I drafted this back in November 2024, when I was in the midst of my own anxiety about the state of the world – which has only become that much worse since then.
Let’s just admit it, can’t we? The world is in state of immense social and political change. When I first wrote those words over a year ago, I thought I’d have to argue it. Less so now.
What has worked relatively well for many of us for quite some time is no longer functioning. Perhaps it’s hyperbole, but there are days that I’d go so far to call what is happening right now a wholesale collapse.
Many are experiencing a profound disorientation about life on planet earth. It is important in times such as these to name that something is more than just ‘off’.
Social, political, and ecological crises abound.
And I want to name that. But even more than just naming, I ultimately want to offer a word of hope amidst the pain.
I’ll start by naming that this dis-ease that many of us feel is not a mere abstraction about distant ideas or politics. That’s because the collapse that is happening affects the ability for individuals, families and communities to thrive.
It’s there in things like the cost of groceries, our fears for safety, the fragility of our relationships, the decreasing access to health supports or adequate affordable housing, our uncertainty about the climate, or the well-being of our children and loved ones and, more existentially, it speaks to our loneliness and disconnection from others. It’s there in our exhaustion. It’s in relationships that are worn, wearied and splintering under the pressures of contemporary life.[2]
And though much of what I will speak of in this piece will address the dysfunctions of regional, national and global systems; that is, of the death of ideologies, I want to name up front that the effects of this collapse are not at all distant, because these realities reverberate daily into the most intimate places of our lives and our closest relationships. They touch our tender, fleshy hearts. They strike us at the core of our identities.
And that is painful.
But if you read through to the end of this piece, I’ll suggest that, though these are perilous times, it’s my sincere conviction that there is something new and exciting emerging from the hospicing and composting of that which has been; and though that may at moments feel terrifying, these times offer us something that is, ultimately, hopeful.
Before I get to hope, allow me to first outline one model of how change happens – and, after that, address some of what I’m perceiving is falling apart, before I circle back to what I intuit just what might be coming-to-be.
Two Loops
The ‘two-loops model’ addresses the life and death (and, ultimately, the possibility of rebirth in a new expression) of systems or communities or organizations.
As Chris Corrigan notes:
The two loops model is a map of how change works in living systems. It charts the movement and relationship between systems of influence and emerging systems, and it is a helpful tool that invites leaders to reflect on where their organization is in this lifecycle and what kind of leadership is most useful.[3]
The basic idea is that any organism or organization has a life cycle of rising and falling; that there’s a ‘first loop’ which begins with an incline from idea to implementation; from seed to birth. Over time, the entity moves through life and eventually into curving downward into hospicing, death and composting.
A ‘second loop’ speaks of the rise of something new that might emerge from the composting of that which is dying; where, if encouraged and welcomed early enough in the process (that is, during early hospicing, at the latest), so-called ‘innovators’ might use their imaginations and take some of the elements from that which is facing death – things such as the DNA, values, resources or legacies – in order to call what is left into something new.
If that sounds like the cycles of the seasons, or of the notions of death and rebirth prevalent in so many spiritual traditions, that’s probably no mistake, for this model seeks to align itself with the wisdom of the cycles in nature and life and death that are all around us.
As a graphic, it looks like this
Ideologies In Collapse?
My premise, as I’ve noted above, is that the world as many of us have known it is in collapse. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that this revelation is now just reaching those of us in the middle and lower middle classes of privilege and well-being and has been well known by those less privileged for a long time.
What is apparent to me is that much of what we’ve held as ‘true’ from our respective social or political perspectives of ‘left’ or ‘right’– as good or bad as these conflicted ideas may or may not have been – they no longer appear to be working for the common good.
Things are falling apart, and the centre can no longer hold.[5]
The dominant political and social ideologies, as they’ve been lived out in a regional (municipal, state, provincial), national or even global sense, for at least the last 150 years are, at best, in a state of rapid decline.
The Collapse on The Left
Those of us with more ‘liberal’ values which have been expressed, to various degrees, in the left and in the liberal welfare system; that is, socialized state-run or supported institutions and ‘programs’ of health care, liberalized immigration, personal social assistance, supportive housing, seeking peace, food security, ecological regulation, multiculturalism and in the support of those with diverse identities of gender and sexuality are grieving.
These values have been undergirded by charity and justice organizations (NGOs, liberal or mainstream churches, activist groups, etc.) who have traditionally assisted in holding together that social ‘safety net’ for the vulnerable. These are also faltering in their capacities.
