Polycrisis to Metacrisis in three steps (aka 3 layers of causation)

General
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This is a simplified schematic logic of the relationship of polycrisis to metacrisis.

It is one follow up to From polycrisis to metacrisis and a second renaissance (SCQH) – it is one part of helping people evolve frame from polycrisis to metacrisis.

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  1. Surface Layer – Manifest Crises (Polycrisis)

    • Concrete global crises: ecological collapse, AI risk, geopolitical instability, mental health epidemics
    • These are symptoms, emerging from failures in the intermediate layer, which in turn are rooted in deeper cultural-ideological and ontological substrates

  2. Intermediate Layer – Meta-Systemic Dysfunctions (Metacrisis)

    • Collective action failures (e.g., climate inaction, regulatory capture)
    • Wisdom gap (mismatch between technological capacity and moral/epistemic maturity)
    • Degradation of sense-making and collective intelligence
    • Value misalignment and multi-polar traps (e.g., race-to-the-bottom dynamics)

  3. Root Layer – Foundational Ideologies (Cultural Paradigms) & Deep Human Tendencies (Metacrisis)

    • Deep ideological features of modernity (e.g., anthropocentrism, individualism, mechanistic rationality)
    • Amplification of latent human tendencies (e.g., greed, fear, control)
    • These do not cause the polycrisis directly, but predispose systems toward fragmentation, extractivism, etc.

The metacrisis is a crisis at the “meta” layers of civilization, and especially at the cultural base

A metacrisis is a polycrisis with a common root (generator function) in the meta layers of our civilizational systems and worldviews. The metacrisis encompasses the bottom two layers. However, the ultimate/primary causes are at the bottom layer: in the cultural paradigm and deep human tendencies. This contrasts with standard presentations that often focus on the intermediate layers, see e.g. this infographic

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Image from Many Names, One Ecosystem? Deciphering the Different Terms for the Second Renaissance Movement

Polycrisis and Metacrisis sometimes seen as synonyms

Note that the polycrisis and metacrisis aren’t always well distinguished. Sometimes they are even treated as synonyms.

As it clear, the polycrisis are distinct but related.

Upcoming whitepaper

We’ll be releasing a new white paper on this in the next couple of weeks on the Second Renaissance site at Second Renaissance

UPDATE 2025-04-24 paper is out: From Polycrisis to Metacrisis: a short introduction

Appendix: old diagram

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Lately I’ve been using a completely different rhetorical approach to similar content. I’m not offering this as a criticism of your efforts above, just widening the field of communicative possibilities. Here is my “lite” approach:

  1. “Many people think the world is in chaos and heading for disaster”.
  2. (Rapid-fire listing of as many collapse and crisis scenarios as can fit into a single breathless sentence.)
  3. “So what are we to make of all that?”
  4. “Some prefer to just ignore all it all and more forward with their lives as they currently are.”
  5. “Others see the need for change and wish to do whatever they can to build a better future.”

Then follows an action pitch for some specific localized engagement or another. The general idea is that anything big like a metacrisis is good motivation, but whatever one might do about it must be focused, embodied, and practical. Being super analytical about the precise nature of the multi-layered global crisis tends to be anti-motivational. Most people will just tune out if the analytical presentation is too deep or nuanced.

Where your intended approach can come in handy, however, is for those above-average inquisitive minds who suspect their local embodied efforts may be swept away by larger tides of global history. In such cases, a stepwise expansion of systemic context will ultimately result in something like a metacrisis view. But my pedagogic experience is that people generally expand horizons one layer at a time. If they see the bioregion, for example, but don’t see the geopolitics, it’s generally better to just encourage then to keep working on bioregional projects. Yes, geopolitics can certainly upend bioregional action. But most people won’t grok that until some global event or another feels personal to them.

