Published September 2020
I am a big fan of the work of Thomas Homer-Dixon, especially of his two prior works intended for the public, The Ingenuity Gap: How Can We Solve the Problems of the Future (2001) and The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization (2008). So when I received notice that Homer-Dixon had just published another work, I purchased and read it immediately, no weak signal of my expectations given my chronic reading backlog. I read the book, which consists of 459 pages--a weighty tome in both the material terms (as were his early two books that I've mentioned above), but more importantly, in terms of its content. That is, it contains a great deal of gravitas without being ponderous (or "weighty" in a negative sense). Quite the contrary, Homer-Dixon writes in a personal voice that draws the reader in by the use of his almost conversational tone, whether he's writing about his family (and his two young children in particular) or he's writing about social science research relevant to the issues of persuasion and decision-making about climate change. In short, Homer-Dixon is easy--indeed pleasant--to read without resorting to any fluff.
This is another book about climate change, to put it simply, but this description would be too simple. To be more accurate, it's a book about hope and climate change. And as Homer-Dixon acknowledges, probably no one has accused him of being a Pollyanna about climate change. On the contrary, Homer-Dixon acknowledges that some folks have dubbed him "Dr. Doom." I imagine that Homer-Dixon wouldn't object to my suggesting that he holds out hope from within the doom. But he devotes a lot of pages near the beginning of the book explaining his understanding and vision of hope, which he credits to his desire to see a worthwhile future for his son and daughter (ages 15 and 12 at the time of writing). It's for them and their future that he wrestles with the topic of hope. Homer-Dixon even reaches back to the Greek myth of Pandora's box--or as he clarifies the ancient Greek, Pandora's jar--to ponder whether "hope" is the last the plagues to be released and therefore of the greatest threat because it lulls us into the lassitude of wishful thinking, or it was a gift to humankind that might later escape to provide humankind relief from the evils released before it. Homer-Dixon explains:
For the ancient Greeks, hope was the personified spirit, or daemon, Elpis. She carried a bundle of positive and negative connotations, some like our modern understanding of hope but others resembling today’s expectation and foreboding. Classicists and other scholars have debated back and forth intensely whether the fact that Elpis stayed trapped in the jar was intended as a boon or bane for humanity, an eternal gift left behind to ease the pain of the escaped ills or, maybe, a perpetually taunting source of illusion and emotional trauma. My guess is that the parable is saying that hope is both: the ancient Greeks— or Hesiod, at least— understood that hope is ambiguous in its very essence.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas. Commanding Hope (p. 77). Knopf Canada. Kindle Edition.
Homer-Dixon's attention to the reality or seductive illusions of hope provides the keynote of the entire book. Homer-Dixon carefully distinguishes between the hope of illusion, no better than wishful thinking, which he labels "hope that" as distinguished from "hope to." "Hope to" entails a sense of agency, quite the opposite of the passive implication of wishful thinking implied by the "hope that." Homer-Dixon is in effect supplementing the more technical-scientific the analysis in The Ingenuity Gap (2001), wherein he questioned the assumption that we humans could always rely on our ability to innovate ourselves out of any jam we get ourselves into. Homer-Dixon shuts the door on wishful thinking disguised as confidence in nearly infinite human capabilities ("we have the market!"). And if there was any lingering doubt, he nailed that door shut in The Upside of Down (2008), which details the history of decay and decline in earlier civilizations. And today, we live in the first truly global civilization (national differences notwithstanding), and we have nowhere to escape to (migrate to) to avoid the consequences of our mismanagement of our global home. Homer-Dixon rightly mocks the wealthy who believe that they can sequester themselves in some remote redoubt to withstand the consequences of ecological, economic, social, and political collapse. Homer-Dixon likens them to those who would sit farthest from the leak in the lifeboat hoping that its consequence will somehow not engulf them. So, yes, hope is no small thing. And in addition to his own reflections and observations, he brings in a variety of heavy-hitters to weigh in on the subject.
Once Homer-Dixon has provided his readers with his argument about what a legitimate sense of hope might accomplish, he turns to the topic of climate change more directly. I immediately began to miss all that the talk of hope. Homer-Dixon is an MIT-trained political scientist who began his career researching the political aspects (and violence implicit) in an environment of scarcity. True, he's not a physicist or climate scientist, but he knows the relevant science and whereof he speaks. I won't belabor the point, but suffice it to say that our outlook is not rosy, to put it as mildly as I can. For all the writing about hope, any sense that Homer-Dixon will allow us to hope our way out of dire straits is completely dispelled. But Homer-Dixon doesn't ever abandon hope either. He argues that climate is a complex system, which, simply put, means that despite our best efforts, it remains subject to a good deal of uncertainty; to wit, we can't predict with (mechanical) certainty what will happen within a climate system. Take note, however, that Homer-Dixon is not denigrating the science of climate change, he's only acknowledging the uncertainty inherent in complex systems. And, as he's quick to note, the uncertainty can break either way: in favor of we humans, our foolishness notwithstanding, or against us, dragging us more quickly and more deeply into the pit than we'd expected.
It is this uncertainty that allows Homer-Dixon to draw on two quite unexpected authorities in a work that otherwise cites to cutting-edge social and natural science along with some of the deepest thinkers in the humanities. One of these two unexpected authorities is Gandolf, the wizard at the heart of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy. As I mentioned earlier, Homer-Dixon's son and daughter make appearances in this book, but to state it more accurately--at least with greater emotional accuracy--they are the heart of the book. As it turns out, Homer-Dixon reads The Lord of the Rings to his then eight-year son, and Homer-Dixon, who hadn't read this work before, and contrary to his expectation, he finds himself quite taken with the tale. Gandalf, it turns out, provides some deep insights about hope as Gandalf's rag-tag group of reluctant allies engage in a project to destroy the Ring in the fires of Mordor. As they progress, however, they suffer growing trepidation about their fate as they undertake this almost unthinkable feat. But then Gandalf offers this insight for his shaken comrades: "Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt."
