Tag: breaking together

Could there be some beauty in collapse?

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Although many people are breaking apart into self-righteous factions, many people have been breaking together, whereby they allow the upsetting situation to break down their old habits, so that they become more open-hearted and open-minded in how they live their life, including the way they relate to other people. As a result, they are dramatically changing their lives to prioritise creativity and social contribution. They are worrying less about their career, their financial security or following the latest trend. They are helping those in need, growing food, making music, campaigning for change and exploring spiritual paths. That is happening because they have rejected the establishment’s view of reality and no longer expect its officers to solve any of the worsening problems in their society. After decades of greed, hypocrisy, lies, corruption and stupid policies, they are no longer waiting for any elites to rescue the planet. As they let go of false hopes that they will be saved, they can move through grief and begin living creatively again, with an awareness of how every day is a blessing. This doesn’t mean they don’t grieve, worry or feel sad and angry, but that their feelings of wonder and gratitude about life don’t immediately trigger those other difficult emotions or keep them stuck there. Instead, they are living life more fully, according to what they value. It is precisely because these people regard modern societies to be breaking down that they are living more freely. They need neither an underground bunker nor a fairy tale of a better tomorrow as they live, today, for truth, love and beauty. Who are they? I call them doomsters. I am one of them. Perhaps you are, too?

If so, welcome. There are many ways to live differently from now on, as seen in Chapter 10 of Breaking Together. (This text is a reproduction of the closing pages of that book, released 3 years ago). Any change in our way of life doesn’t need to happen all at once. In my case, I think I was emotionally knocked down onto a metaphorical canvas and took years to fully stand again. The general ethos and approach to dialogue that is described by the phrase ‘deep adaptation’ was key for my own process—and I still recommend people engage in networks that use that framework for mutual support. But some years later I arrived at a far less inward-looking orientation. I am certain we cannot wait for the storm to pass or seek to skirt around its edges—we must learn to dance in the rain. (That led me to update the Deep Adaptation framework this year).

That dance does not need to become a rave. Modern culture indoctrinates us to admire largesse and express grand aims about changing the world. Instead, we can reclaim our freedom to be small in our desires for impact, in our communities and local environments. Unfortunately, our ability to dance our own little shimmies of freedom and social contribution is under threat… I wrote Breaking Together for people who are ready to connect their work to a broader ‘ecolibertarian project’ of a great reclamation of power of all kinds and at all levels. Together, we might become a more significant force for positive social change in this era of societal collapse. We are a peoples’ environmentalism in contrast to the agenda emerging from corporate domination. Together, we might elaborate a policy agenda at all levels of governance from the local to global, to counter the agendas of those I describe as ‘fake green globalists’.

If you take on board the arguments in Breaking Together (summarised for you here) it will be like taking a green pill . Swallowing the ‘green pill’ opens your eyes to how the modern money system is a death matrix that shapes our lives, so we collectively destroy the living world. The greenness of the pill describes both our waking to the living world and the role of the money-power in its destruction. But there is another aspect to this opening of our eyes. “Our whole culture, our whole civilisation, in so far as it is involved in time and living only for a future, is nuts, it’s not all here. We are not awake, we are not completely alive now.” Those were the wise words of contemporary psymusic voiceover artist Alan Watts, who, before he died, was a teacher of Eastern spiritualities in the West.[i] E.F. Schumacher thought similarly, and suggested that “the life and death problems of industrial society… [lie] in the heart and soul of every one of us.” The ‘evotopian’ vision I have floated in this book is of a world where dominant systems don’t restrict us so much from being able to experience ourselves, each other and nature. It is a vision where many more of us are not prevented from opening our hearts and minds to each-other and nature. It is a world where more of us would feel safe enough and free enough to care for ourselves, each other and nature. Helping to promote that in our own lives is one great beauty found within the pain of collapse. “Let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people,” said Bishop Oscar Romero, before being murdered by those working with US imperialists. This kind of work is not for the wishy washy…

