The Age of Catastrophism

Why Forces Welcoming Economic, Social, and Planatery Collapse Are Rising Around the Globe

It’s a topic you can’t mention in polite company. People will look at you like you’re a little strange, and probably call you depressing (it’s a compliment, by the way.) One of the great elephants in the room of now is that we live in an age of collapse.

Planetary collapse, economic collapse, social collapse, political collapse — what marks out this age as special, different, distinct is that all these things are like tidal waves converging to form one great tsunami of ruin. Incidentally, that’s why it’s so exhausting and draining that you should pat yourself on the back just for getting through the day.

An interesting thing about it all, though, is that none of these collapses are what you might call. The planet isn’t melting down because a giant meteor struck it. The global economy isn’t flatlining because the harvest failed. Politics isn’t coming apart because a band of aliens shot particle beams at entire cities. Instead, what’s genuinely bizarre, weird, and gruesome, about this age of collapse is that all its collapses — every single one — are self-inflicted. They’re the products of human choice and thought and action.