Homer-Dixon's second unexpected authority is Stephanie May, who, if you're like me, you've not heard of before. I doubt many readers will be acquainted with her before reading this book. Stephanie May was a "Connecticut housewife" who read about the effects of nuclear fallout in the late 1950s, especially its effect upon children, who are most suspectable to it (such as childhood leukemia). Her knowledge led to concern (starting with her own children) and her concern led her to take action. Single-handedly, she initiated a letter-writing campaign to urge a halt to nuclear testing. She was belittled by most, yelled at, called a commie sympathizer, and so on, but in the end, after several years, she and her growing anti-testing campaigners prevailed over the incredible odds against them when an atmospheric nuclear test ban treaty was signed between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. May's exemplary tale pops up throughout the book almost as a talisman to urge on the most urgent task before us today to save the world. It's a heartening story and one that demonstrates what can happen with perseverance and a righteous cause. Of course, similar campaigns are now underway, such as the School Strike movement led by the Swedish teen-ager Greta Thunberg. Even in the U.S., the tide is turning, albeit ever so slowly.
Although the theme of hope remains alive throughout the book, and the reality of climate change and its implications are a constant theme as well, what I'll term the third part of the book is about how we can act. Here Homer-Dixon addresses the task of making a global concern for all humankind into an actionable personal and political project. Homer-Dixon probably appreciates as much as anyone (even William (Patrick) Ophuls), how much change in our lives that dealing with climate change will require of us. And I am not even referring foremost to changes in our material life. Homer-Dixon (and I) are referring to how much change must occur inside our minds.
Drawing upon the works of other scholars as well as his own, Homer-Dixon discusses our "worldviews, institutions, and technologies" as the fundamental ways by which we perceive and act in the world. Belief in "infinite economic growth," and even "sustainable economic growth," to mention two widely-held worldviews, will be called into question. Ditto our contemporary consumer, capitalist economic system. And if we don't plan and act to the contrary, Homer-Dixon fears that we will lapse into a "Mad Max" world (referring to the post-apocalyptic films starring Mel Gibson that originated in 1979). But Homer-Dixon has already considered the various scenarios of collapse and system change more thoroughly in his earlier book, The Upside of Down, and so he doesn't devote a great deal of effort to those topics here. Instead, he focuses on the how of changing people's minds.
The time and effort that Homer-Dixon devotes to considering how we persuade people (and not simply coerce them) is valuable, no doubt. He promotes social scientific research and various schema about how we can get inside the heads (and hearts) of individuals to effect the necessary change. But I'm not convinced that all of this research and thinking will prove all that helpful. Having been a professional in the persuasion business (law) for most of my life, despite my quests, I've never found a magic bullet. Even propaganda and the purposeful distortion and manipulation of truth have limits, not to mention honest efforts that adhere to ethical constraints. In short, I'm not sure that all of the social science gets us very far beyond Aristotle's ideas about rhetoric based on logos, ethos, and pathos and the standard injunction to know your audience. That a change in people's minds can occur and sometimes amazingly quickly, such as shown by the public perception of gay marriage, is real. And, alas, changes in the climate of public opinion can also cascade downward as well, as we can see in the decline of political discourse and the rise of anti-political (i.e., violent) movements similar to the fascist and violence left-wing movements. I suspect that the project of changing minds in a way that will deal effectively with climate change that is moving slowly but surely in the right direction. (Although whether we will attain a critical mass in time remains an open question.) I believe that the necessary changes of mind (and heart) will be gained primarily in the mouth-to-mouth combat--or to put it more politely, conversation--among families, neighbors, townsfolk, and then legislative chambers. That this campaign of education must be vigorously conducted and must use the best tools available is without a doubt a must, but I don't believe there's a magic wand of persuasion that we can wield the get everyone on board. The best we can hope for in this particular is something less than a magic wand and better than a cattle prod.
This book, I believe, represents a culmination of Homer-Dixon's great project, a summary of most of what's he's been seeking to accomplish in his professional career. But it's also a very heartfelt book because, in a very real way, it's about his kids and ours (even as mine are much older). There is no greater risk to the well-being of all those who will live on this small planet in the 21st century and beyond the challenge of climate change. And although Homer-Dixon doesn't use this term, I believe it will require a metanoia for humanity as a whole. Metanoia is the New Testament Greek word often translated as "conversion," but probably more accurately is considered a "change in the heart-mind." A deep change, a change in the orientation of one's internal compass. Homer-Dixon alludes to this level of change in his referencing the "Axial Age" as identified by Karl Jaspers and more recently deployed by religious scholar Karen Armstrong. It was during this period of history that human thinking--the collective "worldview"--underwent a profound change in several existing civilizations. The Axial Age saw the rise of the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, Buddha, Confucious, and later Muhammad. In short, it gave rise to new forms of religious consciousness and being (and acting) in the world. Homer-Dixon suggests that this is what we need, and this is what I'm suggesting when I refer to a metanoia. We need to consider how we should change our minds, our hearts, and the conditions of our physical existence. We cannot continue down the road we're on and survive as a species, not at least at the level of sophistication and well-being that we now enjoy. Homer-Dixon argues that we must "command hope" to our side and undertake the process of change required of us. And if not for ourselves, then for our children.
