what would it look like if civilization had a nervous breakdown?

Nervous breakdown

Causes: Extreme stress, emotional trauma, grieving, severe anxiety.

— 

I recently read a fascinating article that referred to a discipline known as ponerology. [1] It captivated me because I had never before considered the hypothesis it raised: that our systems of government and commercial enterprise across the globe have been irreparably corrupted by a “critical mass” of evil people, who some have eloquently termed “pathocrats.”

That would explain so much about our world today and why everything seems reversed: what was once wrong is now right; truth, once considered noble, has given way to endemic dissembling; where we once championed helping people in need, today we push them away (as in the case of the homeless) or simply kill them (as in Palestine); knowledge is scorned, while unsubstantiated belief is embraced.

The world today reminds me of that excellent Star Trek episode, titled Mirror, Mirror, [2] in which in the midst of the transporter beam, several crew members swap places with their counterparts from an almost identical parallel universe, but in which everything is backwards: evil is endemic, violent ascension is admired, the administration of pain thinly conceals a latent pornographic lust, just like in the case of our own Abu Ghraib prison scandal. (Much more follows...)

Because of the length of this essay, it is presented as a PDF file, which can be accessed here.