The rising imperative of these years, as Proust emerges from his translations of Ruskin, helps to check the sense of astonishment one might have, not that the great work was completed but that it was ever started.
We in the West see human rights in Tibet as a moral imperative and a rising renminbi as an economic imperative; Chinese citizens and leaders alike see these issues as part of a 200-year-long string of Western imperialist efforts to bully or dismember a fragile China.
The rising demands of the profit imperative against a backdrop of public distraction have yielded the soft porn of network "reality" programming, the elimination of taboos on cable and a mix of desperation and opportunism across the board in commercial TV, which the words of the news division journalists and executives echo.
As the cost of energy continues to rise, it becomes imperative to save energy and improve overall energy efficiency.
If Australia and other developed economies are going to overcome the economic headwinds of secular stagnation and rising inequality, there is an ongoing imperative to implement structural reforms which drive productivity growth and fairly share its benefits.
Dr Ilan Kelman, reader in risk at University College London, said rising sea levels made it imperative that island states were supported in resilience building.
Given the rising costs of a college education, it is imperative that students emerge with their degrees with skills relevant to the job market.
With the U.S. economy facing a recession and federal and household deficits rising, postal reform is all the more imperative.
But Richard Lloyd, the executive director of Which? said the rising profits at British Gas made it imperative that the company household power bills further.
Decoupling the preconception that energy bills are rising due to green policies is imperative (Green policies account for 6 per cent of the average gas bill and 11 per cent of electricity bill).
Netflix's value add in enabling musicians and their creative partners to tell deeper stories about themselves arguably reinforces the new, multimedia imperative for surviving and rising above the noise in today's cutthroat music business.
