Abstract
Our present moment, as a whole, is unprecedented although its parts have historical precedents. Its crisis can be reduced to two overarching crises: ecological and political. Both have deep evolutionary and historical roots. The global political crisis is rooted in our evolved sense of tribal identity and manifests in the potential for escalation of a local conflict into a global war. Similarities and differences between this diagnosis and Samuel Huntington’s clash of civilizations thesis are explored. The global ecological crisis is rooted in our evolved ability to adapt our environments and continuously expand our consumption of resources and manifests in global climate change and the Sixth Extinction. The Axial Age advocacy of nonviolence and a counter-consumptive orientation of ascetic self-denial oppose our tribalism and expansionism.
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Peet, C. (2019). World in Crisis. In: Practicing Transcendence. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14432-6_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14432-6_2
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