Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.

Lessing is warning that what feels like a stable “society” is often held together by fragile, largely invisible systems—institutions, norms, supply chains, political arrangements, shared beliefs—that require continual maintenance and trust. Calling these mechanisms “precarious” and “dicey” stresses contingency: collapse is not a remote apocalypse but a plausible outcome when pressures (economic shocks, war, ecological strain, authoritarianism, mass fear) overwhelm the supports. The line fits Lessing’s recurring preoccupation with how quickly civilized behavior can give way under stress, and how complacency about progress blinds people to systemic vulnerability.