Surviving a Pan-Crisis

By Erdem Denk

We are not facing separate crises, but the simultaneous collapse of multiple historical orders unfolding in the present.

Not only international relations and political science scholars but also the broader communities of social sciences—and increasingly even the natural sciences—are confronting a profound and widely acknowledged crisis, which is not merely “theoretical,” “disciplinary,” or “scientific” in nature. Politics itself, as well as everyday life, is in crisis. Today, almost nothing can be clearly understood or analyzed in terms of cause and effect by specialists of those relevant fields, nor are experts from different disciplines able to offer scientific diagnoses or reliable forecasts about what is unfolding. This is because almost nothing functions as it once did.

In this short essay, I argue that the underlying reason for this condition lies in the fact that we are experiencing a “pan-crisis.” At the global level, we are confronted with crises unfolding across so many different layers and dimensions that although humanity has experienced some of them individually—and in some cases repeatedly—we are now, for the first time, facing a crisis in its totality, encompassing nearly every domain of life.

If we begin with the most accessible layer and look at what is happening today, we can broadly observe that the Europe-/West-centric modern(ist) world system—which began to take shape roughly 500 years ago, became institutionalized at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, reaching its final form after World War II—is undergoing a fundamental transformation. What can be described, in short, as the unfolding of the collapse of the modern(ist) consensus.

While on the one hand, industrial capitalist modes of production together with the systems of production and distribution tied to them are being reconfigured, on the other hand, a growing crisis of confidence in party-based political representation is taking shape in the political sphere. Alongside this, we are witnessing radical shifts in power relations and voting behavior—levels of electoral volatility that cannot be explained by the concept of populism alone.

As most recently illustrated by the crises in Libya, Ukraine, Syria, and Israel, Cold War-based arrangements of spheres of influence are being transformed, while a new scramble for geopolitical repositioning—shaped by the possibility that so-called rising powers such as China may replace “exhausted” centers—is intensifying. At the same time, as the epicenter and axis of digital neoliberal production shift, efforts to repair global supply chains that were infected during the pandemic by diversifying trade systems and routes worldwide are deepening. With changing geopolitical power balances and the growing impact of cyber technologies, the global military-security architecture is also being reshaped, while the ideological foundations that rendered global power competition predictable for decades are giving way to a blunt pragmatism, which is increasingly open to everyday turbulence and even abrupt realignments.

Meanwhile, under the combined impact of climate change, environmental degradation, and related global crises, national and even global demographic structures are being transformed, rendering existing regimes of membership, identity, and belonging the subject of renewed constituent debate. At the same time, even as esotericism rises by questioning the scientific mode of knowing produced by the Enlightenment—an era that once sought to displace religion from its throne—monotheistic religions and spiritualist approaches, acting at once as rivals and seemingly symbiotic counterparts, are also struggling to adapt themselves to the conditions of the post-truth age.

In this new age of value(s)lessness, shaped through relations of mutual determination—resulting from the transformations unfolding across nearly all constituent domains of life—the possibility of understanding and analyzing what is taking place through the existing modern(ist) reservoir of knowledge, dominant modes of knowledge production, or entrenched paradigms is steadily diminishing.

Moreover, besides the fact that these developments have been tearing apart the modern(ist) consensus—gradually shaped over the past 500 years—at almost every seam, the phenomenon of the state, which has structured human life for roughly 5,000 years, is itself undergoing a profound transformation. Put simply, the state—historically characterized by its monopoly over power and instruments across all constituent domains of life—is increasingly turning into the coercive executor of the neoliberal global system. As the state steadily loses its classical sovereignty in the realms of rulemaking (legislation), implementation (execution), and enforcement (adjudication), it is being transformed into an “organ/agent” that carries out what the neoliberal global order requires, often automatically, and when necessary, through support, pressure, or subtle coercion.

The accelerating authoritarian turn observed across much of the world, and its legitimation through narratives of being “local and national”—slogans that have effectively become a global mantra of neoliberalism—is partly a result of this process. It is widely known that neoliberalism’s continued hold on power also depends on the perception that it is outside the state, or more precisely, that it has been pushed outside by a so-called strong state. As the hollowing out of the state produces growing security gaps, an expanding cult of the state is required to fill this void and must be repeatedly sanctified at every opportunity.

The entire system is entrusted to strong leaders who form an informal network of people who get things done among themselves, bound together by mutual accommodation and solidarity. The alternative, in a world constantly portrayed as saturated with danger at every moment, is presented as being plagued by hunger and abandonment. Fortunately, individuals who are increasingly detached from production and compelled to find happiness, contentment, or consolation in consumption become more inclined, under conditions of growing insecurity, to seek refuge in the power symbolized by the state or its representatives—a power that is now largely symbolic.

What is certain, in any case, is that this situation leaves the social sciences—themselves products of the modern(ist) consensus—helpless and unequipped. The dominant paradigm has largely lost its ability to analyze human and social behaviors, trapped between nostalgic invocations of an all-powerful past and performative/symbolic opposition in the present. As a result, this paradigm functions only to either call the old order back for rescue or to consign it to burial.

From the standpoint of the very possibility and capacity for scientific analysis, the situation is even more troubling. In these interesting times we are passing through, it is not only 500 years of modernism or 5,000 years of state-centered organization that is being shaken. At least 50,000 years of human (Homo sapiens) existence is also confronting serious challenges. While technological pursuits render reproduction—one of the most fundamental (micro-level) problems of human history—possible beyond anything we have known, and thus carry the potential to destabilize the social order from the most micro to the most macro levels. Artificial intelligence and robotic technologies are simultaneously introducing a nonhuman agent into social life.

