HIGH POINT, N.C., Aug. 26, 2009 – Dr. Terrell A. Hayes, associate professor of sociology at High Point University, recently had a book review published in the journal, “Community Development.”
Hayes reviewed “Pragmatic Liberalism: Constructing a Civil Society,” (2007) by Albert Hunter and Carl Milofsky. The book focuses on why policy interventions have failed to effectively manage the myriad of social problems within the United States, with the authors arguing that the inability as a nation to deal effectively with these problems results from crises of citizenship and the failures of civility.
“The authors offer up pragmatic liberalism as a likely solution to past policy failures, seeing it as being ‘committed to a society that acknowledges its problems and sets about the business of solving them, unconcerned about whether or not the solutions are ideologically correct or dogmatically pure (while requiring) a clear vision on the part of leaders and citizens,'” Hayes says.
In his review, Hayes points out that leaders and citizens often fail to fully acknowledge particular social problems that they do not experience firsthand.
“Although pragmatic liberalism does not concern itself with solutions that are ideologically correct or dogmatically pure, many of the same people who would stand to benefit from it, nevertheless do,” Hayes wrote. “Getting away from ideological concerns when political parties use these same ideologies to mobilize their respective constituencies during times of political crises seems highly improbable. Achieving a clear vision is made all the more problematic when it is obscured by political operatives? ongoing efforts to manipulate and hence obscure public perception as is evident in the current health care debate.”
At High Point University, every student receives an extraordinary education in a fun environment with caring people. HPU, located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina, is a liberal arts institution with 3,700 undergraduate and graduate students from 50 countries and 44 states at campuses in High Point and Winston-Salem. It is ranked by US News and World Report No. 5 among comprehensive universities in the South and No. 1 in its category among up-and-coming schools. Forbes.com ranks HPU in the top 6 percent among “America’s Best Colleges.” HPU was included in The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great Colleges to Work For” 2009 listings. The university offers 68 undergraduate majors, 40 undergraduate minors and seven graduate degree programs. It is accredited by the Commission of Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and is a member of the NCAA, Division I and the Big South Conference. Visit High Point University on the Web at www.highpoint.edu.
Chris DudleyVice President for [email protected]