Those of us who regard this ‘left’ ideology as a vision of care for the most marginalized are mourning the loss of the functions of the liberalism (or progressivism) on many levels; especially as both state, activist and charity mechanisms are no longer able to hold the weight of the deep care that is needed under the weight of our current times.
And it’s time to admit this is the reality that we live within.
Collapse on The Right
Others, who feel that the free market and the vestiges of trade and border protectionism, nationalism, patriotism, traditional family or religious norms; that is, nostalgia for a past world of order and structure – they, too, are also grieving.
Many of these folk feel that legacies of family, faith, freedom, cultural identity, as well as the opportunity for good and meaningful work t make a living wage have been sold out by a social, political and cultural elite who do not understand their pain and loss.
I believe that deep down, they, like we leftists, are well meaning and acting from their understanding of love. Even so, like us, I somehow think that, deep down, they know that though things might have worked (to some degree) for some people at one point, there really is no ‘golden age’ to return to – at least not one that didn’t include the submission of large swaths of humanity to another.
On top of this, history has shown that there is no amount of freeing the market that will allow a magical trickle-down effect to bring economic prosperity for all, at least not with some form of slavery or even genocide at its foundation.
And it’s also time for the right to admit as much.
What is Happening Now? What is Dying?
My belief is that, as I write these words, these two ‘big’ modern ideologies of left and right – in most their variant forms – are breathing their last, dying breaths.
As they prepare to die, lying side by side in their proverbial hospice, they are left alone, shouting at each other across the room, cuffing and jabbing out their last desperate sucker punches into the air toward each other; childishly taking cheap shots, calling each other names and doubling down on their claims as to just who is better than the other.
It’s my belief that, whatever the external appearances might be at any given moment (such as in the recent US election, where the so-called ‘right’ appears to be on the rise – echoing a similar rise in my country and even globally in populist right and far-right politics), that each of the big socio-political paradigms of the late 19th to early 21st centuries are actually on concurrent paths toward death.
Using that two-loops model, I’d suggest that what has happened looks something like this:
Both left and right, I believe, are rapidly moving well into the hospicing and composting phases in that first ‘loop’ of the two loops theory – and are bumping against each other on their respective and parallel ways down into hospicing, death and composting. As they do, each one lashes out at just how awful, naïve, unjust and unloving the other is.
To make things that much more confusing, many of the paradigms are swiftly becoming living contradictions within their own stated values.
The mainstream ‘left’ is seen as cozying up to big money, big business, military aggression, arms dealers and big entertainment.
Some leaders on the right – at least the ones that are gaining traction and momentum – are increasingly viewed as populist, grassroots – and are finding appeal with the poor and marginalized who have had enough of the caricature of the left as elite, out-of-touch and hypocritical.
Of course, the behind-the-curtain realities around purse and puppet strings (on both sides) are infinitely more complex than what I’ve outlined here. Having said that, the caricatures and stereotypes have their elements of truth and people can smell that something’s afoul.
As things fall apart, some of those who would be traditionally closer the far left have even fallen off the far edges of the political spectrum to the far right, and vice versa. Hippie organic eco-farmer anti-vaxxers, BIPOC and poor folk supporting the far right and the deportation of ‘illegals’ (that is, of the undocumented).
The traditionalists in political parties are left aghast, wondering what on earth is happening: Rich populist leaders siding with the ‘working man’, BIPOC woke party leaders propped up by war mongering big busine$$, $port$ and $ell-elebrities.
The public are either drawn into the populist personality cults or, alternately, lulled into apathy and withdrawal.
The fact that the traditional systems can no longer make sense of the categories is further evidence that the paradigms as we’ve known them are no longer working.
And everywhere, as things make less and less sense, it seems to me that the emperors of every stripe are no longer wearing any clothes standing before us as naked as the very day they were born.
Things Fall Apart… in me.
It takes a good dose of humility and introspection to admit that what I have held to be true is not working – never mind facing death. It’s especially difficult for those of us who have invested our lives in these paradigms – especially those who have nobly committed their lives to public service for the common good within them to look death right in the eyes.
For a person like me, who shares most of the values and beliefs and assumptions of the ‘woke left’, this is especially hard to stomach. Sure, it’s easy (and in fact quite joyful) for me to say that patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, heteronormativity are dying.
And, let me be clear, I’m really, really glad that they are.
It’s much harder for me to admit that liberal state programs and projects of healthcare, housing, trade and immigration are also in a freefall heading toward a big, brutal, painful crash.
And that I don’t really have any credible ideas as to how they might be salvaged.
