The definition is obvious: "A situation characterized by constant and significant turmoil or instability; (now) spec. one that is widespread across a society and caused by an ongoing series of events such as war, economic recession, a pandemic disease, etc."
I think of "permacrisis" as as a political strategy to make people feel that we are always in special dire circumstances, justifying unusual emergency measures, and warranting the sacrifice of our personal pleasure and freedom.
I can't help thinking: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
Googling, I see that "permacrisis" was declared the "word of the year" last year, by Collins Dictionary. I think that represents a glimmer of resentment or fear that we'd never be let out of the restrictions we endured in the name of the pandemic.
Here's an essay by English/Linguistics /Philosophy professor Neil Turnbull from a year ago: "Permacrisis: what it means and why it’s word of the year for 2022." Excerpt:
Here's an essay by English/Linguistics /Philosophy professor Neil Turnbull from a year ago: "Permacrisis: what it means and why it’s word of the year for 2022." Excerpt:
Philosophers have long defined a crisis as a situation that forces an individual or group to a moment of thoughtful critique – to a point where a new path is mapped out in relation to some issue of pressing concern. This definition stems from the ancient Greek term κρίσις or krisis, which describes a medical or political moment of opportunity that bifurcates into life or death, victory or defeat.
However, as philosopher of history Reinhart Koselleck has shown, in modern philosophy, that ancient Greek notion of crisis undergoes a semantic shift. Its meaning changes radically, to refer to a contradiction between opposing forces that accelerates the transition of past into future.
This can be seen in Karl Marx’s description of capitalism as a crisis-ridden economic system....
“Crisis” is similarly defined in American philosopher Thomas Kuhn’s approach to the history of science....
In both cases, “crisis” is linked to the idea – the ideal, even – of progress....
“Permacrisis” represents the contemporary inversion of this conception.... [I]t precludes any idea of further progress. Instead of leading to something better, it denotes a static and permanently difficult situation.....
Permacrisis signals not only a loss of faith in progress, but also a new realism in relation to what people can cope with and achieve. Our crises have become so complex and deep-seated that they can transcend our capacity to understand them. Any decision to tackle them risks only making things worse....
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It feels different than when I was young. There were crises then, but now we are in a permacrisis. And it very much feels manufactured.
There's also a book "Permacrisis: A Plan to Fix a Fractured World" by Gordon Brown, Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence, reviewed in The Guardian last month in "Permacrisis by Gordon Brown, Mohamed El-Erian and Michael Spence review – road to nowhere/A call for growth from three veterans of the financial crisis rings hollow."
Permacrisis is not a loss of faith in progress, it is the left’s preferred tactic to get what they want. “Never let a crisis go to waste…”
Permacrisis.
It’s by design.
1984 was meant as a warning, not as an instruction manual.
“Never let a crisis go to waste.”
Climate change issues? It’s all hype meant to KEEP us in permacrisis.
Shamelessly causing irrational fear in impressionable children.
R Emmett Tyrrell's The American Spectator, back when he was a right wing humorist in Carter days, had a monthly column "The Continuing Crisis," the joke being that that's a contradiction.
"Permacrisis is not a loss of faith in progress, it is the left’s preferred tactic to get what they want."
Sure seems that way. I have friends who's primary news source is NPR. They are in a constant state of agitation. It's tiring.
What we need in an age of permacrisis is a President who thrives on chaos!
All of the problems listed in that definition are created by government-- bad government policies (war, energy shortages, inflation) or government fear-mongering (Covid, climate change). If we change our governments (hello Argentina and Netherlands) We will end the permacrisis. May America start next November.
Back in 2008, Obama said he wanted to fundamentally transform America. It’s strange how no one pressed him on what transformations he wanted to make. And here we are. Never let a crisis go to waste, and make everything a crisis. But don’t you dare question the holy Narrative.
This seems on-topic: https://www.thefp.com/p/douglas-murray-ts-eliot-four-quartets
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other economic system is history. It has enabled the US to export aid to millions of poor and indigent people world wide.
It is no mystery why the Commie-Pinko left hates it.
If we could only reign in the crony capitalists than reside in DC. Funneling taxpayer funds to friends, relatives, and other crooks with their hands out is not capitalism.
i think the word they're looking for is: panicdemic
the senseless and stupid (and manufactured) panic about things that AREN'T that important
* a cold virus
* a civil war in the union of soviet socialist republics, between different soviet socialist republics
* a "war" in the mideast, where muslims are raping and murdering jews (and jews are fighting back)
There is a simple way, to describe a day when All that happens.. it is a day, that ends in "y"
Bareback Obama is the gift that keeps on giving. Actually scratch that. Since we don't know Barry's proclivities he might be the gift that keeps on 'getting'.
