PATERNALISM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Paternalism

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/pətˈərnəlˌɪzəm/ Listen

Paternalism

noun

The attitude (of a person or a government) that subordinates should be controlled in a fatherly way for their own good.

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Etymology of 'Paternalism'

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"Paternalism" Quotes from Famous Books

... are about it make a note of a fact we let go unheeded too long to our harm, and haven't grasped fully yet. The legislative committee of 1857 said it: "to prevent drunkenness provide every man with a clean and comfortable home." Call it paternalism, crankery, any other hard name you can think of, all the same it goes down underneath the foundation of things. I have known drunkards to wreck homes a plenty in my time; but I have known homes, too, that made drunkards by the shortest cut. ...

— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis

... of the by-products are of value, notably self-reliance and self-respect. A child yearns to play a thinking part in the drama of life and not the part of a marionette or jumping-jack that moves only when someone pulls the string. He yearns to be an entity and not a mere echo. Paternalism, in our school work, does not make for self-reliance, and, therefore, is to be deplored. There is small hope for the child without initiative, who is helped over every slightest obstacle, and who acquires the habit of calling for help whenever he ...

— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson

... three centuries later. By discouraging industry in Spain, and yet enforcing in the colonies an absolute commercial dependence on the home-country, by combining in their rule of distant America a solicitous paternalism with a restriction of initiative altogether disastrous in its consequences, the Spaniards succeeded in reducing their colonies to political impotence. And when, to make their grip the more firm, they evolved, as a method of outwitting the foreigner ...

— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring

Words linked to "Paternalism" : governing, governance, paternalistic, mental attitude, attitude, government, administration, government activity