Join IAI Live August for an online programme of debate, discussion, and discovery with the world's leading thinkers on the critical issues of our time taking place in our online festival venue. IAI Live August, featuring world-renowned speakers Anne Applebaum, Genevieve Gunther, Penny Mordaunt, Steve Koonin and Daron Acemoglu, tackles the notion and language of risk and catastrophe.

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'From the cost of living crisis to the climate crisis, the crisis in healthcare to the crisis of migration, we live in a world of seemingly relentless crisis. Politicians, commenators and social media typically demand urgent government responses. But there are dangers to the vocabulary of catastrophe. If everything is a crisis there is a risk we take none seriously, or take the wrong threats seriously. 38% of Americans avoid the news because of 'crisis fatigue'. In addition continuous crisis risks paralysing decision making with demands for instant and immediate action. Moreover critics argue a focus on crisis obscures aspects of culture that are performing well which require focus and attention to deliver their potential.

Should we be sceptical of the language of crisis, and see it as a means to generate attention and a form of self-promotion and media hype? Or is it more fundamentally a product of a culture that is in relative decline and dissatisfied with itself? Or should we see the focus on threats and crisis necessary to generate the action required to overcome the deep challenges we face?

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