In a speech in Indianapolis, 12 April 1959, John F. Kennedy did note that the Chinese term weiji, translated as was composed of two ideograms, showing, respectively, "danger" and "opportunity." He added that, in the face of growing scientific and technological advances of the Soviet Union, it was necessary to respond to the risk of an imminent loss of land urging the Americans to win the challenge for the conquest of space and use atomic energy, automation and Development of media everywhere to defeat poverty.

Since then this word Chinese was variously referred to accredit the thesis of the overturning of situations of in valuable opportunities for rehabilitation. Shame that - as noted by some expert in Chinese language - actually designates wei "danger", but ji indicating the "critical point" and not (or not) the opportunity.
If philologically, the explanation of the link between wei and ji is not entirely true, of course is well found, and as rhetorical artifice, it can be quite effective in not only hold the hopes and mobilize the collective energies to escape from situations of severe difficulties, but also to identify retrospectively the causes of

The distorted interpretation of the two ideograms not seem random. In addition to the trace of ambiguity in the greek Krisis ability to distinguish and decide one way or another, it adapts spontaneously to our mindset and our traditions. In particular with the doctrine of redemption (which is also the worst sinner can rise after every fall) and the belief in the resurrection of the dead, Christianity was the major premise of this attitude. On its trunk s'innesta then, starting from the last decades of the eighteenth century, the theory of "rejuvenation" of the people after each stage of decline. Hence, among other things, the terms ottocentesche "Renaissance" (a term coined by Michelet and restated Burckhardt) and 'Risorgimento' (found in Alfieri, but changes direction with the publication in 1847 dell'omonimo newspaper Cesare Balbo and Camillo Benso di Cavour).

The first and most strenuous advocate of this idea was Herder, who uses the topos of decadence in Rome to celebrate the renewal brought by the peoples of the North. In a world 'nervous, discarded, men of the desert, inhabited by beings without force, the young shoots of the Germanic tribes, transplanted in southern lands, introduce fresh blood. What we call 'the barbarian invasions "(German and, significantly,' migration of peoples") have produced for him a positive transition from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire to the new Europe.
The hidden implication in such positions is that the initial decline of a civilization more refined to a more rough up the price of regeneration. This is a concept taken later by those who, regretting the absence of a Reformation in have recognized the fruitfulness of its uncouthness Luther compared to cultured, elegant but exhausted the papal court of Leo X and Clement VII. Georges Sorel has also applied this scheme to the socialist revolution: the new barbarians, the proletarians, erase some achievements of civilizations past, but ripping the humanity to stagnation and decline.

During the period of greatest flowering of these convictions, Hölderlin verse defends the view that all people "with the return to the death / where a new youth, as in a bath will refresh. Men / the great joy is given, which in themselves / trovan to rejuvenate the force. " It says peremptorily that: "Where the danger grows / grows also what saves you."
When you tap the bottom, you can not trace that? Yeah, but, returning to this, we really touched the bottom of the and economic or that we know is only "the tip of the iceberg"? You will be able also to build a global system of rules able to impose limits on financial markets without stifling the dynamism? The end of laissez-faire widely expected in 1926 to meet strong resistance to change the presumed mechanisms of self-regulation of the market wanting to convince the City of to work for the public good - Keynes said - is like debating with a bishop on the goodness of the origin of species Darwin.

Bernard-Henry Lévy argued that the present world is "the equivalent, with these figures, what communism was for the collapse of the Berlin Wall." If so, the shock of adjustment to stabilize the markets will be quite lengthy and will cause the transfer of whole blocks of power, in comparative terms, there will probably to the gradual economic decline of the United States and Europe, so far the largest holders of the wealth of the planet, compared to the growth of emerging countries.
Insecurity is part of the human condition, but now the perception and awareness of risks (designed by Ulrich Beck, as the staging and anticipation of potential disasters) have increased dramatically in a globalized world where the parts are interconnected, but where the understanding of the processes has become more opaque and less calculable dangers.

We should therefore surrender to the coming of worse despite history showing the frequent rise of nations which have passed through the tests more painful? Just think of all the Renaissance, when it is plundered by foreign armies and divided by internal political divisions, some parts can rise to the peaks of human culture, it is then charged after his disastrous defeat and Caporetto is changing, finally, rapidly at the stage of reconstruction, after that 65% of the industrial potential had been destroyed by war and the average wage was in 1945, about half that of 1939.
May, by themselves, similar examples, affect the reality today? The faith and the will to believe producing, without doubt, crucial changes. Arouse great hopes that, in politics, tend gradually to disappear if not s'intravedano reasonable deadlines for achieving them (unless they are manipulated and reduced to an ideology of armed dogmas).

Norberto Bobbio believed that the ethics of the laity does not rely on hope, but about responsibility. A certain degree of confidence on our ability to defy the danger is welcome if it will serve as an anabolic by artificial growth hormone. But not enough, because the future depends on the major policy, the circumstances and the ability of each to affect, to the extent possible, the treatment of collective choices.
Yes, we can? At least proviamoci.

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