Saturday, January 24, 2009

What Forking Crisis?

cri-sis, n.; pl. cri-ses, [L. crisis; Gr krisis, a separating, decision, from krinein, to decide, separate.]
1. a serious or decisive state of things, or the turning point when an affair must soon terminate or suffer a material change; a decisive or crucial time, stage, or event.
This hour's the very of your fate.
--Dryden
2. in medicine, the turning point in the course of a disease, which indicates recovery or death.

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My point being, of course, that if there was a fucking crisis in the financial sector, it is either long over, or it has become something other than a crisis, no? Because a crisis is a crucial moment, the make-or-break, the act-now-or-die part of the plot.

And how far are we into this one? What is it now? Five months? Six? "Blah blah blah crisis in the financial sector," say the government-appointed talking heads around the world.

"Blah blah blah bailout to weather the credit crisis," shout the banking johnnies.

Folks, if it actually had been a crisis, it would already be over. That's the nature of a crisis. Something that lasts five or six months and only shows signs of getting worse isn't a crisis. It's a situation that calls for an entirely different word.

I'd suggest disaster. Fuckup. Clusterfuck. Snafu. Fubar. Cat Ass Trophy. I'd offer kitty-catty-clysm, or collapse, or decline-and-fall. There are plenty of options. If you want to limit it to the purely economic - which I believe would be terribly optimistic of you, given the worldwide problems with climate, energy supplies, food supplies, water supplies, overpopulation, deforestation, ocean acidification, desertification and mass extinction, all of which are tied into and relevant to this so-called fucking 'financial crisis' in one sense or another, you could even use the word 'depression'.

But crisis... that just sounds so much better, doesn't it? Because a crisis is something which arises and is overcome by proper action. It is a turning point in the plot, the break-point of the fever.

Crisis: so much easier to fit into a thirty-second sound bite than the Slow And Laboured End Of The Cockeyed System We Have Been Calling 'Civilisation'.

9 comments:

  1. Yah. I think that the word 'crisis' is still in use because the only noun that can describe how bad things are at the moment begins with the prefix "cluster" and they're prohibited from using it in polite company. (Not that newspapers are anything LIKE polite company, but you get the drift.)

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  2. Yeah, Media, Gummit and Finance sectors utilisation of WORD is exactly what I would call FUCKED.

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  3. I always liked "fiasco".

    Has the added benefit of alliteration with "financial" as well. :)

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  4. Yet another reason why Paul keating should be drafted to write the national English curriculum

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  5. Just clearing red wine splashes from screen. Nearly choked on that one FH.
    heheheh
    Send it to the ABC producer for perspective. Too too troo.They often have people on more than once.

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  6. Y'think, Hughesy?

    Hmm. Actually -- yeah. It's kinda their thing, isn't it?

    Okay.

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  7. FUBAR is best, SNAFU tends to indicate it's something we do often....

    BTW do you think the Jspace mass extinction is linked to the problem?

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  8. Boy are you in trouble. Actually questioing the widely accepted terminology for "we're fucked" goes against GFC Special Directive 303.

    I heard Gillard use it again this morning and cringed. Every fucking sentence trotted out by any politician apparently has to include 'Global Financial Crisis'.
    We've got the message. Get on with your jobs.

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