Five Stages of Collapse (5)

In his bookcalled The Five Stages ofCollapse, Dimitry Orlov suggests that the western world is not ready for social collapse.

To my mind, social collapse is not a political or economic or technological problem for the elites to solve, but a cultural one (196)

All of the coping mechanisms that exist to deal with societal are designed to treat it as the exception rather than the norm; there is no safety net designed to catch entire societies as they fall. International aid, charity, disaster management, peacekeeping efforts and military interventions are designed to handle singular, localized limited crises and cannot be expected to be useful within an international landscape of constant and accelerating collapse. Few places are likely to remain sufficiently insular to escape the onslaught of internationally displaced groups driven from their land by a variety of forces from political unrest to economic dislocation caused by globalization to habitation destruction created by rapid climate change.

Some who see the inevitability of this onslaught react by attempting to isolate themselves by building a well-stocked “doomstead” in a remote area. This may work for a few people; for the rest, it might be better to abandon the idea of finding a safe place to be, and to concentrate instead on discovering a safe way to be-in company with others. (197)

I describe a safe way for Christians to be in the company of others in Being Church Where We Live.