A related problem to this is that even when people have a realization that some larger system is out there messing with whatever they would prefer to see locally, just realizing a larger system exists and matters is not nearly the same as mastering all the details of how that larger system works. It takes a full spectrum of academic disciplines to really fill in the details on anything as comprehensive as the metacrisis. Getting the abstractions right won’t really matter if there is no educational pathway to walk people level-by-level through all the ever-expansive crisis layers.

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This is great. We want to think about skilful ways to surface these ideas with others – and question-led approach is almost always better than “here’s the answer”.

BTW somewhat related to this sequence of questions is this post

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:+1: exactly. The analysis is only really relevant for those quite a way down the “funnel” of engagement – and clarifying thinking within that group.

Again a big :+1:.

Overall this seems like a tactics vs strategy question – you are rightly emphasizing tactics i.e. how we engage people most effectively. For that, these kind of analytical distinctions are largely beside the point.

Context of the 3 layers

I should add that a specific context for the 3 layers and other polycrisis to metacrisis work is two-fold:

a) Specific high-level groups i was engaging with who were already seeing the polycrisis but didn’t have so much of a metacrisis frame. There was a specific request there to have a clearer walk through of that.

b) Even within more “core” though-leaders in “our space” there is quite a bit of confusion over what exactly metacrisis “is” and in particular what are the core drivers. e.g. quite often it is the middle layerws that are empahsized. IMO it is valuable to see the base layer (cultural paradigm) as the underlying driver. This matters because of the whole “correct(er) diagnosis leads to better healing actions”.

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Yes, yes, yes. And that was the essence of the question in From polycrisis to metacrisis and a second renaissance (SCQH).

To spell it out if not clear enough: my main interest here/there is what kind of containers (experiential, pedagogical etc) would help people “get the metacrisis (and a second renaissance)”?

And i want to be clear: i don’t think (for most people!) it is a bunch of 1h analytical lectures on a chalk board :slightly_smiling_face:

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Thanks. The way I arrived at my “lite” process was by trying to literally explain the metacrisis to various audiences and taking note of the exact moment they started to fall asleep, get distracted, wander off, change the subject, etc. What’s left is what I’ve learned most people can sit still for. Another core insight gained through all this experimentalism is we don’t need to spend too much precious bandwidth convincing people the world is a mess. Most people already perceive the world as quite messed up. We just need to advert to that to activate a certain type of alertness, then pivot to the solution side of things, which is most needed by most people. Again, though, rather than wearing out our welcome with complex multi-tier solutions, better to find just the right single-layered solution for just the right audience and get them activated in some prosocial direction or another.

Meanwhile, back in the “faculty lounge” so to speak, heck yes - bring the flow charts! Bring the layers! Bring the distinction between poly and meta and all the rest! Anyone who really wants true expertise on these matters is obligated to do the actual homework, even if the course of reading is long and difficult and features many unresolved problems. It’s generally a good idea for a core group to understand matters several orders of complexity beyond what gets communicated in more generalized outreach.

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I’d like to take at stab at this from the mid-range up. The mid-range model is more generalized than the “lite” pitch approach, but it’s not trying to be fully comprehensive either. More like staring a movie in media res.

Mid-range:

From my situated POV (Tacoma, WA, USA), what we need most right now are connected communities, focused on local needs, centered on spirituality and relationships. As such communities gather, what larger social forces could challenge our efforts? A short list of the major risks includes:

  • national political upheaval
  • economic collapse
  • environmental degradation
  • natural disasters
  • international warfare
  • degradation of civil society into endemic crime and violence

That list could get longer. but that’s a start. Assuming we have a decently well connected community with strong internal values and relationships, how might we address the larger risk factors?

  • on the question of national political tensions - it seems to me constructive, respectful, connected community is part of the cure. We need to model better processes ourselves, then figure out how to replicate them wider.

  • on the question of economic collapse, if it happens it happens. We locally don’t control the global macroeconomy. But local community, capable of sharing and mutual support, will be useful in the event of recession or depression.