Dancing long into the night will involve a lot more than being convinced about the science on our predicament or eloquent about its implications. It will require a commitment that comes from a depth of faith in the eternal rightness of living from universal love. Because unfolding collapse will be more of an ugly process than a beautiful one. No sugar-coating of our predicament is possible. We messed up, in the biggest possible way a species could mess up. Let alone an intelligent one. By ‘we’ I mean the modern human, with our irrational stories of self and reality. So, I can’t leave you with an upbeat ending about our ‘salvation’. Probably only deeper faith can sustain us in the years ahead. It’s where we sense the infinite powers of creation and the ultimate rightness of reality, whatever may come to pass. Human extinction? Don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world! But what strange times we are in that such jokes can be told (not that I think near-term human extinction is inevitable (please check out Chapters 3, 4 and 5 in Breaking Together))…

I am keenly aware that the youth of the world could be better helped to organise around these issues. One way that older people can help is simply by stopping gaslighting the young. Instead, we can help validate what many young people sense about their future and encourage them to discuss and experiment with creative ways of responding. One simple idea for how to encourage them came to me on Christmas Day. My Dad knew it was the last Christmas that we would have together, so his parting gift was a t-shirt with the following emblazoned across the front:

“I’m not arguing, I’m just explaining why I’m right.” Since then, I have felt a strange pride about my feeling of embarrassment as people I walk past on the street look at my t-shirt. I will be making some t-shirts in his honour, to give them to the young people I know, to help spark their conversations. I think the first one might say:

“Doomsters have more fun.” Because, why the heck shouldn’t young people have fun by living free of the habits of the stupidly self-destructive society we have left crumbling around them?

Nevertheless, I hope future generations may remember that we weren’t all so dumb. In that spirit of recognising our elders, I will close with the words E.F Schumacher used to close his own book, fifty years before I wrote this one: “Everywhere people ask: ‘what can I actually do?’ The answer is as simple as it is disconcerting: we can, each of us, put our inner house in order. The guidance we need for this work cannot be found in science or technology, the value of which utterly depends on the ends they serve; but it can still be found in the traditional wisdom of mankind.”[ii]

The previous text was taken from the closing of Breaking Together, published 3 years ago. Most of the book is available as a free audiobook.

The author was interviewed recently about the book by the hosts of Collapse Life (see video).

In the August 2026 salon of the Metacrisis Initiative we discuss the spiritual invitation and response to metacrisis and collapse with Reverend Stephen Wright. If you are a member of the initiative, then there is no need to register: just see the details and video link below, which will appear if you are logged in. If you can’t see it but are already a member, then use the email associated with your paid membership to request a password reminder, or a log in link, to your inbox. Any problems: use the contact form for this site and we will fix things for you.

You can learn about Reverend Stephen Wright from some my previous essays:

Deep Spirituality in an Era of Collapse – by Stephen Wright

They Weren’t 10 Commandments – on a dialogue between Stephen Wright and Jem Bendell

Heartfullness: The Way of Contemplation – review of book from Stephen Wright by Prof Jem Bendell

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[i] Yes, I am jesting here. I first read a book from Alan Watts in 2002 but it didn’t quite reach me as much as his ideas do now, after I’ve been sufficiently wounded by life. I recommend this video on this his and work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6lRcGxH-Mc

[ii] Schumacher, E. F. (1973). Small is Beautiful. Blond & Briggs. https://archive.org/details/small-is-beautiful-1973-e.-f.-schumacher/page/n221/mode/2up

The Deep Adaptation Framework: the complete version

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“Has the collapse begun?”

“What is your revised schedule for societal collapse?”

I’ve been receiving these kinds of messages in my inboxes over the last 6 weeks, since the wider impact of the US-Israeli assault on Iran began to unfold. These haven’t been queries from top officials or mainstream journalists, who we might expect to reach out to ‘collapsologists’ for advice on deeper approaches to the field of ‘contingency planning’. Instead, I’m being asked by podcasters and people who follow my blog. So what do I reply?

