But it has gained a new urgency with recent political events, not least the election of US president Donald Trump. The idea that Western power and influence is in gradual decline, perhaps as a prelude to a precipitous fall, has been around for a while. Are Westerners doing the modern equivalent of sitting around eating grapes while the barbarians hammer on the doors? And more importantly, does science have any ideas about what is really going on, what might happen next and how people could turn things around? In fact, many people seem blissfully unaware that collapse might be imminent. Cycles of inequality and resource use are heading for a tipping point that in many past civilisations precipitated political unrest, war and finally collapse.įor the most part, though, people are carrying on as usual, shopping for their next holiday or posing on social media. Scientists, historians and politicians alike have begun to warn that Western culture is reaching a critical juncture. The sandwich boards have mostly gone and the world is still here, but the gloomy predictions keep coming, and not all of them are based on creative interpretations of religious texts. People who have grown up in a turbulent society tend to have children who renounce violenceĪH, the good old days, when predictions that “the end is nigh” were seen only on sandwich boards, and the doom-mongers who carried them were easy enough to ignore.
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