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World outlook

Quite some time ago, I was asked a question about the term “world outlook”. Having answered it I let it go, but have since had a lingering thought that this is a question worthy of a column – if I could collect some good media examples.

Happily, I came upon one such example yesterday, in a Guardian story about Barack Obama’s first day in office. The story (Whirlwind hits Washington as President Obama starts work, January 22, 2009) says, among other things:

President Barack Obama yesterday devoted his first full day in office to ditching one discredited Bush administration policy after another - proposing the closure of the Guantánamo Bay prison and offering a new relationship to Iran.... He also phoned world leaders to emphasize that a new president is in charge, with a completely different agenda and world outlook.

Now, definitions.

The word outlook refers to a view. You look out the window from your room for example and you will see a view and that view is an outlook in its fundamental sense.

You may argue that your room doesn’t have a view. By that you will be speaking figuratively, or philosophically meaning that it doesn’t have a good view, a pleasant view. I recall E.M. Forester’s beautifully written book, A Room with a View, began with an exact discussion about the view, or the lacks thereof, from a hotel room in Italy.

Obviously all rooms must have a view – if, that is, they have windows at all to look out of. But what constitutes a view – a good view – is quite another matter. Different people see views differently, as they view everything else differently. Why?