[[TheBeween]] ## the metacrisis We’re witnessing the collapse of modernity and its institutions. Knowledge systems have fractured and are imploding, taking down traditional professions and education. The mythos of technological progress is badly frayed. We can no longer unsee the centuries of exploitation and extraction. Climate change, inequality, and authoritarianism are among the many forces reordering global politics. This account of profound upheaval leaves out us—and our inner reckonings. How do we relate to these systems and their abuses while still living within them? What control levers do we have and how do we tell if we are pulling in the right direction? Our familiar modes of sense-making no longer suffice. Put simply, we’re in the midst of a **metacrisis**. This metacrisis is the expected outcome of a culture that values utility, speed, and scale above all. The culture of a blinkered rationality that assigns a price to everything, and represses its ecological, social, and spiritual costs. It’s dividing us and, yes, killing us. And yet, inside and outside this culture there are many others, cultures and communities, animated by trust, wonderment, and curiosity. Though devalued and often starved (especially in the U.S.), their values and practices can still be found in the shadows. Like the pockets of science not driven by publish-or-perish and not bound by disciplinary silos. They persist because they’re born of the most basic human impulse to care, connect, and explore. These are values, practices, and sense-making narratives that run counter to—and can counter—the suicidal impulse of unchecked utilitarianism. What we need already exists, even if we have a hard time seeing it. **The between** is our way of surfacing, nurturing, and amplifying these values and practices of care, connection, and exploration, necessary for balancing and reviving our world. Our organizing principle is the re-integration of the polarities in the central binary of code vs craft. [[TheBetween/code and craft|code and craft]]