  • on the question of environmental degradation, the best we can do on global climate change and other larger issues is to tend our bioregional garden, so to speak. Salmon restoration, forest preservation, and limiting urban sprawl are just some of the issues we can work on locally that will contribute to more global solutions.

  • we literally live under multiple volcanoes with earthquakes and tsumamis that arrive like geological clockwork. (Our major seaports and industrial corridors rest on the results of a lahar outflow from less than 5000 years ago, from a volcano that is still active). Borrowed time. But when disaster does strike (it will) the more organized and connected we are prior to that moment will be helpful on the day we all need to scramble.

  • international warfare is not something we can locally prevent. However, our local economy is heavily influenced by the many military bases in our region. We are very trade-dependent and international in outlook. Our population is multi-cultural and multi-ethnic. Perhaps we in local microcosm can model what a more connected, multipolar world could look like.

  • endemic crime and violence are already part of our local picture, as are homelessness, drug addiction, unmet mental health needs and many other social challenges. To address all these issues, connected prosocial community can only be of benefit.

Summary - it seems the community-centric model addresses the major external risks. It does not immunize us from macro-level stresses, but it does provide layers of resilience against anything short of a complete apocalypse.

Discussion:
That above was an experiment. It seems more coherent to focus more on the solution space (connected community) more than the problem space (macro issues beyond our direct control). But what happens if everyone in the world buys into the locally-focused community action layer and no one addresses the macro directly? Will solutions just emerge? Or will the macro ultimately overwhelm all local efforts? Or do we need some sort of leadership cadre to engage with macro systems directly at the highest levels of government and economy? (Good questions for follow-up discussion).

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Here’s a summary of this discussion:

  • Rufus’s Initial Post:
    • Presents a three-layer model to differentiate polycrisis (manifest surface crises like ecological collapse, AI risk) from metacrisis (deeper systemic dysfunctions and root cultural/ideological causes).
    • Surface Layer: Polycrisis (Symptoms).
    • Intermediate Layer: Metacrisis (Meta-systemic dysfunctions like collective action failures, wisdom gap).
    • Root Layer: Metacrisis (Foundational ideologies like anthropocentrism, individualism, and deep human tendencies like greed/fear).
    • Argues the metacrisis encompasses the intermediate and root layers, with the root layer being the ultimate driver.
    • Notes that polycrisis and metacrisis are sometimes confused or used synonymously, but he sees them as distinct.
    • The purpose is to help evolve the understanding from just seeing the polycrisis to recognizing the underlying metacrisis, especially for those already engaged with these topics.
  • Robert’s Response:
    • Offers a different rhetorical approach (“lite” version) for engaging broader audiences.
    • This involves acknowledging the feeling of chaos, listing crises briefly, asking “what now?”, presenting options (ignore vs. act), and pitching specific, localized, practical actions.
    • Argues deep analytical presentations (like Rufus’s layers) can be anti-motivational for most people, who need focused, embodied action.
    • Acknowledges Rufus’s approach is valuable for more inquisitive individuals ready to grasp larger systemic issues, but suggests people typically expand their understanding layer by layer.
    • Raises the challenge that recognizing larger systems exist isn’t the same as understanding them, which requires deep learning across disciplines.
  • Rufus’s Replies:
    • Agrees with Robert’s tactical approach for broader engagement, calling it skillful and question-led.
    • Confirms his analytical model is primarily for those already deeply engaged or for clarifying thought leadership, not general outreach.
    • Reinforces agreement on the need for gradual understanding and appropriate “containers” (experiential, pedagogical) beyond just analytical lectures.
    • Clarifies his model was developed partly for specific high-level groups and to refine understanding among “core thought-leaders” about the drivers of the metacrisis (emphasizing the root cultural layer).
  • Robert’s Further Comments:
    • Explains his “lite” approach came from observing audience disengagement with complex explanations; most people already feel things are messed up and need a pivot to actionable solutions.
    • Strongly supports deep analysis (like Rufus’s) for the “core group” or “faculty lounge” who need that expertise.
    • Provides a “mid-range” example focused on building connected local communities (in Tacoma, WA) as a resilient solution that addresses various macro risks (politics, economy, environment, disaster, war, crime) without needing to fully analyze the macro problems first.
    • Concludes by questioning whether solely focusing on local action is sufficient or if direct engagement with macro systems by a leadership cadre is also necessary.
      In essence, they agree on the underlying concepts of interconnected global crises and their deeper roots. Their discussion highlights the tension and complementarity between deep analytical understanding (Rufus’s focus, valuable for experts/strategy) and effective communication/engagement tactics (Robert’s focus, crucial for broader motivation and action). Robert emphasizes starting with practical, local action, while acknowledging the need for deeper analysis among those ready for it. Rufus agrees with the tactical needs while stressing the importance of clarifying the root causes for effective long-term strategy.
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Good summary. Your personal work? AI? Or AI with your help?

