. Christopher frowned, weighing possibilities, inwardly debating the issue without seeming to come to any satisfactory conclusion. In the silence, Beatrix rested her head on his shoulder. His body was warm and comforting, the deep-flexing muscles easily accommodating her weight. She wriggled to press closer to him, until she felt the satisfying hardness of his chest against her breasts. And she adjusted her position as she felt the firm pressure of him lower down. Her body ached to gather him in. Furtively she brushed her lips against the salt-scented skin of his neck. He clamped his hand on her hip. Amusement threaded through his voice. “Stop squirming. There is no possible way a man can think when you’re doing that.” “Haven’t you finished thinking yet?” “No.” But she felt him smile as he kissed her forehead. “If you and I marry,” he said eventually, “I would be put in the position of trying to protect my wife against myself. And your well-being and happiness are everything to me.” If…Beatrix’s heart leaped into her throat. She began to speak, but Christopher nudged his knuckles beneath her chin, gently closing her mouth. “And regardless of what fascinating ideas your family may have about the marital relationship,” he continued, “I have a traditional view. The husband is master of the household.” “Oh, absolutely,” Beatrix said, a bit too quickly. “That’s what my family believes, too.” His eyes narrowed skeptically. Perhaps that had been taking it a bit far. Hoping to distract him, Beatrix nuzzled her cheek into his hand. “Could I keep my animals?” “Of course.” His voice softened. “I would never deny something so important to you. Although I can’t help but ask…is the hedgehog negotiable?” “Medusa? Oh, no, she couldn’t survive on her own. She was abandoned by her mother as kit, and I’ve taken care of her ever since. I suppose I could try to find a new home for her, but for some reason people don’t take readily to the idea of pet hedgehogs.” “How odd of them,” Christopher said. “Very well, Medusa stays.” “Are you proposing to me?” Beatrix asked hopefully. “No.” Closing his eyes, Christopher let out a short sigh. “But I’m considering it against all better judgment.

Dear John’ Monologue   On the day I terminated our relationship, Anak and Taer were their usual spirited selves, doing their best to tempt me into a three-way liaison. They thought I was playing a dominance-and-submission game until I put a stop to their seduction with an authoritative stance. At that point, they turned sheepish, and I made them hear me out.               It was difficult delivering my ‘Dear John’ spiel, but I knew I had to do it. It was for the greater good after all. It was gruelling not to feel guilty when they looked so mousey and lost.               I said, “The two of you are sweet and accommodating, but you must realize our liaison must come to an end. I’ll be returning to Quebec, and you guys will have to make a life for yourselves here.”               “We go you to Quebec for you,” Taer replied in broken English.               “Yes, we go you Quebec,” Anak professed.               “I’m afraid that is not possible. I can’t look after you,” I expressed.               “Why no? We help in house,” chirped the older boy.               “Yes, we help in house,” seconded the younger one.               Those two made every conceivable excuse to hang onto me, envisioning me as their ticket out of the Philippines. I did everything in my power to end the affair sensibly, but my reasoning seemed to fly over their heads. I was left with no choice but to toss them out of my lodging. It was not a pretty sight when we finally parted ways. Before they left, they swore revenge and that I would not see the end of them.               The situation turned ugly.

Looking back at those incidents, he was always appalled by the memory of his passivity, hard though it was to see what else he could have done. He could have refused to pay for the gravy damage to his room, could have refused to change his shoes, could have refused to kneel to supplicate for his B.A. He had preferred to surrender and get the degree. The memory of that surrender made him more stubborn, less willing to compromise, to make an accommodation with injustice, no matter how persuasive the reasons. Injustice would always thereafter conjure up the memory of gravy. Injustice was a brown, lumpy, congealing fluid, and it smelled pungently, tearfully, of onions.

Unlike you who received me so readily and compliantly, I did not realize my length had caused him to shriek in pain during entry. I withdrew my quivering organ leaving me with pulsating dissatisfaction. He tried to accommodate my pleasure and in my bibulous state I saw your sweet yearning biophilia rather than his obliging bligation to please me. I would have terminated our liaison there and then if I was in my right mind. Knowing your infatuation for my unbridled sex and my hunger for you, ravaged my senses; I pounded into the boy despondently until I relinquished my load into his tightness. If I was with you, you would not have enraptured me to stop but craved for me to deposit my abundance into your core; staying inside until my stiffness rears its bulbous head, to ravish you again and again. Unfortunately Toby isn’t you; it hurt him if I stayed in his opening after my release. As his drunkenness wore thin, so did his ineradicable homosexual guilt from years of deep-rooted Catholic upbringing. He requested I leave without reaching a pleasuring crescendo himself. The following day we met on campus; I was surprised when he asked me if I’ll be his boyfriend. My pity for my companion supplanted my sound reasoning and I reluctantly agreed to give the relationship a try. Well my dearest Young, that’s all in the past; after all life is an experience and to any great experiences, one thing is essential; an adventurous nature. That is an essence I love about you which Toby did not possess. Your loving ex-Valet, Andy.