Both work.
I've picked up on this some time ago.
The quote you provided about never letting a cris going to waste is a big neon sign about the lefts narrative.
The George Orwell hand book of governance, requires the elimination of history. (like destroying statues).
History informs us chaos is the normal we exist in. Our personal lives inform us of this. Who doesn't have crisis,(Our host excluded) big and small in our lives, daily, weekly, yearly?
Why does the left keep shouting Trump is a crisis? Despite the 4 years of history proving Trump led us through 4 years of peace and prosparity. The only crisis was the lefts lies about Trump.
The Dobbs decision is supposes to be a crisis. Defined by more babies. Thats where the left always takes you. Babies being born is how the left defines a crisis. Let that sink in.
climate change, political instability, energy crisis, recession and cost-of-living crisis.
more days, that end in "y"
Permacrisis is the prime directive of the advertising revenue generating algorithms. The song "For What it's Worth" laid the groundwork:
paranoia strikes deep, into your mind it will creep, it starts when you're always afraid Step out of line, the men come and take you away
We better stop
Hey, what's that sound?
Everybody look, what's going down?
In this case, use art to inform and enhance your life. Don't look to blame art (and the Jews) for your failures. The real commonality of human deprivation is the fixation on guilt and blame rather than having a measure of strategic empathy for yourself and others.
The permacrisis destroys empathy which leads to the abyss of depression and mental illness.
"I think of "permacrisis" as as a political strategy to make people feel that we are always in special dire circumstances, justifying unusual emergency measures, and warranting the sacrifice of our personal pleasure and freedom."
I think that's perfect regarding the political strategy. I would add "driven by a media heavily biased for that political tactic and the lust for eyes and clicks" or something close to that right after political strategy maybe.
Seems like both US political parties have convinced their supporters that there is a permacrisis.
Rhetoric on the right about immigration, the deep state, public schools and diverse children's literature, lgbtq and abortion, elections always stolen by their opponents, etc have all become these endlessly repeating refrains of a permacrisis as well.
Both sides are easy to manipulate by their masters.
The upcoming election year will demand permacrisis. I haven’t figured out if they are going to recycle the old ones they’ve made- covid, mostly peaceful protests, war, threat to democracy, or if the new one is the rolling list of felony convictions on trumped up charges leading to a ‘you’re not allowed to vote for him’ in key battleground states because standinglachesmoot…
I lived thru the 70s: the humiliation of Vietnam, the upheaval over Watergate, gas lines, 12% inflation, 11% unemployment, Iran hostages, Three Mile Island.
But these times feel worse. Much, much worse. Darker. Ominous.
The world is currently on a downtrend, what with Israel, Ukraine, Uyghurs, and all the awfulness that flies under the radar, but are thing really worse than at any randomly selected year in human history?
Perhaps you have seen the meme that pictures a simple tract house with the caption relating to unimagined luxury that could not be attained by anyone anywhere 100 years ago? The person wo lives in that simple 1200 foot house has full access to Western Civilization- modern medicine and surgery, machines that blow cold air in the summer and hot air in the winter, machines that move him or her around at speeds and comfort that the king of 19th century England could not imagine. Access to the internet and all that implies.
Yes, there is Tik-Tok to deal with, and the Gramscian-leftist infiltration of our formerly useful institutions. The current problem is Hamas, who should be eradicated as a force and as an idea, but are they qualitatively worse than the Comanches at their peak?
The majority of the abortion warriors on either side are truly dedicated to the rightness of their cause, but the absence of a workable compromise is 100% due to the need of agitators on both sides who need the war to continue for psychological or, more likely, pecuniary reasons.
This does not mean stop paying attention, or stop fighting for what you believe. Protect what is yours, fight for what is right, but beware those who manipulate others for their own needs.
"Nightclubs of the broken-hearted, stadiums of the damned
Legislature, perverted nature, doors that are rudely slammed
Look into infinity, all you see is trouble"
"I think of "permacrisis" as as a political strategy to make people feel that we are always in special dire circumstances, justifying unusual emergency measures, and warranting the sacrifice of our personal pleasure and freedom."
That sounds similar to Henry Fairlie's view of how people used the word crisis, even without the perma-. As I recall, it was one of the themes in The Kennedy Promise: The Politics of Expectation (1973).
