How do metacrisis and polycrisis relate?
Exploring metaphors and root causes
The meta-crisis is the overarching failure of sensemaking and systemic dysfunction that underpins and perpetuates the interconnected crises of our time. Unlike the polycrisis, which refers to multiple compounding crises (geopolitical, ecological, economic, etc.), the meta-crisis addresses the deeper root causes—such as dominant worldviews, unsustainable paradigms, and broken systems—that create and amplify these crises. - The meta-crisis is like a broken compass, while the polycrisis is the storm we find ourselves lost in. The storm—the polycrisis—rages with interconnected crises like climate change, inequality, and resource depletion, each feeding into the other. But the deeper issue, the meta-crisis, is the broken compass: our inability to navigate the storm because our tools for understanding—our worldviews, values, and systems—are misaligned with reality.
No matter how fiercely we fight the storm, as long as the compass remains broken, we will continue to chart a course toward collapse. The meta-crisis reminds us that solving the polycrisis requires more than patching up individual crises—it demands fixing the compass itself.
~ Kasper Benjamin Reimer Bjørkskov (from a comment on LinkedIn)
How this relates to other marbles
- The meta crisis and its relationship to our underlying values, worldview, and sense of the sacred are also called 🔮 ontological primitives.
- From a systems perspective, Donella Meadows defines paradigm intervention as the most effective intervention as described in 🔮 how to intervene in a complex system.
- The metaphorical piece relates to 🔮 my metaphorical relationships exploration.
#complex-systems-thinking #meta-crisis #poly-crisis #ontological_primitives
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