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Many have written about the dire state of our world and our seemingly headlong journey toward disaster for our species and for the planet. Jon Mills uses his expertise as a psychoanalyst and philosopher to bring additional perspectives to the topic of our doom. “What sets my analysis apart from others is simply this: our unconscious remains the primal threat to our collective existence. Until we become aware and reverse our trajectory toward self-annihilation, humanity will teeter on the edge of extinction” (p. XVIII).
This book is a scholarly study of the risks the world faces. For example, factors such as overpopulation, the threat of nuclear war, biological and other forms of terrorism, ecocide, economic disparities, immediate gratification along with a lack of sacrifice, and scarcity of resources, to name just a few. It is also a study of the psychological reasons why we face them. Reasons include disavowal, an existential fear of death, the prevalence of human aggression, dissociation, and the human death wish. In the last sentence of the book, Mills states “If I were a betting man, I would say we are on the brink of extinction” (p. 207). This book was published in 2024, well before Trump's second election victory. This review is written 100 days into the chaos and vengeance of the current presidency. I wonder how much worse the author might view our collective futures given the events that are unwinding in 2025. In any case, this work of applied psychoanalysis is full of thoughtful inquiry and compelling information.
The author initially focuses on what he describes as the bystander effect. Despite the warnings and evidence all around us, we focus on the present, with our needs for stability, security, materialism, and economic predictability. We have our eye on our perilous future but have little collective commitment to doing anything about it. Just consider overpopulation. There are eight billion humans on the earth today which is 6 times more than in 1800 an