I can't help thinking: "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."
Unapologetic is the word I associate with 0bama, as he has so much to apologize for.
COVID wasn't a crisis. The crisis was government taking advantage of it.
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”
― H.L. Mencken
Permacrisis is an oxymoron.
Never let a serious permacrisis go to waste.
I believe reading this article is the first time I have encountered the word "permacrisis." A search of Althouse indicates it is the only time it has been used here.
I have always remembered that quote from Michelle Obama and thought it sounded kind of foreboding and unnecessarily extreme. I mean... why did the country need so much change if her husband, a man who identified as a fully black man, was very competitive to become President of the United States. What was so wrong about our traditions. It gives me the creeps more than ever today after statues got pulled down and so many young people seem to hate our capitalistic system.
Several commenters mention the role of the media. Others mention the role of politicians. Agreed on both counts! There's a name for it: conflict entrepreneurs. See the discussion of this concept in the 2021 book High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out by Amanda Ripley.
Althouse writes, "Googling, I see that "permacrisis" was declared the "word of the year" last year, by Collins Dictionary."
I have never read a more cogent reason to distrust a dictionary.
This puts me in mind of an episode of Blackadder the Third. The late Robbie Coltrain made an appearance as Dr. Samuel Johnson in an unaccustomed exuberant mood, having just completed the manuscript of his dictionary. Blackadder vexes him by using nonsense words like contrafibularities. 'Tis a common word amongst the Althouse habiutés, and celebrated by Johnson (and Boswell, who celebrates everything) as 1788's Word of the Year, followed by permacrisis in 1789.
With the ability to see events around the world, you can manufacture a crisis at home based on that event - as long as it drives an agenda.
Also, what is a crisis for you may not be a crisis for me, no matter what the media and politicians say. But then, how do we now know what a crisis actually is? If it doesn’t affect 95% of the world, is it a crisis? Is the loss of internet access to a sheep farmer in Australia a crisis, or is not having any hot dog buns when it’s hot dogs for dinner a crisis?
The political classes are TELLING us there is a CRISIS yet they live, consume, and carry on as if they wish us to live a crisis so they can live richly.
Barry and Michelle our prophets of doom, now fulfilling it through their puppet Joe.
Keep 'em riled up and always off balance,
The Hard Road to World Order. Richard Gardner, Foreign Affairs, April, 1974,
Rhetoric on the right about immigration, the deep state, public schools and diverse children's literature, lgbtq and abortion, elections always stolen by their opponents, etc have all become these endlessly repeating refrains of a permacrisis as well.
With one big difference. The issues you name as a "permacrisis" on the right are real. Global warming, Palestinian genocide and transgender issues are not real.
Announcement: Hereafter and henceforth the PAN-demic shall be referred to as the DEM-panic, because that is largely what it was or at least became. I can't believe this is not already common practice.
The world has always been in some form of permacrisis. The difference today IMHO is the belief that state action (most typically federal regulation) and only state action can and must solve the crisis. It is the logical result of Mussolini’s. “Everything within the state ….”
Perma-crisis means Perma-struggle.
That’s the aim.
1984 had permacrisis, as the three alliances were always at war. They would switch up who was allied with who in order to bring the war back into prominence. But the point was to be at war, in order to invoke the emergency powers.
We aren't in the general war envisioned by Orwell. No, neither Ukraine nor Gaza count - if you can name the specific areas, it's not a general war.
But we're sure getting one crisis (presented as requiring emergency powers) after another.
Each new sub-crisis is bringing us closer to networked, AI driven totalitarianism.
In the past, a crisis brought Americans together. These endless sub-crises of the permacrisis are different. They are always divisive in the way they are presented and in the proposed solutions.
People are encouraged to learn a tribal pattern matching approach to the story of the crisis rather than logical and reasoned one. They are being taught through these crises how to identify enemy tribes online from what they say and do and to react with outrage and even violence. The Jewish teacher who posted support for Israel on Facebook and was literally hunted by an angry mob in her school is a recent, egregious example. There are many others.
The crises are also constantly used to rally support for censorship of the online "enemy" tribe. For example, Musk is being accused of using X to promote his personal antisemitism. This accusation does not stand up for a moment to logic and reason, but that doesn't matter if he can be successfully labeled an enemy by those who want the power to censor him.
If you believe you are fighting an enemy that hates you, all manner of abuses of power can seem justified, censorship, suspending enumerated rights, election interference and fraud, violent assault, looting, burning, rioting, killing, etc. We've seen all of this already and it's going to get worse.
