This chapter defines and juxtaposes some basic concepts: culture, globalisation, and development. Its point of departure is an apparently simple question. How under conditions of manifold crisis is it possible to define positive human development, particularly in relation to critical issues of contemporary social life? These include crises of cultural meaning, political dialogue, economic stability, and ecological sustainability. This question leads us down into an extraordinary labyrinth that we need first to traverse in order to see the glimmerings of a viable alternative. Other concepts overshadow the present discussion. These are ill-defined concepts, such as ‘the economy’, ‘freedom’, ‘progress’, and ‘security’ that once concerned us but have since become naturalised as central to the language of political life. They are creatures of foundational ambivalence, promising much and delivering the world as we now know it in all its glory and degrading chaos. Concepts make little difference in themselves, of course, but they do have material consequences in the context of the patterned practices of talking, negotiating, censoring, shouting, lying, and dissembling.