Faces Of Power : Constancy And Change In United... ((NEW))

Hollow face illusion. A hollow face mask is seen as a convex face. This is striking evidence of the power of visual knowledge; the more realistic the face, the stronger the effect. There is a general tendency to convexity (as most objects are convex), but this is most dramatic for faces. It is clearly a cognitive phenomenon, the significance of which has only recently been realized.

Faces of power : constancy and change in United...

The presence of the perceptual narrowing process with the most experienced faces is supported by eye tracker studies that showed different patterns of exploration for different categories of faces (Liu et al., 2011; Di Giorgio et al., 2013). For instance, the visual scanning paths of 4- to 9-month-old Asian infants presented with same and other-race faces are different as a function of the nature of the stimulus, demonstrating developmental changes in the face processing strategies. For instance, with age, infants tend to look longer at the internal features embedded in the same-race face but not in the other-race faces (Liu et al., 2011).

In line with the presence of this general visual pattern-learning mechanism, active both for faces and non-face stimuli, infants from birth are able to perceive and recognize the invariant perceptual characteristics of a wide range of visual stimuli. For instance, newborns are able to perceive objects and faces as invariant across the retinal changes due to modifications in slant or distance (Slater and Morison, 1985; Slater et al., 1990), both when physical (i.e., simple or complex geometrical patterns) and social objects are available in the environment. For instance, it has been demonstrated that newborns are able to process the invariant features of a face regardless of changes in slant relative to the observer (Turati et al., 2008).

The first reason stems from the unique U.S. political system, especially its endless elections. Every four years brings the chance of a new U.S. administration, and a new resident personality in the White House will mean a unique approach. Former President Donald Trump may be the most extreme case of a policy change associated with an individual president, but rest assured that he will not be the last unique president in U.S. history. This simply is a result of the U.S. presidential system, where too much power is given to the president.

The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American Democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability to the future. If you look around you, you must feel not only the sense of duty done but also you must feel anxiety lest you fall below the level of achievement. Opportunity is here now, clear and shining for both our countries. To reject it or ignore it or fritter it away will bring upon us all the long reproaches of the after-time. It is necessary that constancy of mind, persistency of purpose, and the grand simplicity of decision shall guide and rule the conduct of the English-speaking peoples in peace as they did in war. We must, and I believe we shall, prove ourselves equal to this severe requirement.

All this means that the people of any country have the right, and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections, with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice - let us practice - what we preach.

All this means that the people of any country have the right and should have the power by constitutional action, by free unfettered elections with secret ballot, to choose or change the character or form of government under which they dwell; that freedom of speech and thought should reign; that courts of justice, independent of the executive, unbiased by any party, should administer laws which have received the broad assent of large majorities or are consecrated by time and custom. Here are the title deeds of freedom, which should lie in every cottage home. Here is the message of the British and American peoples to mankind. Let us preach what we practice, let us practice what we preach.

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support. Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all. The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the established government.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority, but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited, remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true character of governments as of other human institutions; that experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes, upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is, indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

[0:05] Dear friends, it's a great pleasure for me to be here tonight and to be able to address you on a subject as fascinating to me as the issue of balancing constancy and change. As many of you are well aware, the interplay between constancy and change has been a major issue in each of the religions of the world in recorded history. It has been at one and the same time, a source of strength to a growing religion and a source of fatal weakness to each of the great religions of the world, of the dispensations of the past. Each religion has at some point in its development had to confront, where should be the balance between constancy and change? Their failure to adequately address this issue has led to their decline. Today, at this stage in the early years of the Baháʼí dispensation, we now face that challenge. Conditions have developed, we have progressed through the Heroic Age of the Faith, we are now into the Formative Age of the Cause, and the question of how to find the correct balance between constancy and change confronts us. And it is this issue that I wish to address tonight. 041b061a72