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What is "paternalism"

Crossword clues for paternalism

paternalism
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
paternalism
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Economists rarely subscribe to the value judgement of whole-scale paternalism.
▪ His lack of charisma and often unhappy persona will contrast sharply with Mandela's awesome humility, humour and stern paternalism.
▪ If the philosophical basis for these inroads into the general principle is paternalism, what legal bases or justifications are there?
▪ Not only did these men share the hardships of combat, their very survival imbued many with a pre-disposition to paternalism.
▪ The birth of commercial television in the early fifties was a victory for money over breeding, of corporate power over paternalism.
▪ The world was less kind to Storni, for whom paternalism provided no protection.
▪ They smacked of mutton-chop whiskers and paternalism.
▪ Yet, when we dig a little deeper, we find simply another style of moral paternalism lies buried beneath the surface.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Paternalism

Paternalism \Pa*ter"nal*ism\, n. (Polit. Science) The theory or practice of paternal government. See Paternal government, under Paternal.
--London Times.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
paternalism

"feeling of a father for his children," 1851; "government as by a father over his children," 1866, from paternal + -ism. Related: Paternalistic (1890).

Wiktionary
paternalism

n. The treatment of people in a fatherly manner, especially by caring for them but sometimes being stern with them.

WordNet
paternalism

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

Wikipedia
Paternalism

Paternalism is behavior by an organization or state that limits some person or group's liberty or autonomy for what is presumed to be that person's or group's own good. Paternalism can also imply that the behavior is against or regardless of the will of a person, or also that the behavior expresses an attitude of superiority.

The word paternalism is from the Latin pater “father” via the adjective paternus “fatherly”; paternalism should be though distinguished from patriarchy. Some, such as John Stuart Mill, think paternalism to be appropriate towards children: "It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that this doctrine is meant to apply only to human beings in the maturity of their faculties. We are not speaking of children, or of young persons below the age which the law may fix as that of manhood or womanhood." Paternalism towards adults is sometimes thought to treat them as if they were children.

Usage examples of "paternalism".

Together with physiocrats like Du Pont de Nemours they hammered out an economic policy that was a calculated compromise between free enterprise and state paternalism.