This is a far too Newtonian a framing of the challenges we face. An ecological/complex adaptive systems perspective yields much more helpful insights. Human enterprises are conceived in passion, born in communities of trust, grow through the application of reason and mature in power where they tend to lose their narratives and get stuck. This sets them up for crisis and destruction, but with the possibility of renewal. The Anglo-American democracies are stuck in just such a competency trap. It will take a crisis together with creative leadership to restore our lost narratives at several systems levels.