I’ve often said that a rising cost of living is the obvious way that most people will experience the creeping collapse of industrial consumer societies. In the decade prior to 2026, that was already happening due to market capture by monopolistic capital, corrupt monetary policies, and the damage to production from ecological depletion and climate destabilisation. Now it’s also happening due to avoidable conflicts, such as in Ukraine and the Gulf. That is not to downplay any one tragic situation; but by pointing to the rising prices which then necessitate a change in our living standards, emotional states, and life goals, I am trying to help more of us to see how collapse is not a sudden event in the future. As detailed in Breaking Together, societal collapse is not defined by pace: it is defined by the fact that declines and breakdowns are irrecoverable, so a previous state cannot be returned to. At some moments, and in some places,  there may be a lurch forward, or then an easing, within the broader trajectory of decline. For instance, according to the Human Development Index, a very slight reversal in the decline in some indicators occurred over the last two years in much of Africa and Latin America. However, a downward trend line is likely to occur there, as elsewhere, as the knock-on impacts from energy and fertiliser availability sadly combine with temperatures unprecedented in human history, later this year. 

Over time, I have realised that if we wrongly imagine all collapse as a sudden event, it is not only intensifying our attention — it can make some of us postpone action, if we imagine it as a spectre occurring at some point in the future. Although we are in the midst of a global collapse of a way of life — which the global data indicated started sometime around 2015 — it may take a long time to unfold. That means we need to get on with our lives rather than just be frozen, angry, or entertained, in front of our screens. That is one reason why I am using the term ‘metacrisis’ in my work, to describe intersecting crises that relate to a deeper crisis that cannot be fixed. I am pleased that the Metacrisis Initiative is developing to help people explore how to live well and usefully in this context, through our monthly salons, peer mentoring and community chat. 

The need for more of us to explore positive responses to metacrisis and collapse is also why I am pleased to see some of the leading podcasters on these matters, such as Nate Hagens, turn to discuss what we do about it. Many of the suggestions from people in this field are similarly focused on how to live well and usefully, rather than become bewildered, paralysed, defensive or aggressive. That was the intention behind me proposing the initial Deep Adaptation framework, nearly 10 years ago. Some advice, such as that in Dark Mountain co-founder Dougald Hine’s last book, clearly mirrors that early Deep Adaptation framework. 

With the addition of the 5th and 6th questions to the Deep Adaptation framework, I think the framework will more effectively incorporate all the types of personal reflections and community conversations that people are having as they become collapse aware. These new Rs invite more attention to community-wide social action to increase possibilities within collapsing systems. They neither require nor invite denial of our predicament, but broaden how we find paths for our own positive action within a metacrisis and collapse. They are particularly relevant to how I have heard younger generations discussing potential responses to the situation. 

1. Resilience

What do we VALUE MOST that we want to keep, and how?

2. Relinquishment

What do we need to LET GO of, so as not to make matters worse?

3. Restoration

What could we BRING BACK to help us as difficult situations unfold?

4. Reconciliation

With whom and with what could I MAKE PEACE with to lessen suffering?

5. Reclamation

What in our lives, communities, economies and nature can we TAKE BACK from dominant systems and beliefs?

6. Regeneration

What or whom can we NURTURE due to our love of Life? 

I wrote about the 5th R of Reclamation in the book Breaking Together, and the 6th R in an essay on Regenerativity. For a fuller summary of the first 5 Rs, I recommend my previous essay on the framework.  

A number of people who find the Deep Adaptation framework useful for their work have proposed new Rs and I presume more might be suggested in future. I’m happy to see the framework being used and adapted for positive purposes. However, I have defined the 3 additional Rs for the same reason I first outlined in the original Deep Adaptation framework. That is, I wish to encourage the type of reflections and conversations that aren’t that normal within either a progressivist culture and mindset, or a defeatist one. For that purpose, I now consider them a complete set, so won’t be proposing any more. 

As the origin of this framework is within environmental awareness and concern, I have chosen to represent the 6Rs of Deep Adaptation with a widely recognisable symbol of life, which reminds me of some shells on the beach as I was thinking about these ideas. 

I know that some people who appreciate the DA framing, and associated communities, can be hesitant to move beyond a focus on emotional coping of people in general, the collapse-aware in particular, or just themselves and their acquaintances. But if we want to embody and enable loving responses to our predicament, we can value our persistent desire to serve Life over our wish to avoid personal anxiety. We can also honour the fact that different generations have different emphases on how to become more collapse ready. Each of us will gain more from different questions in the DA framework at different times, and that is fine: as we don’t have a blueprint for how to live in a world where so much of what we knew to be real and true is now fracturing. 

