The Psychological Drivers of the Metacrisis: John Vervaeke Iain McGilchrist Daniel Schmachtenberger
This is a conversation between Iain McGilchrist, John Vervaeke and Daniel Schmachtenberger, recorded at Merton College, Oxford, in September 2023. With no planned objective or agenda, the discussion sought to outline the cognitive and spiritual components of the metacrisis. The metacrisis is the total ecosystem of all global crises and the common underlying dynamics that generate catastrophic and existential risks.
This is neither a comprehensive theory of the topic, nor an approach to addressing it. The conversation was simply an opportunity to explore in real time how the speakers, with their different worldviews and pre-existing frameworks, would approach this deep and challenging domain. As Iain, John and Daniel all happened to be in Oxford with availability on a single afternoon, they had not discussed or prepared the approach at any significant length in advance. As a result, a shared understanding emerges only towards the very end of the film. The content is incomplete and partial, and should be viewed as a potential entry point to a far deeper conversation (which may or may not be recorded at a later date). A complete transcript can be found here:
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Editor’s note: It would have taken a LOT of time to get official permission to post this here in the form I have — as an “embedded” post in Substack’s system for such. I’m utterly convinced that the owners and participants would be completely fine with my sharing of this rather urgently important dialogue as I have done here, and am also ready to be told otherwise. And so I’ll be happy to delete the “embedded” nature of the post if the owners of the post object to my posting the link as I have (and, really, all I did, really, was to share a link (as it seems to me).
We’re living in a time in which we simply do not have “a lot of time”. Time is running out. And so I take risks. That’s the nature of an emergency. Risks must be taken, and if anyone is offended, well, we can work it out. I’m willing.
I believe these three adult white males have had, here, a conversation of world importance, and that’s why I’m sharing it. Perhaps next time three women could be included, not necessarily white. Not that any of these things matter much, because the three white males in this present conversation transcend their “race” and “gender” categories so very beautifully.
As I write, I'm roughly two thirds through listening to this, and John and Daniel are presently talking about exaptation.
I'm ready to start screaming! We're clearly at a time in our history in which our present insitutions are utterly and completely failing, floundering and pretending to represent the general "will" of humanity. But the pretending isn't working any more, and especially with regard to group decision-making processes (i.e., the "political").
I'm actually in a "place" now where I am utterly convinced that what we call "the political" is broken so utterly that it is a form of madness to believe that we can carry on with what most of us now regard as "the political". I believe what we presently regard as "the political" is utter and absolute madness. It makes no sense however you slice it. It's utterly broken. It doesn't work. And I could explain why I say this, and probably will ... soon enough, in the terms brought up in this conversation. But I strongly suspect everyone reading this will fully and utterly agree with me, and most will likely understand why, rather precisely, I say what I do -- and can anticipate my explanations, and argue it for me.
Take, for example, the latest UN "COP" -- cop 28, was it? I mean, that's utter and complete madness, right? Can't we all see that it is it a total and complete sham? And that is sham-y about it is not so different from what is sham-y about most or all of the governments which showed up, right? I mean, do we really have our heads so far shoved up our rear ends that we can't all agree that what is now regarded as "politics" is actually a gigantic, meaningless, absurd sham?