Dmitry Orlov, Crossroads Lecturer on "The Fall of the American Empire" next Sunday Oct. 9.
Sunday, October 9 at 2 p.m. at Orcas Center
From the Crossroads Lecture Series Committee
The Orcas Crossroads Lecture Series presents Dmitry Orlov’s lecture, Fall of the American Empire next Sunday, October 9, 2 pm at Orcas Center,including a reception and book signing with the speaker following the presentation.
Dmitry Orlov was born in Leningrad and immigrated to the United States at the age of twelve. He was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse over several extended visits to his Russian homeland between the late eighties and mid-nineties.
In the waning days of the American empire, we find ourselves mired in political crisis, with our foreign policy coming under sharp criticism and our economy in steep decline. These trends mirror the experience of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. Orlov’s recent book, Reinventing Collapse, examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we in the United States might prepare for our own coming events.
Orlov points out that empires always collapse—it is just a matter of when. With characteristic dry humor, he identifies five stages of collapse, including financial, commercial, political, social, and cultural.
Also, he suggests three progressive stages of response to the looming crisis:
· Mitigation—alleviating the impact of the coming upheaval
· Adaptation—adjusting to the reality of changed conditions
· Opportunity—flourishing after the collapse
Orlov argues that by examining maladaptive parts of our common cultural baggage, we can survive, thrive, and discover more meaningful and fulfilling lives, in spite of steadily deteriorating external circumstances.
Complimentary tickets are available at the Library and Senior Center. The purchase of $10 tickets, available at the Orcas Island Library, Darvill’s Bookstore, or online at www.orcascrossroads.org, helps to fund the series. Remaining tickets, if available, can be obtained at the door.
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Is there a way to get a transcript of tis event?
Orlov is one of my favourite Doomsters! We’re driving/ferrying down from Vancouver (the big one) to see him. Anyone who doesn’t know his work should Google the “Collapse Gap” essay that he wrote in 2006,. It posited that the more-deprived Soviets of the early 1990s were better-equipped to survive the implosion of their society than the over-privileged Americans will be when their nation falls apart this decade, because the ex-communists were more savvy about getting by on limited means. Orlov is bleak, but he has some interesting ideas about the turbulent times ahead.