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1. Crisis and Catastrophe in Science, Law, and Politics: Mapping the Terrain
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1 Crisis and Catastrophe in Science, Law, and Politics Mapping the Terrain Peter H. Schuck Crisis and catastrophe loom dauntingly, even impossibly, large in science and law. (I use the plural because crisis and catastrophe are quite distinct phenomena, despite their potential overlap.) They are also words that we moderns use so casually and promiscuously that their meanings have lost whatever precision they may have once possessed, and have acquired that familiar fuzziness that marks so much of our popular discourse. Their capaciousness and imprecision, of course, furnish all the more reason— and enticement—for scholars to take them on and try to wring from them some drops of intelligibility, clarification, and perhaps even guidance for our inevitable encounters with them in the future. This explains my challenge and motive. Here, I intend to map the broad conceptual terrains of crisis and catastrophe: the definitions, analytical distinctions, explanatory frameworks, institutional milieus, regulatory techniques, and perspectival interpenetrations (my clumsy term for the fruitful ways in which legal and scientific concepts bleed into one another). I leave to later chapters the hard thinking about their real-world implications and applications. Definitions The definition of crisis and catastrophe begins with the definition of definition . According to the always reliable Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the first two definitions of definition are (1) the formal proclamation of Roman Catholic dogma, and (2) a statement expressing the essential nature of something. Let’s jump to the second definition. c ha P ter one 0 The Oxford English Dictionary defines crisis, in pathological terms, as “the point in the progress of a disease when an important development or change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; the turningpoint of a disease for better for worse; also applied to any marked or sudden variation occurring in the progress of a disease and to the phenomena accompanying it.” More generally, a crisis is “a vitally important or decisive stage in the progress of anything . . . ; also, a state of affairs in which a decisive change for better or worse is imminent; now applied esp. to times of difficulty, insecurity, and suspense in politics or commerce.”Two aspects of these definitions are notable. First, a crisis is a point in a dynamic process; it is not static. Second and related, it may mark a turning point for the better, not just for the worse. In this same encouraging vein, as I point out later, it has often been remarked (usually by the Panglossians among us) that the Chinese character for crisis also means opportunity. The OED definitions of catastrophe seem much darker, referring more to end- states, and bad ones at that. The third definition is “an event producing a subversion of the order or system of things,” and the fourth is “a sudden disaster, wide-spread, very fatal, or signal.” The OED goes on to note parenthetically, and with gentle mockery, that “in the application of exaggerated language to misfortunes it is used very loosely.”1 Even here, however, there is some room for optimism. After all, subverting the order or system of things may be the prelude to progress. Or so all revolutionaries tell us, and some of them have been right. (Although it depends on one’s time frame. Chou En-Lai famously replied to a question about the effects of the French Revolution, “It’s too early to tell.”) Moving from canonical definitions to colloquial usagesand picking up on the OED’s parenthetical observation, one need only listen to our colleagues or children, not to mention people on television or the subway, to know that we have normalized, and in that sense trivialized, both of these seemingly apocalyptic words. Why should that be? As an objective, historical matter, it is difficult to believe that we face more and worse crises and catastrophes today than our ancestors did. This qualification brings us to two other important points about these words, points also discussed later: crisis and catastrophe are to a considerable extent in the eye of the beholder, and they seem highly dependent on sociocultural context. This historical speculation reflects my perception that we moderns marinate in apprehension of imminent and painful death, obsession about mortal sin, fear of social exclusion, and bewilderment over God’s inscrutable justice much less than our forebears did.2 Although crisis and catastro- [34.237.245.80] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 12:21 GMT) crisis and catastrophe in science, Law, and Politics phe are of course common in Third...