Existing in a World of Institutionalized Danger

Abstract

We live in a world of institutionalized danger. Our world has Increasingly become beset with critical problems demanding timely and effective resolution; however, as the number and intensity of these problems have increased, procedures and mechanisms to identify, assess, and interpret them have either not kept apace or have become so overloaded that resolution has not happened. In a world dominated by life-shaping and life-impacting trends that have remained unexamined for so long, we have become unable either to comprehend or cope with them in productive ways. Ours is a world in permanent crisis, a situation resulting In decisions affecting millions which are routinely ignored or deferred--only to emerge later in more pressing form, which are made by only a few individuals under such pressure that thought and analysis scarcely occur, or which are not made at all.