The History of Bad Ideas: Polycrisis

• The term polycrisis originated in the 1990s to describe multiple overlapping global crises linked to modernity and not just one issue like climate change.
• It reflects a complexity in understanding that challenges simplistic single-cause explanations prevalent in earlier ideological eras.

• Polycrisis challenges the age of ideology's single cause explanations by emphasizing interconnected crises interacting with each other.
• The focus shifts from a monocausal explanation to seeing how crises feed off one another and magnify overall impact.

The concept of polycrisis highlights multiple overlapping global crises, such as climate change, capitalism's challenges, and democracy's struggles, all interacting in complex ways without a single root cause.

While initially empowering for acknowledging interconnected problems, polycrisis thinking risks inducing despair by emphasizing complexity without offering clear solutions or political paths forward.

Historically, previous eras faced multiple crises but maintained political optimism and actionable programs, unlike today's sense of exhaustion and despair, especially on the left.

Moreover, the term "crisis" tends to be overused, which dilutes its meaning and leads to confusion about whether crises have clear breakpoints or are ongoing conditions.

The podcast suggests reinvigorating political strategies to address these challenges instead of resigning to despair, as well as reconsidering how the term "crisis" is applied for better clarity and action.