Summary
A phase shift is a change of state, not of degree: a system holds steady for a long time, grows brittle, then tips into something that runs by different rules, as cooling water becomes ice. The term here is Nafeez Ahmed’s, a systems theorist who argues that industrial civilisation has entered such a crossing.
In his account, complex systems are “held in their current state by feedback loops”, which are a system’s strength until conditions change: “Then they become its trap.” He builds on the ecologist C. S. Holling’s adaptive cycle of growth, conservation, release and reorganisation, in which the period after a breakdown is the one most open to experiment.
Rationale
A caveat for culture: we don’t picture dispositions flipping for good. “There isn’t a switch inside of us”, and old environments “can tug us back”. Holling’s cycle, which keeps turning, is nearer our view.