It was with this understanding that we can all benefit from moments of challenge or reassurance, striving or allowing, that I produced the Oracle Cards for challenging times.

Please share this updated framework within any Deep Adaptation groups and initiatives you are part of. If you can edit the Wikipedia page on Deep Adaptation, I’d welcome it being updating with this complete model of the framework. And if you know how to make videos: please do one on the framework… it seems it is how most people receive their information these days 🙂 Thx, Jem

Reflections on the Epstein Scandal and the Wealth Supremacy Culture

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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.

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Let’s not become attached to collapse

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There are moments when life confronts us with such undeniable pain that our hearts split open. For many people I know, that moment came with the realisation that our civilization is unravelling – that the seas are rising, the forests are dying, and the systems built to sustain our comfort are breaking. In that shock, there can be a strange grace. For a time, we awaken from the trance of consumption, routine and ambition. We see more clearly the suffering of the Earth and of each other. That often inspires compassion, and a yearning to live differently. It is a process I’ve often described in my past writings. It is why I encourage people to talk about societal collapse more openly, including our desires to reduce harm. Which is why, when I founded the Deep Adaptation Forum in 2019, I proposed that its ethos would be to “embody and enable loving responses to our predicament, so that we reduce suffering while saving more of society and the natural world.” Over the years I have witnessed people of all races, creeds, and economic classes, find their own ways to pursue that noble goal. It’s something I celebrate in the newly released video of Chapter 12 from my book. However, I have had to accept that something quite different can happen when we awaken to collapse, which might suppress presence, service and creativity. I wonder if that happened in me and others who participate in communities formed around an awareness or acceptance of collapse. If you are in such a community, I hope the following reflections on not becoming attached to narratives about collapse will be useful. 

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After the Alarm: Artificial Intelligence, metacrisis, and societal collapse.

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The breakneck acceleration of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has moved the discourse on its benefits and perils from science fiction to boardroom and government-level concern. In the last few months there has been a series of articles by the BBC about AI trends and potential dystopias. One article was about how some leaders in AI are anticipating societal collapse and getting their bunkers ready. We also read that some ‘tech bros’ even want such a collapse, as their technotopian futures involve a break with life as we know it. One BBC article mentioned that the ‘AI Futures Project’ predicts AI may achieve ‘super intelligence’ by 2027 and then human extinction, or something like it, will occur within 5 years, via an AI deliberately engineering superbugs. Supposedly, it would do that after deciding that humans are a major problem without a remedy other than mass murder. I haven’t seen the authors of that study receive the kind of aggro I got since 2018 from predicting societal collapse due to climate change. Maybe that’s because we are used to sci-fi dramas where robots kill nearly everyone. But their prediction might be part of a ‘wake up call’ for wider societal engagement and responses to AI, so we might head off the worst scenarios. Maybe I’m naive, but these dystopias certainly woke me up a bit, and so here I am writing about AI and collapse. After the jolt, I read into the nature and scale of some risks, with the aim of exploring how people who want to behave well in these times of societal disruption and collapse — including myself — could use AI responsibly. That exploration is still ongoing. 

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“Resilient Life” oracle cards for challenging times

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Given what’s happening in the world, it can be tiring to stay engaged. But if we don’t remain involved in community life and some forms of political organising, then are we being true to ourselves? For me, the ongoing issue is how to stay engaged and maintain some balance in life. Over the years, I’ve benefited from knowing people who have found a deeper source of calm and creativity. They have helped me to both broaden my own activities and continue to engage in societal conversations, through my work on societal disruption, ‘metacrisis’ and collapse. My wish to help other people with similar intentions in this disruptive era moved me to create something I could not have imagined in my previous life – a pack of oracle cards for challenging times. 

Some of my friends have found resilience through spiritual teachings, while others learned from surviving various forms of suffering and tragedy. One such friend is Dean Powell, who I play devotional music with. He made a set of oracle cards for our ceremonies. They became helpful daily prompts for me to come back to what’s most important in life. So that inspired me to make a set of cards with him, so we could help others to find more resilience and resolve during challenging times. 

