all of a sudden, due to the emergence of some new factor, becomes absolutely unacceptable, at that it's almost inessential, whether the new factor is political, economic or scientific: death of a national hero, price fluctuations, new technological discovery; any circumstance may serve impetus for further events ("the butterfly effect": the butterfly's wing at the right place and time may cause a hurricane). A well-known scientist Alfred Pokran devoted a special work to crises ("Culture, crises and changes") and arrived at interesting conclusions. First, he notes that any crisis arises long before it factually comes on the scene. For example, Einstein has published fundamentals of relativity theory in 1905-1915, i.e. forty years before his works have ultimately led to the beginning of a new epoch and emergence of crisis. Pokran also notes that every crisis implies the involvement of a great number of individuals and characters, all of them being unique: "It is difficult to imagine Alexander the Great in front of Rubicon or Eisenhower in the field of Waterloo; it is just as difficult to imagine Darwin writing a letter to Roosevelt about potential dangers associated with nuclear bomb. Crisis is the sum of blunders, confusions and intuitive flashes of inspiration, a totality of observed and unobserved factors (which in systemic analysis is called a "bifurcation point "), an unstable condition of a system that may result in a number of outcomes: recovery of stable level, transition to other steady equilibrium state characterized by new energy-and-informational level, or leap to a higher unstable level. At a bifurcation point a nonlinear system becomes very sensitive to small influences or fluctuations: indefinitely small influences may cause indefinitely wide variation of the condition of the system and its dynamics. Originality of any crisis hides its striking similarity with other crises. The unique feature of one and all/most and least/crises is the possibility of prevision thereof in retrospect and irreversibility of solutions; characteristic frequencies of control processes sharply increase (a time trouble condition, shortage of time).
Power. Power is any possibility, whatever it is based on, to realize one's own will in the given social relations, even notwithstanding counteraction. The power is also characterized as steady ability of achievement of the goals set with the support of other people. The concept of power is "sociologically amorphous", i.e. the exercise of power does not imply the presence of any special human qualities (strength, intellect, beauty, etc.) or any special circumstances (Confrontation, conflict, etc.). Any possible qualities and circumstances can serve for realization of will. These may include direct violence or threats, prestige or charm, any peculiarities of situation or institutional status, etc. An individual having a lot of money, holding senior position or being simply more ch...
