After observing politics and public policy for 20+ years, I can confidently say that the term “crisis” has been injected into nearly every policy circle: climate crisis; immigration crisis; doctor and nurse shortage crisis; debt crisis; home affordability crisis; energy crisis; financial crisis; fertility crisis; etc. It’s… a lot.
You’re not imagining it — the word is used more today than at any point in the last 200+ years, and the fact that its use increased more after WWII than it did during is revealing.1
To be clear — all of these problems are absolutely real and worth understanding and solving. However, framing challenging-but-solvable problems as a “crisis” is likely counter-productive. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes this about a psychological crisis:
In a crisis, affected people take in information, process information, and act on information differently than they would during non-crisis times. People or groups may exaggerate their communication responses. They may revert to more basic or instinctive fight-or-flight reasoning.
In other words, we’re not wired to solve complex, long-term problems in a crisis state: we’re wired to fight a lion in a crisis state. Is base-instinct, fight-or-flight reasoning ideal when confronting a surge in migration? Probably not. Is “degrowth” a rational response to reversing climate change trends? No.
Negativity overwhelmingly drives news, and the everything-crisis mentality is likely a symptom of this broader bias. But, as depression levels — particularly among younger people — skyrocket, we really need to find better ways to communicate the severity of modern problems without resorting to excessive “doomerism” and misery.
Replacing the word “crisis” in policy circles seems like an easy way to turn down the temperature on a lot of issues, but media and politics seems firmly committed to “the everything crisis”.