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Author: jembendell
I'm a British national living in Indonesia. I am known for my work on societal collapse risk and response. That includes the Deep Adaptation paper and Breaking Together book. I cofounded Scholars’ Warning to help academics communicate about a post-Sustainability agenda for reducing harm in the face of catastrophic ecological change. I cofounded Bekandze Farm School to enable smallholders to switch to organic and resilient farming methods. Last year I quit my full Professorship to focus on deep adaptation to societal disruption and collapse.
Make Patriotism Great Again: some ideas from a British guy abroad
I have a strange habit when I am bored. It involves Ricky Gervais. Or rather, some video clips of him on stage. I must have watched him hosting the Golden Globe Awards a dozen times. The film stars are in their tuxedos and gowns, knowing the camera is panning across their faces. Ricky expresses shock at being invited to host again, then takes a sip of beer at the lectern, and tells his audience they shouldn’t try to lecture us on anything, as “most of you have spent less time in school than Greta Thunberg”. He then cracks a joke about Jeffrey Epstein, and as the groan spreads, tells them: “Shut up. I know he was your friend.” The camera cuts to shocked faces in the audience – rather prophetic editing, in retrospect.
When I watch it, I don’t just smirk. I don’t just recognise it as familiar. I also feel an involuntary pride. That mockery of pomp, deflation of status, and saying what’s uncomfortable. It is a comedy directed at the powerful, and I instinctively place that as something I call “British.” Which is a bit odd, if I think about it. Because it isn’t the pride of seeing a sibling succeed, or a friend flourish at something I helped them work on. The pride arises from my imagined common identity with the kind of attitude and behaviour Gervais is engaged in. It is a story about an “us” that I feel is being embodied by him. But the emotion arrives without analysis: a flash of identification with a national characteristic I like. I know other Brits don’t feel the same way and share an identity around completely different characteristics. And that’s what’s so malleable about our common identities and, therefore, national pride. This got me thinking about ‘patriotism’ today, as someone who emigrated from the UK and now looks back at the country during an era of economic decline, ‘metacrisis’, and even systemic breakdown, which I outlined in the book Breaking Together.
Continue reading “Make Patriotism Great Again: some ideas from a British guy abroad”Transcending stories about spirit and matter to act from our wonder about both
“If the flesh came into being because of the spirit, it is a wonder. If the spirit came into being because of the body, it is a wonder of wonders. But I, I am amazed at how this great wealth has come to dwell in this poverty.” Saying 29 of Jesus, in The Gospel of Thomas.
Have we modern humans poisoned and degraded our living home and brought society to collapse due to our delusion that we are separate from nature and that nature is separate from the divine? That is a view I’ve had a lot of time for. It was part of my motivation for exploring different religious ideas, as well as taking a revisionist perspective on the religion of my upbringing — Christianity. That led me to look at some of the Gnostic Gospels, over the past year. What I learned has shifted my perspective on the deeper causes of our overly destructive habits as modern humans. In this essay I’ll share my realisations through a focus on one specific saying of Jesus, according to a text called the Gospel of Thomas, which was unknown in the modern world before the 1970s.
Continue reading “Transcending stories about spirit and matter to act from our wonder about both”March Salon: Dread, Grief & God in the Metacrisis
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What is the Courageous Response to Climate Chaos? Not eco-authoritarianism.
Are you hearing more people talk about needing to do “whatever it takes to save the planet”? Have you heard people blame democracy as the reason for our intractable problems, including persistent poverty, extreme inequality, and the unaffordable cost of living, or environmental damage and breakdown? I have been hearing variations of that perspective, particularly from people rightly dreading the impacts of climate chaos. Over three decades of work on the topic, I witnessed authoritarian musings of frustrated environmentalists being expressed in private. But now I hear them articulated in public. One person who has brought this topic into the open is the environmental academic John Foster. Writing at the Greenhouse Think Tank, he argues: “the intelligent and informed who do recognise the urgency of transformation must organise themselves for a vanguard seizure of power…” He has a new book out this year, which reminded me I hadn’t responded to his critique of my arguments against such eco-authoritarianism. As John’s Lifeworld book will go deeper into his philosophical justification for authoritarian rule by an ecologically-minded elite, I think it is a good time to rejoin the conversation. If you are interested in the future of politics in a metacrisis, where societies experience environmental breakdown, then I hope this long-form essay will provide some stimuli for your own political opinions and campaigning.
