How Civilizations Collapse

How Civilizations Collapse

by | Dec 30, 2023

Luke Kemp writes:

Collapse can be defined as a rapid and enduring loss of population, identity and socio-economic complexity. Public services crumble and disorder ensues as government loses control of its monopoly on violence. Virtually all past civilisations have faced this fate. Some recovered or transformed, such as the Chinese and Egyptian. Other collapses were permanent, as was the case of Easter Island. Sometimes the cities at the epicentre of collapse are revived, as was the case with Rome. In other cases, such as the Mayan ruins, they are left abandoned as a mausoleum for future tourists. What can this tell us about the future of global modern civilisation?

Jordan Peterson

Jordan Peterson

by | Sep 30, 2023

Peterson’s primary goal was to examine why individuals, not simply groups, engage in social conflict, and to model the path individuals take that results in atrocities like the Gulag, the Auschwitz concentration camp and the Rwandan genocide. Peterson considers himself a pragmatist, and uses science and neuropsychology to examine and learn from the belief systems of the past and vice versa, but his theory is primarily phenomenological. In the book, he explores the origins of evil, and also posits that an analysis of the world’s religious ideas might allow us to describe our essential morality and eventually develop a universal system of morality…

“Healing Dreams” By Marc Ian Barasch

“Healing Dreams” By Marc Ian Barasch

by | May 31, 2021

“In our era, the past is vanishing like smoke. The ancestors and gods and spirits who speak through dreams were once welcomed into the circle of community; were among its essential members. But who now will listen to them? The cultures that honored them are dying, their very languages becoming extinct. The thread of received wisdom that has sustained us is stretched thin to breaking. Shorn of memory, we no longer recognize as part of life’s fabric those who have come before us. The voices of the myriad beings, visible and invisible, who surround us grow faint, though they are still talking in our sleep . . . Our dreams are a continuum, revealing, if we care to look, that we do not exist alone, but in a skein of relationship with all that has been, all that is, and all that shall be.”

Is Modern Society In Decline?

Is Modern Society In Decline?

by | Feb 9, 2021

It is widely believed that modern society is in sharp decline. Among the ills cited are skyrocketing rates of crime, divorce, teenage sex, teenage births and drug abuse; war; and a general decline in personal morality and religiosity. There is also concern that modern science and technology is leading to a widening of the gap in living conditions and educational opportunities between prosperous first-world nations and impoverished third-world nations. Such concerns are raised by both the secular left and the religious right. So what are the real facts here?