The “Resilient Life” cards also integrate some ideas from the frameworks of “Deep Adaptation” and “The Work that Reconnects”. Unlike other oracle cards, they don’t assume, or pretend, that our situations are stable and everything is possible. Instead, they help us find a realistic positivity, whatever the situation.  

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Summary of Breaking Together

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Portuguese is the fifth language that my book Breaking Together is available in. Many at the launch in Lisbon last month travelled from the countryside where they are working on community resilience. For them, the book Juntos Na Rutura provides a useful explanation to others about why they are promoting community economics. One of the interviews around the launch was with the Portuguese degrowth network, which is available on video.

After that inspirational boost, my next speech was to a more general audience in the UK, and I discovered how my analysis on the causes and implications of societal collapse can be easily misconstrued.  Therefore, I wrote a summary of the foundational concepts in my work, including concepts like Deep Adaptation, the Metacrisis, the Great Reclamation and Ecolibertarianism, to appear here on my homepage. In addition, I worked with a colleague to prepare a summary of some ideas in each chapter of Breaking Together, which I publish below.  

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Centering Citizen Ownership: Britain is not for sale and Palestine is not for stealing.

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The transcript of a speech delivered in Stroud, UK on 13th Sept 2025, by Professor Jem Bendell.

“Britain’s not for sale and Palestine’s not for stealing – defending and restoring citizenship ownership in the face of collapse.”

I am pleased to be back in ‘The People’s Republic of Stroud’. I first saw that phrase in the background of a talk entitled ‘heading for extinction’ by Gail Bradbrook back in 2018. People in the town of Stroud played a key role in the formation and growth of Extinction Rebellion, which sparked a new wave of environmentalism, bringing wider attention to the climate crisis. I mention that today, as I’m interested in connections between more commonly-owned assets, on the one hand, and a political voice on the other. Only with both of those do we increase the chances of coping better with a creeping collapse of the systems and opportunities we once had.

Today is unusual for me, as I am going to talk about politics. I have never given a speech before that is explicitly about politics. In the first half of 2017, I worked in front line politics with Jeremy Corbyn and his team. I advised on strategic communication, co-wrote speeches, and some of the manifesto. I went on to train some of the current backroom staff for PM Keir Starmer, including Morgan McSweeney. But I have never given a political speech myself. I feel now is the time to do that, because of what’s happening in Britain right now.

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Critical Collapsology & the Future of the Left – info ahead of the Metacrisis Meeting

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Richard Hames of Novara Media and his colleague Beau-Caprice Vetch, recently wrote an essay on what they call ‘critical collapsology’ to help stimulate collapse-aware innovation on the left of the political spectrum. They write:

“The question is not “when is it appropriate to lose hope once and for all?” But, instead, when are we required to give up on the specific forms of animating hope that structured much of 19th and 20th century left[wing] thought?”

You can read their full essay here. I asked AI for an 800-word summary, including a final paragraph assessing any resonance with the ecolibertarian ideas in my book Breaking Together. It follows below. 

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Let’s Turn the Tide on Surveillance – starting with radio biometrics

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Do you ever feel a quietly gnawing discomfort at the direction technology is taking us? Not just a concern about screen addiction or misinformation, but a deeper unease: that a world is being built in which our presence, thoughts, and behaviours are constantly detected, catalogued and analysed, often without us even knowing? Perhaps it’s the sense that the tools of surveillance, often accepted for personal convenience or public security, are being normalized in all aspects of our lives. Perhaps it feels like a tide: as if an inevitable force of nature, rather than a set of human choices. 

I have known that feeling of uneasy resignation for some years. But recently I came across a new study which snapped me out of that torpor. Suddenly I wanted to be clearer on what I think is unacceptable, what should be resisted, and to identify some small steps to take. Consequently, I realise this issue of technosurveillance should be firmly on the political agendas of any serious political party or individual politician. So I want to share with you some ideas on that and why it matters within my particular niche of the environment, metacrisis, and societal collapse. 

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