The author and archdruid John Michael Greer talks about “catabolic collapse”, not as the guns and ammo, post-apocalyptic-yet-still-powered-by-capitalism scenario favored in the media, but as an ongoing process of societal disintegration. Looking at our mainstream institutions, economics and beliefs, it’s clear that we’ve been collapsing for a while. A pandemic punctuates the catabolic curve with an eye-popping shock set against systemic processes bedrocked as background, never foreground.
The etymology of “apocalypse” points to an “unveiling”, dropping illusion and finding revelation. As our global production systems and social institutions (eg. healthcare, education) are suddenly overwhelmed, their basic unsuitability is exposed. Just weeks ago so mighty, economies now sputter when faced with this latest adversity, and this sudden spike in the process of collapse portends a larger undertaking in ecological and social entropy. As Covid-19 takes its human toll worldwide, we’ve begun to see the best and worst of humanity in its choice of loyalties, whether to human life or to economic systems, and the power struggles in finding the right balance (if such a thing exists). It’s another opportunity to consider, what is inherent in us as people, and what is the product of our systems? Growing up in systems preaching that “greed is good”, that “the only social responsibility of businesses is to increase profits”, or that “there is no alternative”, it’s no surprise that the worst reactions to the crisis are marked by individualism, paranoia and accumulation.
