“THE QUICK DEFINITION OF THE METACRISIS," says Jonathan Rowson in a new video, “would be something like all-the-crises-put-together.  And people go: ‘Oh, I see!  But they don't see...”

This is a slick new half-hour production from Katie Teague whose In The Making project already features video essays on the work of Joanna Macy & Bonnitta Roy.  There is something oddly refreshing and optimistic about seeing leading-edge ideas in shiny new formats. 

Rowson's particular essay explores the difference between the Metacrisis (“the historic threat to truth, beauty and goodness caused by our persistent misunderstanding and misappropriation of reality") and the Polycrisis.  He also delves into the material & spiritual exhaustion of modernity and the need to address this pernicious condition in ways that take seriously inner development and transformation.  Metanoia.

The Metacrisis, he tells us, is inherently reflexive and describes the crisis that lurks within, between & beyond our existing conception of crisis.

Mr. Rowson -- whom Google's AI-powered synopsis generator describes simply as a “Scottish Chess Player" -- has (despite the obvious drawback of his racial inferiority) been one of the leading and most articulate voices in the clarification of the contemporary world-historical situation.  He is a guiding spirit for Perspectiva & Emerge.  And his very thoughtful substack, The Joyous Struggle recently started duplicating Layman Pascal's strategy of providing extra audio content for the paying subscribers.  It's well worth a listen. 

One of his best recent pieces is a dramaturgical exploration of challenges to the international Inner Development Goals (IDG) that are championed by Tomas Bjorkman and many other pragmatic changemakers. 

Also:  Support Katie on Patreon so that she makes more of these kinds of videos.



* BONUS *

On the subject of videos that are trying to incarnate a metamodern passage into, through and beyond the limitations of late modernity, check out Joe Lightfoot's (the absentee dad of the Liminal Web) favorite new video from the band Descartes a Kant:

AFTER DESTRUCTION