Apologies to the Grandchildren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences by William (Patrick) Ophuls

 

                                                                Published in 2018

 

Civilization is, by its very nature, a long-running Ponzi scheme. It lives by robbing nature and borrowing from the future, exploiting its hinterland until there is nothing left to exploit, after which it implodes. While it still lives, it generates a temporary and fictitious surplus that it uses to enrich and empower the few and to dispossess and dominate the many. Industrial civilization is the apotheosis and quintessence of this fatal course. A fortunate minority gains luxuries and freedoms galore, but only by slaughtering, poisoning, and exhausting creation. So we bequeath you a ruined planet that dooms you to a hardscrabble existence, or perhaps none at all.  

Ophuls, William. Apologies to the Grandchldren: Reflections on Our Ecological Predicament, Its Deeper Causes, and Its Political Consequences (p. 1). Kindle Edition.

I first read this book in March 2019, as soon as I became aware of it. It only took me a couple of days to read it. This fast reading was the result of several factors: first, it's relatively short (140 pages); second, I'd read several other books by Ophuls, and this book is more a less a summary of his work; and third, it was compelling. I gave it five-star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads. However, because of some travel and other commitments, I didn't get around to reviewing it then. But now I've been prompted to return to it and do it full justice. This short book is indeed a summary of Ophuls's work in the field of politics, ecological scarcity, and their effects on human life and well-being. Also, another prompt was my recent reading of Thomas Homer-Dixon's most just-published book, Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril (link to my review).  Indeed, I will consider Ophuls's book by comparing and contrasting his outlook and work with that of Homer-Dixon. Between the two of them, I believe we have two of the savviest and most worthwhile thinkers about the economic, social, and political consequences of our ecological predicament. (I.e., it's greater than "just" climate change.) I'll start with some brief biography of these two scholars.

The following is a brief biography of Ophuls taken from a book he wrote under his given name, Patrick Ophuls, Buddha Takes No Prisoners: A Meditator's Survival Guide (2012) (link to my review):

Patrick Ophuls graduated in 1955 from Princeton University with a degree in Near Eastern area studies and obtained a PhD from Yale in political science in 1973. He joined the U.S. Foreign Service in 1959, was a political analyst on the Afghanistan desk at the State Department, and was also posted to American embassies in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, and Tokyo, Japan, as a personal aide to two ambassadors. Leaving the Foreign Service in 1967, he became a professor of political science at Northwestern University. Patrick Ophuls has practiced insight meditation intensively for over 30 years. He began sitting with the Thai teacher Dhiravamsa in 1974, graduating from his teacher training program in 1977 and going on to assist him during several retreats in 1978. He began studying with Insight Meditation Society founders Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein and Sharon Salzberg in the late seventies, an association that continues to this day.

Ophuls (b. 1934) is a generation older than Homer-Dixon (b. 1956). Ophuls, after completing college in 1955 spent time in both the U.S. Coast Guard and the U.S. Foreign Service before attending Yale to receive a Ph.D. in political science in 1973. But after this, Ophuls served only a brief stint in academia before becoming what he describes as an independent scholar. By the early 1970s, Ophuls was publishing works about environmental issues, and he's continued writing about this topic--and especially its implications for economic and political life--ever since then. Of course, there are a lot of questions that arise from this brief biography, such as the influences that his experiences in the Coast Guard and the Foreign Service had on his outlook about the environment, political life, and his interest in Buddhist meditation practice. Also, I wonder about the reasons for his relatively brief tenure in academia while nevertheless writing some very learned and provocative books aimed at readers with a high level of sophistication. And, does Ophuls have grandchildren?

