Polycrisis is Edgar Morin's term, made popular by Adam Tooze, for crises that interlock. I accept it as a diagnosis of the old order. What I reject is its assumption that crises are temporary and manageable.
How the word moved
In Nov 2022 I used it as a working term in the Normalizing the Planet essays. By Feb 2025 I'd declared it obsolete, the term du jour, because its crisis-management logic belongs to complexity science and the liberal approach to systems. Polyconflict took its place.
In my words
"The limits of ‘Polycrisis’ thinking are arguably the limits of Complexity Science/Complexity Theory as well"
from Bhumics Sidebar: From Polycrisis to Polyconflict, 25 Feb 2025
Related
- Contradicts Polyconflict - polyconflict is my replacement term.
- Related Three Ages of Systems Theory - polycrisis belongs to the complexity age and its bird's-eye view.
- Related Earthworm View - I set the bird's eye of complexity science against the earthworm's view.
- Related Rules-Based International Order - as a diagnosis of the ancien regime it's reasonable.
Still open
I still call myself a complexity theorist while rejecting the frame. Fair to say I've announced the break with complexity science more than I've argued it.