It’s hard for me to admit that we’ve hit what I’m starting to call ‘peak welfare’; that there’s just no more room in our budgets or institutional mechanisms to support the weight of it all – and more and more folks are suffering as the ‘liberal’ systems buckle.
It’s hard to admit that no amount of money will fix the emerging cracks as the ship of state goes deeper down into the murky depths of the world we live in.
Toxic Cultures of Dying Defensiveness
It’s also important to name that the defense mechanisms by which we (all!) try to deflect or deny the death of these ideas are not helpful: Cancel cultures, demonization of the other, blame, scapegoating, conspiracy theories, mudslinging, punditry; all culminating the rise of a terrifyingly fascist impulse to control the behaviours and languages of the ‘other’, propped up by algorhythms and echo chambers designed to prove our alleged superiority and rightness.
And, dear fellow ‘woke’ leftists, if you think I’m only talking about the right here, you’d be wrong.
We, too, employ these tactics in these times of desperation, loss and fear, all leading to deepening polarization and scapegoating of the other.
And even if we are convicted that we’re on the side that’s correct, just, and caring – that doesn’t make a violent, dehumanizing response any more right, does it?
What Might Be Rising In Such Times?
I don’t believe that it’s enough for one to merely describe the situation.
People are hurting, the planet is hurting. Real people. Real organisms, species, ecosystems, families, communities. Be they left or right, rich or poor, colonizer or colonized, oppressed or oppressor – when things collapse, who the walls fall down onto is indiscriminate, even if those with less protections and privilege are the first to feel it. In the end, very, very few are shielded from the pain.
Having shared what I see to be the imminent death of that wich has been, my intuition and hope is that there is something entirely new – yet perhaps very ancient and present throughout history – which has the possibility to be emerging upward in that second loop:
My own belief is that what that what is coming is nothing like what has been.
Again, it’s still just a hunch, an intuition – but I’m feeling that it’s something much smaller, more grassroots, and more local.
I can’t help but wonder if we need to look at change, at organizing, at relationship, at connection, at economics – at just about everything – at a smaller, more local level.
The dominant ideologies of the last centuries, be they left or right, have accepted the orthodoxy that things get done best at a larger scale; be that municipally, regionally (state or provincially) or nationally.
These orthodoxies accept that we need the luxuries of trans-regional trade, large defence systems, well-funded war chests – as well as the luxury of regular (even daily) mobility and travel to have an abundant life. They accept that larger-scale democracy (and not even proportionally representative democracy at that) is the best way to govern.
As much as I ‘side’ with the values of the left, I, for one, cannot accept these orthodoxies of scale.
What if the deeper hope isn’t in programs, or the implementation of a social or political ideologies on large, institutional proportions; be those operating with the values of the left or right or left-of-centre or right-of-centre, for that matter?
What if hope for a thriving, peace-filled, abundant humanity actually rests in much smaller, more humane, less mobile, more intentionally interconnected ways of actually being together in a place?
What if that which is emerging calls each of us into small acts of love, hospitality and creativity which happen in small, localized (I’m thinking here of the village, the city block, or the neighbourhood) contexts where we can know each other in our diversities, differences and get together to feast, to party, to resolve conflict, to support each other and seek some sense of cohesion in our diversities of creeds and convictions – even when those are painful to work through?
What if part of the answer as to how we might approach this emerging ‘way’ lies in the unplugging from our echo-chambers and entering into relationships with those who are different than us, perhaps even reprehensible to us; and in doing so, moving toward being communities of both affinity and diversity on a small, local scale?
What if the answer is that much smaller, more personal, more relational and closer and more connected to a piece of the land, to the earth, to the work of our hands – and to each other – than any of the dominant paradigms of the modernity have given credence to?
And, How, Then, Can Each of Us Be?
If this ‘smaller’ scale, grassroots direction for a future of thriving has any truth to it, I’m left to wonder: What might each of us be to bear witness to what might arise?
I deliberately use the word be instead of do, here. I believe that, in these times, our starting point is that we need to simply be.
But let me be clear, this is an active posture of being. It is not passive.
As I’ve hinted above, the first stage is this being is grief and lament; that is, to admit and name and truly ‘feel into’ that which is dying, including letting ourselves grieve some of the ‘big’ things and ways and ideas that we love – some which have served and held us well, even with their apparent flaws.
The next is humility. True humility, I believe, will be necessary for each and every one of us to walk out of the polarized echo-chambers, to effectively mute the pundits, to make demeaning and mean-spirited memes obsolete – and to actually meet each other – to meet the other face-to-face – not as opponent to be conquered, but as person. To (re)build relationship beyond confrontation and polarization. To hear a person’s story – rather than immediately hear a soundbyte and jump to how my ideology, oppression or identity happens to trump theirs.
