Word: meaningless
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Such native stylistic ploys, like poetry, suffer dreadfully even in the best of translations, and this one, by Barbara Bray, is much too stiff-lipped, too unbendingly British. Ultimately, what does Le Clézio in, is his decision to mirror his Life-is-shapeless-and-meaningless view in its own terms. All arbitrary mood and no movement can't help making for a dull book. "Nothing is necessary any more," concludes the non-hero cryptically as he is being buried. "But neither is anything unnecessary." That phlegmatic formulation ought to come as some sort of wan, stoical triumph...
...position on the substantive issues behind the strike, the meeting can make no decision on whether or not the strike should be continued. Only the strikers can call off the strike. Consequently, the meeting should not vote on this matter, and if it does, the vote should be considered meaningless...
...leaving vague the details and intentions of his policy, Trudeau infuriated many Canadians. For the socialist New Democrats, who favor an immediate pullout, Deputy Leader David Lewis denounced the decision as "meaningless, imprecise, nothing short of scandalous." Conservative Leader Robert Stanfield complained that Canada was failing to live up to the defense obligations that it helped shape as a founding member of NATO. The NATO allies are also certain to be disappointed. Canada's six squadrons of CF-104 Starfighters and the 5,000-man armored brigade in West Germany have been a valuable part of the NATO shield...
Such a society will not just serve the individual but give him an opportunity to serve. When people are serving, life is no longer meaningless; they no longer feel rootless. Without allegiance and commitment, individual freedom degenerates into a sterile self-preoccupation...
Until instruments more precise than the IQ test are developed, any attempt to rank the intelligence of black and white is meaningless-and is bound to be mischievous in the light of its political implications. Too little is known of the genes to justify positive statements about their contribution to the intelligence of mankind at large, much less to any division of mankind. The suspicion that there are genetically determined differences at birth, and that these may contribute to the enormous diversity of the human intellect, is at least as old as Plato. But, as Geneticist Lederberg observes, "it remains...