I’ve been reading Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse by Luke Kemp, and it’s made me reflect on collapse narratives.
Although they can be useful (and I certainly use them in some contexts), I’m increasingly wary of collapse narratives in futures work. Not because things aren’t serious, but because collapse often gets framed as inevitable, uniform, and total. Historically, collapse is none of those things.
Kemp shows how collapse is uneven, contested, and often invisible while underway. In the present, and in futures and foresight workshops, how we talk about breakdown shapes whether people retreat, adapt, or stay engaged. How people interpret collapse narratives shapes agency.
Collapse for me is therefore more than just a futures concept: it’s a facilitation challenge.