A new formal effort to teach tribal pattern matching and ID'ing online enemies is being pushed on young people under the name of "Media Literacy". They're passing laws in NY and California requiring this stuff in public schools.
I looked up Permanent Crisis on Amazon and they kept interrupting my reading with ads for Metamucil.
"Permacrisis" is a word for people who need to meditate.
Mark said...
"Seems like both US political parties have convinced their supporters that there is a permacrisis.
Rhetoric on the right about immigration, the deep state, public schools and diverse children's literature, lgbtq and abortion, elections always stolen by their opponents, etc have all become these endlessly repeating refrains of a permacrisis as well.
Both sides are easy to manipulate by their masters."
What a pitiful attempt to deflect. You voted for this. You own it. And the sad fact is that the rest of the country not so molar grindingly dense as to vote for Biden are going to have to pay for it. But that was your goal wasn't it?
I think of "permacrisis" as as a political strategy to make people feel that we are always in special dire circumstances, justifying unusual emergency measures, and warranting the sacrifice of our personal pleasure and freedom.
Yes. Permacrisis is attractive to people who like being frightened all the time. Following government directives gives them a sense of control over their lives and, most importantly, a way to judge themselves superior to others (who don't get with the plan).
well Orwell cribbing from Burnham projected World War 2 continuing for two generation, projecting from 1949, where a Revolution would have taken over most of the West, as it had Russia in the last one,
rehajm said...
The upcoming election year will demand permacrisis. I haven’t figured out if they are going to recycle the old ones they’ve made- covid, mostly peaceful protests, war, threat to democracy, or if the new one is the rolling list of felony convictions on trumped up charges leading to a ‘you’re not allowed to vote for him’ in key battleground states because standinglachesmoot…}}}}}
Here's what I fear is most likely: Our government, social, and cultural "leaders" will make it very clear, and will not apologize, that if Trump gets elected, we will have riots. Lots of riots. Ongoing riots. They will be "mostly peaceful" and they will have the potential to tear us apart. Also, look for false flags: there will be heavily-publicized instances of Trump supporters---real or phony---acting badly. You can find a lot of Ray Epps-types in a country of 335 million people.
1. The less one consumes corporate media the less in crisis one feels.
2. The unfortunate corollary to 1 is that the less informed the voters are the more they vote for more of the same.
3. The fewer conservatives in either party the more the “Two-Party Democratic Republic” becomes a Uniparty Oligarchy.
As proof most of what Mark assigns to the right half of his bothsidesism is not in any way conservative or part of the official Republican platform.
So, to sum it up:
1. Permacrisis seems to be defined, by consensus, as a political/social artifice, perpetuated by the political/policy class, to scare the normies into a state where they are more amenable to suggestion and clamoring to be led to safety. A cynical facilitation for gaining power and authority.
2. The power gained is not designed to serve in the interest of the populace.
3. The age of Permacrisis began, by design as a product of the Obama administrations.
Interesting, the consistency of the comments here.
I often wonder how much of my largely pessimistic thinking these days is just a product of being older, more experienced, more aware, and more jaded - rather than an actual product of a declining society. I think there are elements of both, there. But I also think the fact that these perverse societal changes have been identified and described, and critically discussed, that the process of pushback is well underway. Political currents move slowly, but powerfully. You have to be careful that you don't create another permacrisis to fight the first one.
EVERYONE of these attributable to Biden and the democrats, except the war in Ukraine, that one is on the United States and NATO.
- COVID -- Extensive,pervasive government tyranny over peoples lives and freedoms.
- Climate Change Issues --- Absolutely a power grab by democrats.
- Political Instability --- BLM, Antifa, Russian Collusion, J6 politcal trials, Trump political persecutions.
- Energy crisis periond. Day one canceling Keystone pipeline, emptying Strategic Petroleum Reserve, limiting energy exploration all over the country.
- Inflation --- DIRECT result of tripling our energy costs, which seeds all inflation.
- Then hyper spending on the green new deal.
EVERY single one of these crises is purposefully created by the democrat party.
I lived thru the 70s: the humiliation of Vietnam, the upheaval over Watergate, gas lines, 12% inflation, 11% unemployment, Iran hostages, Three Mile Island.
You left out disco. (Steve Dahl had to blow up half of Chicago to finally defeat it.)
I disagree about the permacrisis as a strategy, because the political class aren't that smart. What wrle are seeing is the result of decades of mismanagement and incompetence, and short-term thinking. The accumulated social, cultural, political, and economic capital which kept the system running has been used up.
