| 单词 | catastrophism |
| 释义 | catastrophism|kəˈtæstrəfɪz(ə)m|
[f. catastrophe 3 + -ism.]
The theory that certain geological and biological phenomena were caused by catastrophes, or sudden and violent disturbances of nature, rather than by continuous and uniform processes.
1869Huxley in Sci. Opinion 21 Apr. 464/1 By Catastrophism I mean any form of geological speculation which..supposes the operation of forces different in their nature..from those which we at present see in action. 1883H. Drummond Nat. Law in Spir. W. 19 It was the Geology of Catastrophism.
fig.1885Century Mag. XXXI. 68 The Craig household..was conducted on the theory of ‘catastrophism’ rather than that of ‘uniform law’.
▸ The theory that social and political change occurs in sudden and violent upheavals.
1923Amer. Jrnl. Sociol. 28 734 Little by little the conclusion gathered the force of demonstration in social science that, whatever may prove to be more particular principles of human relationships, gradualism rather than catastrophism is the universal manner of social cause and effect. 1953Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev. 47 41 Bipartisanship helps to create and to strengthen stereotypes which inhibit thought and breed violent emotion. Inevitably it becomes the handmaid of a dogma of utopian catastrophism. 1961A. Schlesinger in Internat. Affairs 38 (1962) 133 The whole point of the New Deal lay in its faith in ‘the exercise of Democracy’, its belief in gradualness, its rejection of catastrophism. 1976Philos. & Public Affairs 5 321 Rejecting what he calls Marx's catastrophism and asserting that socialism is developing inside capitalist society, Bernstein substitutes for Marxist theory of transition to socialism a theory closer to Marx's theory of transition to capitalism. 1999Boundary 2 26 236 Both of these contemporary theories of decolonizing nationalism are disillusioned and sobering. They do not exhibit the catastrophism and eschatology of a Marx or a Fanon.
▸ after Polish katastrofizm (A. Hertz 1932, in Droga No. 6). A literary movement characterized by its pessimistic vision, associated with the Zagary group of poets in Poland in the 1930s.
1969C. Milosz Hist. Polish Lit. 405 Cosmic visions of a doomsday made their appearances in poems, treated sometimes with solemnity, sometimes with macabre buffoonery. To some of these poets, the term ‘catastrophism’ has been applied. 1988E. Możejko in Between Anxiety & Hope 3 The singularity of Miłosz's poetic pronouncement was classified by literary critics as belonging to the ‘second avant-garde’; its early phase was defined as catastrophism. 1999Partisan Rev. 66 25 There has always been Milosz's work a fundamental element of catastrophism, a grave open-eyed lucidity about the twentieth century.
▸ The interpretation of events as disastrous; pessimism.
1996National Rev. 31 Dec. 35/2 An increase in catastrophism. Militias, survivalists, paramilitary confraternities: all these groups will increase in an effort to forge a protective community ranged against whatever forces of darkness..they fear. 2001Technol. Rev. 10439/1 The good news..is that there is little call for catastrophism. The country's sheer size and the distributed nature of many aspects of the infrastructure..limit the amount of disruption any single terrorist group could cause. |
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