Yuen Yuen Ang at The Ideas Letter:
Polycrisis is a descriptor that the establishment can agree on without challenging itself. It abstracts the causes of crises, making them appear as natural convergences rather than the systemic outcomes of extractive and exclusionary orders. And it makes the concept appear global when in fact the voices, experiences, and priorities it reflects are overwhelmingly Eurocentric.
The virality of polycrisis reveals something deeper: the enduring power of elite discourse. Even though the term is empty, its followers amplify it—and the echo reinforces paralysis. If leaders remain content with only naming fear, they will consign themselves to irrelevance.
I see things differently. I call this moment a polytunity—a term I coined in 2024 to reframe disruption not as paralysis but as a once-in-a-generation opportunity for deep transformation. Transformation not only of our institutions, but of our ideas, our paradigm, and the way we think.
More here.
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