Continue reading “What is the Courageous Response to Climate Chaos? Not eco-authoritarianism.”Reflections on the Epstein Scandal and the Wealth Supremacy Culture
In 2012 I had some interaction with Jeffrey Epstein, only remotely by skype, calls and emails, and where we reached no agreement. I mentioned this experience with the deceased and now-infamous criminal billionaire in my 2023 book, and in a 2024 article on the topic (here). The matter of his life (including crimes, accomplices, purposes and death) is highly charged, especially for survivors of sexual abuse and child abuse. The survivors of abuse, by him and his accomplices, as well as independent media, are doing immense work to obtain greater transparency, in the pursuit of truth, accountability, and justice. Because of the bizarre online interaction I had with Epstein, I followed that struggle, as well as the slow release of information about the case. This culminated last week with me finally appearing in the Epstein files, specifically my email correspondence about his interest in alternative currencies. A few people have asked me about it, so I thought it helpful to share what I think I know of what’s most important about this ‘story’ (based on what I have gleaned from the public information). As it would take a long time, I will not elaborate with examples or put in links to sources – so if you are intrigued or doubtful, please use search and/or AI to identify further information about what I mention here. I know some people prefer to dismiss it all as conspiracy-laden speculation, but the evidence is now sufficient to point not just to sex crime, but to both a sinister agenda and network, and to a ‘wealth supremacy culture’ that affects everyone’s lives and the direction of humanity.
Continue reading “Reflections on the Epstein Scandal and the Wealth Supremacy Culture”Reclaim Environmentalism this Monday in the Metacrisis Salon #6
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Don’t Forget the Dread – Deeper Healing in the Metacrisis
I invited the co-admin of the largest Deep Adaptation group in the world to share her ideas on the difficult emotions experienced by people who awaken to metacrisis and collapse. In this essay Krisztina Csapo explains it is unhelpful to frame such emotions as a form of general anxiety. Instead, more can be gained from recognising and responding to them as dread, grief, trauma and moral injury. I have left comments open for you to share relevant resources and initiatives at the end. Thx, Jem (Image by Ellis Rosen).
How do we psychologically sustain ourselves in times like these? This question arises again and again within communities working on ecological and social harm, and especially on the prospect of societal collapse. Through six years of engagement with the international Deep Adaptation movement, including facilitating the largest such national group, I have become much clearer about what helps — and what does not. That clarity begins with taking seriously the emotional reality people are living with as they confront the full gravity of our predicament.
I have come to see that framing what people — especially young people — are feeling as “climate anxiety” is often a misdiagnosis. It is misleading because it suggests a variant of generalized anxiety, thereby pathologizing responses that are understandable and proportionate to the situation. And it is unhelpful because well-known anxiety-management strategies frequently fail to address the deeper distress involved, sometimes adding shame or a sense of inadequacy when the “anxiety” does not go away.
Continue reading “Don’t Forget the Dread – Deeper Healing in the Metacrisis”Reclaiming Environmentalism: Saner Responses to the Ecological Crisis
I invited an essay from a conservationist who recently worked in the crucible of US politics, and is now seeking ways to bring more authentic attention to ecological realities.
By Aaron Vandiver
Over the past several decades, environmentalism has been driven far from its roots. What began as a movement grounded in ecological understanding, love for the living Earth, and resistance to industrial destruction has been reduced to a narrow technical problem: carbon emissions.
When, on this blog, Professor Jem Bendell explains a pan-ecological perspective, he is calling us back to a truth environmentalists once grasped intuitively. As Rachel Carson wrote, “Nothing in nature exists alone.” Forests, oceans, soils, coral reefs, and natural hydrological cycles are, as philosopher Charles Eisenstein puts it, the “vital organs” and systems of a living Earth. A mechanical climate model focused on atmospheric physics and emissions cannot capture this living dimension. As Professor Bill Rees put it in response to Jem’s essay, climate is not primarily a physical system but a “biophysical” one. Recognizing this requires elevating biology — life itself — to the same status that physics and chemistry have enjoyed in the institutions of science on environment and climate.
Continue reading “Reclaiming Environmentalism: Saner Responses to the Ecological Crisis”Next time, let’s put the true Christ back into Christmas
How was your Christmas? I had a lovely day walking the dog and recording a video of the amount of colourful trash “decorating” some of the trees here in Indonesia. We are in a majority Muslim country, which happily celebrates Christmas. That might be something to tell any grumpy neighbours who fear a Muslim “invasion” of where you live. Maybe they told you it’s time to put Christ back into Christmas, exhibiting a new religiosity with few prior symptoms (such as care for the poor or foreign). Reflecting on such declarations of the need to remember Jesus, this year I decided they have a point. Here’s why…
Every December, as the tills jingle and the Christmas songs play, we are invited to celebrate the birth of a man who asked us to stop worshipping money and start paying attention to what was going on inside our own hearts. Naturally, we mark this by maxing out our credit cards as we imagine what random stuff might pass as thoughtful presents. But if we are to be serious about “putting Christ back into Christmas,” we could begin by putting the actual Christ back into view.
Continue reading “Next time, let’s put the true Christ back into Christmas”
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