While in America the trend started as a reaction to the economic decline-after the mass redundancies caused by downsizing in the late ' 80s-and is still linked to the politics of thrift, in Britain, at least among the middle-class down shifters of my acquaintance, we have different reasons for seeking to simplify our lives.
The test of any democratic society, he wrote in a Wall Street Journal column', "lies not in how well it can control expression but in whether it gives freedom of thought and expression the widest possible latitude, however disputable or irritating the results may sometimes be..."During the discussion of rock singing verses at last month's stockholders' meeting, Levin asserted that "music is not the cause of society's ills" and even cited his son, a teacher in the Bronx, New York, who uses rap to communicate with students.
At the same time, the American Law Institute--a group of judges, lawyers, and academics whose recommendations carry substantial weight--issued new guidelines for tort law stating that companies need not warn customers of obvious dangers or bombard them with a lengthy list of possible ones.
When a new movement in art attains a certain fashion, it is advisable to find out what its advocates are aiming at, for, however farfetched and unreasonable their principles may seem today, it is possible that in years to come they may be regarded as normal.
His colleague, Michael Beer, says that far too many companies have applied re-engineering in a mechanistic fashion, chopping out costs without giving sufficient thought to long-term profitability.Defenders of science have also voiced their concerns at meetings such as "The Flight from S.cience and Reason" , held in New York City in 1995, and "Science in the Age of (Mis) information, which assembled last June near Buffalo.