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Having tried the “lite” approach and the “mid-range” approach to introducing the metacrisis crisis idea, here is another model to look at. I’m calling this one the “short-synthesis”.

The metacrisis can be understood as an existential threat to humanity itself. Unlike some external threat - like the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs - the metacrisis results from humanity’s recently acquired ability to kill off itself. The metacrisis thus presents fundamental questions about the meaning of human life and purpose of human existence on this planet.

On a systems level, the most proximate cause of the metacrisis is exponential human population growth on a finite planet. This population growth was fueled by similarly exponential trends in technical innovation and energy consumption. On principle, technical innovation could continue farther than current eyes might see, but energy consumption is another matter. Fossil fuels are a one-time resource pool. Likewise, there are no vast reserves of planetary forests, farm land, fish, high quality mineral deposits, and pristine biomes left untapped. Although prior Maltusian predictions of population limits (most famously that of Malthus himself) failed to materialize on predicted schedule, the overall impression of the competing exponential growth curves is that industrial exploitation of fossil energy pushed population boundaries wider, but did not abolish such boundaries in any fundamental way. A first take on the metacrisis might be, how do we adjust to a world in which human increase does not justify itself?

Beyond population biology and environmental impacts, impending limits to growth are sure to roil any number of social systems predicated on ever increasing material expansion. Economic theorist Peter Pogany discusses global populuation plus its economy (GLOPPE) and notes there are thermodynamic limits to any such arrangement. As one world system after another runs into its thermodynamic barriers, each system breaks down in a “chaotic transition”. In line with general evolutionary theory, the chaotic components cut loose in each transition reassemble into a new higher-complexity world system eventually. But overall the process is entropy-producing and forces each successor system to become less crudely extractive than the prior.

We currently seem very much in the latest chaotic transition, the interlude between US-led post-WWII world order and no evident order at all. The upshot is likely to be economic and political dislocations at local to global scales landing differently in different places. Because of the larger metacrisis framing around GLOPPE and its entropic limits, it’s doubtful ad hoc adjustment to this or that political or economic subsystem will have much definitive effect. But prior chaotic transitions experimented with various retrograde and extreme models before arriving at the most efficient available global structures. Much destruction attended this experimentation. Ideally, we can escape mass destruction this time, but such views exist more in hope than in probability.

Part of what defines a world system is the common sense or mindset that defines best practices under that system. Growth-oriented economics and political expansion fueled by such economics have been common-sensical from the dawn of civilization, if not prior. In a variety of continenal geographies, limits to growth have been hit, collapse has resulted, and the territory was eventually recolonized through different civilizations or through civilizational revivals. Our current experiment in limits to growth occurs uniquely on a planetary scale. In previous civilizations, it was possible to imagine available resource frontiers or cost-free sinks for waste products. It was likewise possible to imagine external populations available for conquest and subjugation. Now, however, that prior “common sense” about expansionary politics and economics fails to make sense at all. That cognitive clash between what we assumed must be true and very likely cannot continue to be true leads to cultural dislocation, lately called the meaning crisis.

