Numerous authors In philosophy, literature, and sociology write about contemporary world crisis. In your opinion, what does such crisis mean? What impact does it have on daily living? Above all, who are the best writers (and artists) to consult about crisis?
I guess, I have a somewhat historical perspective. I read a lot of texts that are not contemporary. And I realized that the topic of "crisis" is a rather old one. Since the 1920s or so, everyone talks about "the" crisis, meaning the crisis at the moment the speak. So, judging from those texts, it seems to me, that there is no cyclic model of crisis -at least not in discourse- but a permanent construction of this crisis. Maybe it would be of interest to do a discourse analysis on the concept of crisis (or a history of ideas or of concepts). Just... who pays me?
Philipp, I seem to recall that Wilhelm DIlthey spoke of "Krisis" already in the late 1890s and early 1910s before Husserl addressed himself to it in "Phänomenologie als strenge Wissenschaft." Then it became common currency in Scheler, Ortega, Heidegger, etc. They also proceeded to look for cultural crisis in the Baroque and also even in Greek Antiquity!
Here is another historical question, Philipp: those who experience crisis and theorize about it are the intellectuals alone. The vast majority may be living through that crisis but are believers and unaware of crisis. Is this true?
Interesting question, Nelson. Even if I do not want to believe that "the people" are easy to manipulate, I think, the topic of crisis is simply to strong. For instance, in the somewhat more then 10 years I do care about this, I lived two crisis (one around 2000, the other one is that which is still going on). And I had the impression with the people around me (and with myself, by the way), that crisis is seen as some kind of natural disaster: you can only hide. So I came to the idea that crisis is a central mechanism of political domination - as there is almost always a crisis, you should better work hard and not demand too much, or you loose your job.
In other words, crisis is the whip that the dominators use on the backs of the people to keep them at work and undemanding. The moment that the sense of urgency diminishes, people start making their demands of their rulers.
Well, if I am not reading Marx and his followers wrong, there are two ways of creating uprisings (or at least, a more in demands and mobilizations): one would be what I draw up, the lack of concrete oppression and fear that allows a greater reflection. The other would be the radical opposite: a un-supportable oppression, poverty and so on. The latter was the case in the "arab spring". But I think, we are straying from our point...
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