The Crisis of Civilization

March 21, 2012 | Filed under: Documentaries,Society | Posted by:

The Crisis of Civilization is a documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system.

Weaving together archival film footage and animations, film-maker Dean Puckett, animator Lucca Benney and international security analyst Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed – author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It – offer a stunning wake-up call proving that ‘another world’ is not merely possible, but on its way.

Like the book on which it is based, the film consists of seven parts which explore the interconnected dynamic of global crises of Climate Catastrophe; Peak Energy; Peak Food; Economic Instability; International Terrorism; and the Militarization Tendency – with a final section on The Post-Peak World.

The film reveals how a failure to understand the systemic context of these crises, linked to neoliberal ideology, has generated a tendency to deal not with their root structural causes, but only with their symptoms. This has led to the proliferation of war, terror, and state-terror, including encroachment on civil liberties, while accelerating global crises rather than solving them.

The real solution, Nafeez argues, is to recognise the inevitability of civilizational change, and to work toward a fundamental systemic transformation based on more participatory forms of living, politically, economically and culturally.

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3 Responses to The Crisis of Civilization

  1. Pingback: The Crisis of Civilization | galdoka

  2. CalgarySandy January 29, 2013 - 11:26 pm

    More magical thinking; leaving out basic human nature and thinking that giving the diagnosis will do anything to change human greed and indifference to their fellows. It is true that Civilizations change as anyone who studied high school Social Studies knows. They build slowly and, for the most part, the changes are too slow to trigger panic. Rome did not fall, it faded out over a few hundred years. New civilizations build on the what is left of previous ones. They do not end the old or begin the new as some act of good sense and good will. It is not that I disbelieve in the existence of people of good will. I know lots but they are not in the majority. It is not that I do not believe there are solutions IF people are willing. Ah, there is the problem. Possibly if we find a way to stop Climate Change we will have the time to convert all the Fundamentalists, all the greed mongers, and war mongers and all the disinterested. We may convince everyone to use less and give more. Developing nations want what we in the West have had and consider it bigotry to deny them. We need a change in consciousness and we have been trying to generate interest in compassion and stewardship of the planet since at the least the late 60;s.

    There are, in the US alone, millions of people who think liberals are lying about Climate Change for some unknown reason. There are millions who welcome the death of all life because Jesus will come back. We may consider these people ignorant and stupid but we cannot leave them out of the equation. They are legion. They support the uber wealthy and the Republicans. They will wake up but facts are not doing it. It will take the water lapping at their door step and then they will blame the liberals for not being clear enough on the message. Improving the American public school system might help if there is time. On the other hand, what is taught and what is not is completely up to states and local governments. Children are not taught to think critically. They do not study which is better: Socialism or Capitalism. They study how great Capitalism is and how bad Socialism is. The whole curriculum in NJ appeared to be based on stuffing the FACTS as the government defined them into kids. So, Liberals, Commies, Socialists and Nazis are all considered the same thing.

    I have been a socialist since the mid 60′s, studied history for years in University and taught the subject. I have no idea what a neo liberal is. It seems to be a shot at someone by some teenage troll with no education.

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  3. Nick Athens March 11, 2013 - 1:46 am

    quoting Hansen on global warming made me turn it off. They guy consistently misrepresents the data and makes models that don’t work. They haven’t correlated for 17 years. I turned it off as soon as I heard hansen..

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