Pogany found a way forward in meaning from the current chaotic transition in the work of Jean Gebser on structures of consciousness. Pogany imagined Gebser’s integral consciousness might point the way forward to the next world system beyond current chaos. One might imagine a variety of new or revitalized wisdom traditions that fulfill the qualities of Gebser’s integral consciouness. The point here is not to spell out the details of what emerging consciouness needs to be. All we need do here is to point out that pure empiricism and logical analysis - hallmarks of Western “common sense” up until now - point beyond themselves to the need for something more in future cycles. I leave it to the reader’s imagination what that “more” might look like.

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This is all very interesting and insightful conversation.

But I would like to pick up one point from that diagram – the binary division between “right diagnosis” and “wrong diagnosis” – because to me this is part of the problem and rooted in the past paradigms.

To me, there are different diagnoses based on your perspective / conceptual scheme / ontology / story. I see the whole point of a complex system with complex issues and problems as not having any “right diagnosis”. Nor do I take the view that the attempt at diagnosis is fundamentally mistaken. There are many diagnoses possible, depending on what you see as important, and to me the vital issue is, which of these are compatible with each other? How many different positive actions can we take without them undermining or conflicting with each other?

To answer that, I’d say (well I would, wouldn’t I :laughing:) that one promising approach to finding out what is compatible is through ontological commoning. Look at each story, holding back from judgement about “right” or “wrong” diagnosis; look at the underlying belief systems; analyse the even more deeply underlying ontologies; and then see where the common ground lies; and what can be built up as the basis for a new kind of solidarity, that is not based on one story, but on mutual recognition and respect.

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Agreed. Complex systems, almost by definition, do no allow for binary action choices with simple pass/fail results. Cynefin is one action system that has extensively explored the domain of complexity. The article linked below details Cynefin’s “probe-sense-response” approach for action navigation in complex situations.

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This is an item worthy of its own thread.

First, I’d suggest always reading “right” or “wrong” as “righter” and “wronger” (it’s just tiresome to write that). So it isn’t that there is (always) a perfect “right” diagnosis but there are certainly righter ones.

I see the whole point of a complex system with complex issues and problems as not having any “right diagnosis”.

Your body is a complex system and we are quite happy discussing whether a doctor got the “right” or “wrong” diagnosis. So too with our cultural and social systems.

Retaining the idea of truth and right and wrong (even if we never exactly obtain it)

This seems quite subtle. Do you keep the idea of truth at all, or at least in a pragmatic sense?

For me, I wish to emphasize the importance of retaining these ideas of “right(er)” and “wrong(er)” – and hence of truth even if there is no absolute truth. See this piece:

Which has this excerpt from Wilber:

… like many postmodern poststructuralists it thoroughly confuses the fact that no perspective is final with the notion that all perspectives are therefore simply equal. It thus fails to notice that that stance itself actually (and appropriately) rejects all narrower perspectives (which clearly shows that all perspectives are not equal).”

Similarly, the Buddha talked about “right views” and “wrong views” and we have the four noble truths (not beliefs). Of course, the Buddha also emphasized that such truth was in the relative, historical dimension and that the ultimate dimension was conceptless and hence beyond right/wrong, true/false.

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Agreed. Maybe a thread on something like theory of effective action.

My initial contribution to such a theory would be that action requires actors. Namely, action is situated in persons with perspectives. Such persons are generally not omniscient. So whether a given course of action is “right” or “wrong” for a given outcome in a given situation is to some extent a speculative evaluation.

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An alternative position would be that there’s no “outside perspective” or “view from nowhere” or that we’re always in the throw of the highly contextual situation that has all the ingredients for a specific perspective. Derrida and Focault and probably Heidegger.

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