This is a posture of reception, of listening, of surrender, of listening… of grace.
The next thing I’d suggest could be helpful is to assess the legacies of what has been. Sure, I’m suggesting that the various forms and mixtures of larger-scale capitalism or liberalism or socialism or communism – or even identity politicking – aren’t working anymore, if they ever have – and I’d suggest they all have very mixed legacies, at best.
But what is it in those histories where we can see pieces of goodness or truth or beauty or justice or liberation? What in their DNAs, what in their visions (or even what we might re-purpose from their dwindling resources might be part of fostering the transformation into something new?
And then, finally, I’d encourage us to look to the edges. Along with unearthing the good in the ‘big’ paradigms of the last centuries and before, how might we look also to the edges; to the smaller movements; be those political, spiritual, cultural or social?
In my own spiritual tradition, (radical) Christianity, I often see the witness coming from our edges rather than the centres; which have often just aligned themselves with the strongest ideology of any given time.
Here, I look to our earliest communities who held all things in common and gave the rest away to those in need, of the desert mothers and fathers who fled the cities (and corrupt churches) to start small communities of care on the edges out in the deserts, of the early Franciscans who lived on the edges at the times of the crusades proclaiming peace and all good to both friend and enemy, of the anabaptists and radical reformers who formed smaller, local communities who refused to participate in the wars of their times.
All of these ‘movements’ withing just one of the world’s spiritual traditions witnessed to a third-way; a way beyond the dying cultures that surrounded them, beyond the culture wars and empires of their eras.
And I’d suggest that each of us to excavate our sacred traditions in order to recover these kinds of hidden jewels.
How might we listen deeply to elders (living and dead) across the spectrum and spectrums in order to seek the liberating ways of spiritual, social, cultural and political edges of each of our traditions – in order to listen deeply for the ancient echoes of the beautiful possibilities of what is emerging now?
Conclusion: Lifting The Imaginations of the “Innovators”
Finally, and I’ll close with this, I believe that we must raise up and support the innovators[6] by blessing them with legacies and resources that are left from the past, from that first loop, in order to free us all to move into what is about to be birthed.
The two loops model suggests that this is important to do at the right time – and not when most of the resources have been whittled away and there is little left for the innovators to work with. I am convinced that these innovators are all around, crying out for some of their imaginations to be recognized. I don’t want us to be locked in our ways and to miss this moment.
Whether or not my intuition about a smaller scale and more grassroots approach of how we move into thriving for anywhere near to being correct, I believe that we need to free up space to foster and encourage the imagination of these innovators.
I believe that they are all around us, calling out to us to give them their time to shine, to let go of the need to hold onto paradigms that are no longer working for the good of people and of the planet.
I believe that it’s in lament, humility, that it’s in discerning and distilling the beauty from the centres and edges in our traditions and histories that we might can collectively begin to discern what is being birthed anew in the rubble of the old. To then open up the way for the imaginations of those who will carry the work of witnessing to the new emergence.
It is then that we might open space the innovators as they seek to be a witness to another way of being that leads to abundance, enough and thriving for all.
It is in embracing these ways of being that I believe a new society can be birthed in the shell of the old; where, regardless of our differing values, each of us can live into our deepest humanity, where all life can thrive, and each of us can do our part – living little things with great love – to create a world where it’s, quite simply, easier to be good.
[1] The language of “new society in the shell of the old’ and ‘a world where it is easier to be good’ are both intentionally borrowed from Peter Maurin (1877-1949) co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement. The Catholic Worker also speaks of a world ‘where it is easier to be good’ (I like the distinction of ‘being good’ over ‘doing good’)
[2] I’m deeply aware that I’m speaking from a privileged and very generalized Northern / Western settler perspective; noting that the functioning of paradigms or systems of support or even basic necessities been elusive in many contexts for centuries or longer.
[3] Corrigan notes that this model is derived from Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze and called “The Life Cycle of Emergence” and is colloquially known as “the two loops model.” See https://www.chriscorrigan.com/parkinglot/the-two-loops-model-of-change-part-1/ (and subsequent blog posts)
[4] From Corrigan, ibid.
[5] To quote the title of Achebe’s novel, quoting Blake’s Poem
[6] I’d note a slight discomfort with the term ‘innovators’ here – because I believe that true innovation is actually deeply rooted in tradition and is circling back to something back to something even older than the latest iteration – rather than something that is entirely ‘new’ as the name might erroneously suggest.