We are governed by Anthony and Gloria Patch, and the money has run out.
All intentional, and all driven by liberals and liberal media to provoke radical change in the direction that suits their purpose.
It's pretty fucking obvious...
Let me fix Queen Moochie's comment: "Barack will never allow you to go back to being uninvolved, un mis-informed, and unafraid".
As for uninvolved, well heck fire we will make you do what we want---except for Ol Barack who can eat his waffle in peace.
I'm trying to think of four people who have been more destructive to US civil order than Barack, Moochelle, Slow Joe and the Kackler. And I can't think of anyone, much less four.
Apparently, our blog host has never encountered the concept of "gaslighting", and is unable to identify the phenomenon...
Last decade's been full of it, and the body politic is reacting just like the people behind it want, and will likely do some very odd things in the future, under the influence of all this. What it's going to be looking like, when the final denouement comes? No idea, but I don't think the "non-kinetic" bit will last long enough for me to see myself into the grave peacefully...
The left-right nexus is leftist (i.e. authoritarian).
A state of perpetual crisis or riots (i.e. disorder) is an opportunity to rape... reap capital (i.e. material benefits) and control (e.g. ethical modes) in an atheist universe (i.e. mortal gods and goddesses) in the conventional fashion.
We fought a War on Terror, and Terror won.
To what degree is the permacrisis self-perpetuating due to the nature of social media?
How does an event escalate to a new sub-crisis? How much of that is due to deliberate input from party or parties hoping to benefit and how much is due to a sort of organic social contagion?
None of us are immune to being swept up in a network swarm by emotional triggers presented to us online. Can we help protect ourselves by being aware of the signs? Like finding yourself suddenly very emotionally caught up on one "side" of an issue that doesn't directly, personally impact you, especially one that you hardly ever even thought about until it started appearing in your media. Or finding yourself suddenly intensely allied with and/or intensely opposed to a group of anonymous total strangers on the internet. That might be a time to pause and reflect. It's easier to see the signs in others than in ourselves, but that doesn't really help us.
"1. The less one consumes corporate media the less in crisis one feels."
My sense of crisis comes directly from reading Althouse's blog. This is NOT NOT NOT a criticism, but an observation that so much of the cultural rot I am aware of I would not be if I didn't spend time here. In fact, if people had told it to me sans my Althouse readings, I wouldn't believe it.
That's a feature, not a bug. Unless you believe C19 was spawned in a wet market. And the other feature was setting the stage to steal the 2020 election. The "media" also knew the Russia collusion hoax was BS, but pushed it front and center for 2 years.
“I looked up Permanent Crisis on Amazon and they kept interrupting my reading with ads for Metamucil.”
Are you typing with a “heavy hand”, hard keystrokes that could be characterized as “angry”? Could be diagnosing constipation at your end.
Bob Boyd @ 12:08 says it well.
"I lived thru the 70s: the humiliation of Vietnam, the upheaval over Watergate, gas lines, 12% inflation, 11% unemployment, Iran hostages, Three Mile Island."
That's to say nothing of the impending ice age, the acid rain, the ozone hole, and best of all, the upcoming global famine and subsequent global breakdown of societies in the near future. Tuff times, indeed.
My sense of crisis comes directly from reading Althouse's blog.
Some of her commenters are still stuck on Flight 93.
HERE is a crisis to worry about!
https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/richest-1-emit-much-planet-heating-pollution-two-thirds-humanity
It turns out that the world's richest 1 percent emit about the same amount of carbon as the world's poorest two-thirds, according to an analysis from the nonprofit Oxfam International.
This means that a small sliver of global elites, or 77 million people, have produced as much carbon as the 5 billion people that make up the bottom 66 percent by wealth, per the study.
The study also estimates that it would take roughly 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99 percent to produce as much carbon as the wealthiest billionaires do in just one year.
CLEARLY, The Only Solution is to EXECUTE those 77 million hotspots.. For the Sake of the Planet!
Somehow, i'm thinking Bill Gates and John Kerry and Al Gore would have an issue with this "crisis"
Which MEANS.. The global warming "Crisis" may well be about to be swept under the rug
My sense of crisis comes directly from reading Althouse's blog.
The revisiting of human rites, political congruence, diversity, noble Springs, ethical religion, twilight faith, Dreams of Herr Mengele, etc. are the many splendored artifacts of social progress: one step forward, two steps backward.
The world is always in crisis, and always has been.
It's up to you how much to care.
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