ABSTRACT
Contemporary social thought has become dominated, if not obsessed by the idea of crisis (Holton 1987). Crisis-talk is expanding on an epidemic scale. No-one needs convincing of the pervasiveness of crisis-perception. The problem is to determine what this situation signifies. Is the ubiquitous sense of crisis indicative of a deterioration in human welfare? Or is it more a symptom of exaggerated expectations about human capacities to improve the human condition? Should we expect current crises to be resolved, and crisis-talk to recede, or is crisis rapidly becoming a permanent fixture, part of the normal order of things?