Beyond their potential impacts on employment or everyday social life, this development represents a transformation that will fundamentally reshape legal systems, making the continuation of the existing order in its current form impossible.

Apart from the wide range of legal questions raised by the use of autonomous vehicles and weapons—from the exercise of rights, authority, and criminal liability in cases of accidents or ordinary homicide—it is certain that these developments will further dehumanize warfare, stripping it of its human meaning, impact, and limits. It is equally clear that such transformations cannot be addressed or explained within existing paradigms. Since the moment warfare entered human life roughly 5,000 years ago, the appetite for war has historically grown as risk and cost decreased while profit and plunder increased. Today, the conditions are maturing for this appetite to become fully normalized and thoroughly amoral.

As capital becomes increasingly centralized—at local, national, regional, and global levels—plunder grows geometrically. At the same time, the deepening asymmetry produced by artificial intelligence and autonomous weapons further reduces risk. In this context, the hands of those seeking to reconstruct the global parcelization required by the collapsing modernist consensus and entrenched state order are being strengthened.

Yet, as long as nuclear power balances persist, it is evident that no genuinely constituent war can take place. Instead, what emerges is the normalization of perpetual proxy wars, which are incapable of bringing the existing order—or disorder—to an end. Rather than being eliminated, populations that cannot be destroyed are instead condemned to prolonged suffering.

Likewise, the intensification of space activities will profoundly affect a world order that has, until now, been driven almost exclusively by terrestrial resources. There are widespread speculations that even a small metallic asteroid may contain trillions of dollars’ worth of industrial raw materials, and that some asteroids could potentially meet the world’s resource needs for millions of years. Although asteroid mining is not yet considered feasible due to current operational and transportation costs, numerous projects are closely following the data expected from studies on the sample brought to Earth from the asteroid Ryugu by Japan in 2020, while simultaneously focusing on reducing the logistical and operational costs of space mining.

With concrete steps toward establishing colonies on planets such as Mars likely to take shape before the middle of this century, it can be argued that asteroid mining holds an exceptionally high potential to generate an asymmetric economic leap comparable to the one witnessed beginning in 1492, which emerged in Europe’s favor, ushering in the modern(ist) era. Finally, the newly opening maritime trade routes, rare elements, or even previously unknown bacteria released by the melting of polar ice sheets—formed over tens of thousands of years and now dissolving due to climate change—will produce radical socioeconomic, demographic, and political consequences. What were initially dismissed as objects of ridicule, such as Donald Trump’s statements regarding Greenland and Canada or Elon Musk’s fascination with Mars, may therefore not be “simple,” “absurd,” or “innocent” fantasies after all.

What we are witnessing is a transformation that such actors do not know as abstract information, but as a lived reality—one they understand through the mentality it embodies and seek to steer as much as possible. The last time we encountered the consequences of a “new age of (re)discoveries,” in which global production turned toward new raw materials and became intertwined with new supply routes and, consequently, new supply chains, was 500 years ago, in the 15th century. Besides the 2020 mini-pandemic, the last time humanity confronted what a mass-threatening epidemic truly meant was just before that in the 14th century. Climate change—the underlying driver of all these processes—was last experienced at a comparable scale roughly 11,650 years ago.

A world centered on humans has existed for approximately 50,000 years. Tools have been produced for around 3.3 million years, and they have always been made by living beings. Even the mere possibility that tools—long understood as objects made by and for living beings—might become “tools for themselves” is sufficient to overturn the entire order. Every major technological leap since the Stone Age has transformed the existing order along with its values and norms, while simultaneously establishing new ones. Those unable to adapt—that is, those who failed to redirect the process in their own favor—were eliminated.

In short, we are living through a pan-crisis that affects all layers and institutions generated by the roughly 500-year cycle of Western-centrism, the 5,000-year cycle of state-centrism, and the 50,000-year cycle of human-centrism in human history. We are not merely facing a situation in which each of these cycles is individually in crisis; rather, we are experiencing a moment in which the crisis points of all these cycles intersect in the present. At a time when the modern(ist) consensus—and all the entrenched value judgments—is dissolving, and the definition, meaning, and function of knowing/knowledge are transforming under the impact of artificial intelligence, understanding a world in such a deep and complex state of crisis is becoming increasingly difficult.

There is no future in attempting to understand or explain what is happening while remaining within the epistemological framework and methodological repertoire of the modern(ist) paradigm. This paradigm was constructed around the modes of production and needs of industrial capitalism and was therefore shaped in accordance with its objectives. From the outset, selective, biased, and incomplete, the dominant paradigm has now also lost its sustainability.

To confront a pan-crisis, a pan-science is required.

Erdem Denk is a professor of international law and international relations at Ankara University and the founder of the transdisciplinary research initiative Arkeopolitics, which integrates archaeology, history, political theory, and legal history to reinterpret the long-term dynamics of human societies. His research focuses on the evolution of law and social order since the Paleolithic. He is the author of The 50,000-Year World Order: Societies and Their Laws (2021, in Turkish) and is currently working on three books, in Turkish and English, titled When There Was No State, The Invention of the State, and The Story of the State

The original version of this article was published in Turkish on the Global Panorama portal on 3 November 3, 2025. This article was produced by Human Bridges.