Andy remained seated. I chirped, “Sir, please tell me the reason for your visit. My guardian is fully aware of your proposal.” Struck by my candidness, Ozwalt stammered, “Very well, I will tell you the reason I’m here,” he raised his voice in displeasure. “Your counterproposal is deplorable!” My lover remarked aggressively, “What’s deplorable about Young wishing to be kept in the style he is accustomed to?” The Englishman exclaimed, “He’s not even of age to drive, and he wants a Lamborghini or a Ferrari? What is he thinking?!” “You offered him a city car,” my Valet countered. “He has every right to ask for what he desires.” The man repudiated defensively, “I offered him a city car upon his coming of age to drive, not before!” He was seething with anger. “Atop this, he demands a luxury penthouse in Mayfair or Park Lane, not to mention the live-in personal tutor! Is he insane? Most adults wouldn’t be able to afford a luxury flat and experienced educator, let alone an adolescent who is barely out of his teens.” “Sir, if you do not have the financial capabilities to accommodate the boy’s expectations, there are others who are perfectly capable of doing so,” my chaperone asserted. “Andy! Are you telling me that the lad has other well-endowed suitors willing to pay for such frivolousness?” My lover and I sniggered at the Englishman’s comment, but we managed to suppress our mirth. My guardian answered solemnly, “That, Sir, is none of your concern. I presume you’re here to discuss Young’s counterproposal, not the proposals of his other suitors.” He was taken aback by my mentor’s forthrightness. He raised his voice in retaliation. “I’m here to talk to Young. I would like Young to speak for himself.” I spoke unrelentingly, “I have asked Andy to negotiate on my behalf. I have heard everything he has said and challenge none of it. If my terms are not met, I’m afraid our arrangement is over. There is no further need for discussion.” By now, Ozwalt was on fire. He waved his fist at me and shouted, “You rapacious whore! You’re nothing but a self-indulgent sybaritic slut from a third-world country!” Before he could continue lambasting me with further insults, Wilhem entered. “What’s going on here?” my big-brother questioned. Mossey resumed berating my integrity, calling me a barrage of repugnant names while my chaperones carted him off the campus grounds to his waiting chauffeur and Bentley. Groups of students stood gaping at the wild man, speculating about the nature of the ruckus they were witnessing.

To a Christian, the dastardly liberals are not so much villains as victims. It's not their fault they're possessed by demons. But if I felt a slight diminishing of hostility, I also saw any hope of mutual accommodation go up in a blast of sulfurous smoke...these days, much of what liberals really anguish about behind closed doors is how to find common ground with people of faith. And now I realized that for at least some people, common ground will never be possible because they don't object to specific ideas that can be reframed or adjusted. They object to Satan, whose bidding we are doing. They may not hate us - they may believe they love us - but they hate him, and they won't negotiate with him either. We want to persuade them, reason with them, listen to them, and accommodate them. They want to save us. It's not even the same playing field.

And where abolitionists preached slavery as a violation against the higher law, Southerners angrily countered with their own version of the deity, that it was sanctioned by the Constitution. In the vortex of this debate, once the battle lines were sharply drawn, moderate ground everywhere became hostage to the passions of the two sides. Reason itself had become suspect; mutual tolerance was seen as treachery. Vitriol overcame accommodation. And the slavery issue would not just fade away.

After the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, multinational corporations began to leave the GCC. They thought that in the wake of Kyoto they would have to accommodate themselves to a carbon-constrained world and they were becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the GCC’s “slash and burn” tactics. In 2002 the GCC became dormant, but only after spending tens of millions of dollars attacking climate science and policy.

Cultural Awareness Capabilities for Social MDM As we have worked with customers around the world, we have encountered numerous situations that have taught us to broaden our understanding, handling, and use of information about people—once again reminding us of the diversity and richness of human nature. Following are some of the things we have learned: • Birth dates can be surprisingly tricky. In some cultures, people have a religious birth date that is different from the birth date tracked by the government. This could be due to differences between religious calendars and secular calendars, or it could be that the religious birth date is selected for other reasons. Depending on how you ask people for their birth date, you may get either their actual or religious birth date. In other situations, the government may assign a birth date. For example, in some rural areas of India, children are assigned a legal birth date based on their first day in elementary school. So you need to exercise caution in using birth date as an attribute in matching individuals, and you also have to consider how information is gathered. • Names can also be challenging. In some cultures, people have official and religious names. So again, it is important to understand how and why an individual might give one or the other and perhaps provide the capability to support both. • In some countries, there are multiple government identification systems for taxation, social services, military service, and other purposes. In some of these schemes, an individual may, for instance, have multiple tax ID numbers: one that represents the individual and another that might represent individuals in their role as head of household or head of clan. • Different languages and cultures represent family relationships in different ways. In some languages, specific terms and honorifics reflect relationships that don’t have equivalents in other languages. Therefore, as you look at understanding relationships and householding, you have to accommodate these nuances. • Address information is country-specific and, in some cases, also region-specific within a country. Not all countries have postal codes. Many countries allow an address to be descriptive, such as “3rd house behind the church.” We have found this in parts Europe as well as other parts of the world.