End of the World: Civilization and Its Fate

A psychological and philosophical warning that humanity’s unconscious self-destructive impulses and collective bystander paralysis are driving us toward ecological, social, and existential collapse unless we choose a different path. Famine. Extreme climate change. Threats of global war and nuclear annihilation. Obscene wealth disparities. Is civilization destined for self-annihilation? In this timely book, philosopher and psychoanalyst Jon Mills explores the emergencies that could ignite an apocalypse. As we idly stand by in the face of ecological, economic, and societal collapse, we must seriously question whether humanity is under the sway of a collective unconscious death wish. Examining ominous existential risks and drawing on the psychological motivations, unconscious conflicts, and cultural complexes that drive human behavior and social relations, he offers fresh new perspectives on the looming fate of humanity based on a collective bystander disorder. End of the World is a warning about the dangerous precipice we find ourselves careening toward and a call to action to take control of our own fate.