The Pursuit of Virtue and Other Tory Notions

ISBN: 9780671423933

定价: 72.00

内容简介

The Virtues of Boldness
Looking back (Americans do a lot of that these days because it
seems pleasanter than contemplating the future)??? a fascinating as-
pect of the public s reaction a decade ago was that so many people
considered Apollo l 7 the end of something??? not the beginning of
something.
The moon landing helped to frame the 1960s. At the beginning
of the decade??? John Kennedy said we would do it by the end of the
decade. And we did. It was like Babe Ruth s \"called shot\" in the
World Series. America audaciously pointed to the right-field
bleachers and then hit the ball to the spot.
When the words \"The Eagle has landed\" crackled back to earth
ten years ago??? a challenge was met. It began on October 4??? 1957???
when a 184-pound sphere of Soviet technology orbited the earth.
One of President Eisenhower s advisers suggested that as a show of
national strength??? Sputnik was less impressive than a U.S. super-
markm display in Zagreb. The junior senator from Massachusetts
4isagreed. John Kennedy s strongest beliefs were about the dy-
As Eisenhower s term ended??? he pruned the space program that
was pointing??? tentatively??? toward the moon. Daniel Boorstin??? the
historian??? believes Eisenhower was moved??? in part??? by his \"Cincin-
natus complex.\" He was \"haunted by his military background\"
and determined to keep America \"civilian-oriented.\" In his fare-
well address he warned against \"the military-industrial complex.\"
It is odd that Ike from Abilene supplied perhaps the most-used
phrase of the 1960s radicalism. It is odder still that in another
passage he anticipated the growth of anxiety about a \"scientific
technological elite.\"
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