Homer-Dixon's biography is a bit more conventional, at least in the field of academic life. But part of the charm of Homer-Dixon's works, which are aimed at a general but sophisticated audience, arises from his sharing bits of his personal biography along the way. Born and raised in British Columbia (western Canada), he had a lot of exposure to nature, as his father was a forester. Time in nature and knowledge about nature came early to Homer-Dixon. He traveled as a young man, and he worked in the Canadian oilfields for a while. Since completing his doctoral work at MIT in political science in 1989, he's held academic positions in Canada. He began his career focusing on issues of international conflict arising from environmental scarcity, and he then expanded his research into a variety of other areas concerned with environmental issues, complexity theory, and related topics. In reading Commanding Hope and Homer-Dixon's two prior works intended for the general public, I find Homer-Dixon relying a great deal on social scientific research to guide his thoughts about political and economic issues and--especially in Commanding Hope--thinking about how to persuade the general populace about the need for a new economic-political paradigm. Ophuls, on the other hand, while acknowledging social scientific research, chooses to base his arguments and perspectives on the classics of political thought (in addition to his emphasis on the basics of natural science that underlies ecological thinking). Plato, Rousseau, Jefferson, and Thoreau figure most prominently in Ophuls thinking, along with many others counted among the classics of political thought. He also acknowledges the importance to his outlook from 20th-century thinkers like Jung, Lippmann, Niebuhr, and Arendt, to name but a few of those he acknowledges in his excellent bibliographical essays. But now let me turn to what may be the most interesting contrast between these two thinkers about our future. And here I refer to the issue of "hope," which both thinkers address in the most recent books.

The second chapter of Ophuls's work is entitled "What Can Give Us Hope?" and it begins with this sentence: "Industrial civilization is in a hopeless position, an impasse from which there is no visible avenue of escape." Id., p.25. Not an encouraging thought, I must say. He goes on to argue that industrial civilization can't stand still (stop growing) because this would halt "progress," the religion upon which the last two-hundred-plus years have been based. Such a change would "crush morale" and destroy the "American dream" (and the Chinese Dream and all of the other variants of dreams of material wealth in the world today). Ophuls rejects both the hope that "renewable energy" will allow industrial civilization to continue on course, and he rejects technological miracles such as "the Singularity." Ophuls comes to this conclusion about any attempt to maintain the status quo:

We face a stark choice. We can expend our waning stocks of fossil fuels, our scarce capital, and our limited political will in a vain attempt to maintain industrial civilization as it exists, or we can use those same resources to effect a necessary transition to a radically different type of civilization. But we cannot do both, and we must choose reasonably soon. For if we follow the line of least political and societal resistance and wager everything on an attempt to preserve our energy-intensive, mass-consumptive way of life, we will go bankrupt energetically. Without the resources to make the transition, deep collapse will become inescapable. Id., p. 30.

Lest one believe that we can change course simply by sounding a clarion call to reason and rationality, Ophuls reminds us that

It is abundantly clear that scientific evidence and rational arguments, no matter how weighty or well formulated, are not enough to overcome sheer inertia, vested interests, ideological blinders, the shortcomings of the human mind, or the extent to which we are all increasingly entangled in the trappings of modern life. Thus industrial civilization seems destined to continue on its current trajectory until one or more of the limits bites so deeply as to precipitate collapse. Id., pp.30-31.

He continues:

As industrial civilization begins to implode, we will witness an upsurge of prophecy of all kinds—fantastic, salvational, millenarian, apocalyptic, and reactionary. Id., p. 31.

According to Ophuls, fantasies about "the Singularity" are simply a new variation on the more traditional reactions he lists above. Silicon Valley won't be our salvation. At this point, the reader is approaching the end of the chapter and is probably wondering, as I did, where is the hope? And in the closing lines of this chapter Ophuls provides us with this tantalizing observation:

But the prophetic madness attending the death throes of industrial civilization will also contain a small but significant ray of hope: out of the welter of false prophets there may arise one whose message will effect the metanoia that is the only real way out of the impasse. For only by transcending our obsession with material power and progress and recovering a deep empathic connection to the planet and the life it bears can we hope to reconstruct civilization to be sane, humane, and ecological. Id, p. 32.

