Goliath’s Curse by Luke Kemp
Not directly about anarchism, but instead about anthropology. I find that a lot of discussions about anarchism end up going awry as soon as people start injecting some common myths about anthropology into the mix. False assumptions about history and human nature will lead to ineffective conclusions about how to deal with it.
It’s not like it was never alluded to:
“Then as elites extract more wealth from the people and the land, they make societies more fragile, leading to infighting, corruption, immiseration of the masses, less healthy people, overexpansion, environmental degradation and poor decision making by a small oligarchy. The hollowed-out shell of a society is eventually cracked asunder by shocks such as disease, war or climate change.”
(bold added to highlight indirect mention of overshoot by other names)
The reason that overshoot isn’t really a focus in this article is because the author has recognized (correctly, IMO) that overshoot is just a symptom of a much deeper problem - large-scale domination by narcissistic/psychopathic individuals.
You want to learn about narcissism, narcissistic abuse, and, in particular, what happens to the victims of sustained narcissistic abuse. The victims end up suffering from ‘codependency’ or ‘self-love deficit disorder’ depending on who you talk to. Your mention of ‘pathologically stable attachment’ is pretty close to talking about one real aspect of codependency. There are attachment disorders (like anxious attachment disorder) that will cause people to hyper-attach to others (especially abusers).
I do not say this to name-call, per se - but rather to give you some keywords that you can use to learn more about what’s going on. I will also recommend this youtuber, and in particular her Glossary of Narcissistic Relationships playlist. She’s also written books if you would prefer that format instead. Most information on this topic focuses on interpersonal relationships (intimate ones, especially), but it is trivially applicable to other (larger) contexts.
One of the best things you can do for someone who is suffering from codependency is to help them learn about narcissistic abuse, so that they are even able to recognize what is being done to them. A big part of the apathy that you are observing in people is just plain normalization. They literally don’t even recognize that they are being abused. Once you get past this barrier, helping them heal from the trauma and develop far healthier responses to abusive situations becomes a whole lot easier.