The mess we are in: how the Morphogenetic Approach helps to explain it

David Lockwood's distinction between System Integration and Social Integration is brought together with the Morphogenetic Approach (M/M) to account for the current societal fragmentation experienced globally. The generative mechanism from c. 1980 accounting for this tendency is the growing synergy developing between globalized capitalism (its profitability) and innovations in digital science (its diffusion). The two pulled the social order in different directions. Macroscopically, political parties transformed into 'politics without conviction', bureaucracy into anormative social regulation and social institutions became subject to governance by 'performance indicators'. At the micro­-level, social media fostered expressive reactions and a short-termist 'presentism' rather than social movements. The outcome of synergy both reduced System and Social Integration. The contingent pandemic increased misery without affecting the generative mechanism, precluding a return to any earlier 'normal' more morphostatic state.