In his piece Deep Restoration: from The Great Implosion to The Great Awakening, Barry Gills points out the “three spheres” of the present global crisis, their interrelationships and the opportunity they pose for transforming the system.
“We are living in a time of exception. A time when the existing order is open to question.” He explains, “… I wish to make some initial reflections in response to the present ‘triple conjuncture’ of global crises. This triple conjuncture is an interaction among three spheres or vectors of global crises, together constituting a crisis of capitalist world order. The three spheres of the global crisis are: climate change and ecological breakdown; a systemic crisis of global capitalism and neoliberal economic globalization; and the current global pandemic of covid-19. The three spheres are deeply interrelated and now rapidly interacting. Their combined effects will bring radical systemic transformation.”
In another piece, ‘The pandemic is a portal’, author Arundhati Roy explains that “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”
Both of these pieces challenge us to go beyond the crisis mentality of COVID 19 and think about the opportunities it brings to change business as usual and stop the train of ‘normalcy’ that is launching us all headlong toward the abyss.