 "Metanoia." It's a term that I used in my review of Homer-Dixon's Commanding Hope, although Homer-Dixon didn't use this term. Ophuls refers to it as a "change of heart" as in a religious conversion, while I defined it in my review of Commanding Hope as a change of the "heart-mind," but this is a quibble. "Metanoia" is the term used in the New Testament about the effect of Jesus' teachings that has been translated also as "conversion," "finding salvation," and such. Later in this book, Ophuls suggests that this is his "hope":

Thus I would expect (or hope) that a future religion would transcend tribalism and take a more cosmic stance, expounding a universalist teaching that offers abundant spiritual succor and moral support without having recourse to the Grand Inquisitor’s miracle, mystery, and authority. An inkling of such a teaching is perhaps to be found in the Upanishads or the Tao Te Ching. All this is to take a very long view, but living sub specie aeternitatis is exactly what is needed now. Crises tend to rob us of everything except ego’s immediate fears and needs and to create a climate of desperation. That is why the shadow flourishes during a time of troubles. Only the long view will save us. For twenty years a Japanese Zen master tirelessly taught retreats, ordained priests, and established centers, not only in the U. S. but also in other parts of the world. Yet when asked how Buddhism was faring in the West, he replied, “Ask me in 500 years.” Id., p. 104.

 If you've received the impression that Ophuls doesn't promote hope liberally, you'd be correct. The attitude of Ophuls seems to be "yeah, maybe," without much encouragement beyond that. Again, to compare Ophuls's take with that of Homer-Dixon, Homer-Dixon takes a great deal more time and effort in Commanding Hope to make hope both legitimate and yet grounded in the face of the same ecological perils that both writers identify. Perhaps some of the difference is that Homer-Dixon writes about (and for) his children (ages 15 and 12 at the time of his writing), while Ophuls, a generation older, is writing to "the grandchildren."

Another point to know about Ophuls is that his analysis spares no one perspective. He not only critiques contemporary industrial-consumer capitalism, but also democracy, liberalism, tribalism, the media, elites, libertarianism,  and modernity. In short, he pulls no punches. Whether you're a liberal, conservative, reactionary, a leftist--whatever--you can find something that Ophuls has written that challenges your fundamental assumptions. Homer-Dixon, despite his "Dr. Doom" nickname, remains within academia and wants (I surmise) to remain restrained enough not to become totally foreclosed from the public (political) conversation. Thus, Homer-Dixon goes easy on the political particulars of policy prescriptions. Homer-Dixon argues in a more rhetorically restrained mode, while Ophuls uses a much blunter, more prophetic rhetoric. Both rhetorical voices are valid and useful, and I'd deploy one or the other depending on the audience and occasion, although at my point in life--just three years older than Homer-Dixon but with adult children and therefore grandparent-eligible, I tend to favor the more prophetic mode. But, again, given a particular audience, I might soften the blows.

Apologies to the Grandchildren provides a summary of the project that Ophuls has pursued since the 1970s. It's not the book that I'd recommend if one was just beginning to read Ophuls. I'd nominate Plato's Revenge (2011)  (link to my review) for most readers. Nor is it his most comprehensive work (Requiem for Modern Politics: The Tragedy of the Enlightenment and the Challenge of the New Millennium (1997) (link to my review) would be my choice for a top-to-bottom view. But if you want to start with an executive summary (of sorts) that entails a minimum of any doubt or hesitation, you can begin with this work of prophecy. And note well, prophecy isn't about predicting the future, it's about the consequences of choices that we make that create our future. In my book, Ophuls is a true prophet. And I wouldn't mind at all if, in the passage of time and with luck, he's proven even just a bit wrong!

P.S. Here's the blurb that Thomas Homer-Dixon provided for Ophuls's Plato's Revenge: 

For decades, William Ophuls has been among the world's most original thinkers about the implications of our global ecological crisis for freedom, democracy, and political order. In Plato's Revenge, he goes to the essence of this crisis: the deep, tacit, and widespread beliefs that nature and society are nothing more than machines, that the state should play no role in cultivating citizens' virtue, and that self-interested individuals should rely solely on reason to guide their lives. Ophuls weaves together the ideas of some of history's greatest thinkers to argue that humankind's future lies in small, simple republics that cultivate their citizens' virtue through natural law. In doing so, he shreds conventional wisdom and invigorates our conversation about the kind of world we intend our grandchildren to inherit.

Thomas Homer-Dixon

University of Waterloo, author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization

 

Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril by Thomas Homer-Dixon

 

                                                            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. 

                                                                            Gandalf

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.