The link between a state of mind and a degraded river is not mystical. It runs through a chain of entirely ordinary steps, each of which is somebody’s job.
This is the argument of the book in a single figure. On the left, the chain that runs from unbounded wanting to civilisational instability. On the right, the same chain reversed — not a different world, but the same links pointed the other way. Every step in both columns is a real, describable human activity. Nothing in either column requires anyone to believe anything.
The degenerative chain
what unbounded wanting builds
Desire without a horizon