What do you think?
Rate this book
Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril
From the #1 BESTSELLING thought leader: Calling on history, cutting-edge research, complexity science and even Lord of the Rings , Thomas Homer-Dixon lays out the tools we can command to rescue a world on the brink.
For three decades, the renowned author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization , and The Ingenuity Gap: Can We Solve the Problems of the Future? , has examined the threats to our future security--predicting a deteriorating global environment, extreme economic stresses, mass migrations, social instability and wide political violence if humankind continued on its current course. He was called The Doom Meister, but we now see how prescient he was.
Today just about everything we've known and relied on (our natural environment, economy, societies, cultures and institutions) is changing dramatically--too often for the worse. Without radical new approaches, our planet will become unrecognizable as well as poorer, more violent, more authoritarian.
In his fascinating long-awaited new book (dedicated to his young children), he calls on his extraordinary knowledge of complexity science, of how societies work and can evolve, and of our capacity to handle threats, to show that we can shift human civilization onto a decisively new path if we mobilize our minds, spirits, imaginations and collective values.
Commanding Hope marshals a fascinating, accessible argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, strengthen our economies and cultures, and renew our hope in a positive future for everyone on Earth.
For three decades, the renowned author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization , and The Ingenuity Gap: Can We Solve the Problems of the Future? , has examined the threats to our future security--predicting a deteriorating global environment, extreme economic stresses, mass migrations, social instability and wide political violence if humankind continued on its current course. He was called The Doom Meister, but we now see how prescient he was.
Today just about everything we've known and relied on (our natural environment, economy, societies, cultures and institutions) is changing dramatically--too often for the worse. Without radical new approaches, our planet will become unrecognizable as well as poorer, more violent, more authoritarian.
In his fascinating long-awaited new book (dedicated to his young children), he calls on his extraordinary knowledge of complexity science, of how societies work and can evolve, and of our capacity to handle threats, to show that we can shift human civilization onto a decisively new path if we mobilize our minds, spirits, imaginations and collective values.
Commanding Hope marshals a fascinating, accessible argument for reinvigorating our cognitive strengths and belief systems to affect urgent systemic change, strengthen our economies and cultures, and renew our hope in a positive future for everyone on Earth.
464 pages, Hardcover
Published September 1, 2020
28 people are currently reading
357 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
September 29, 2020
*113th climate book*
Climate activists tend to obsess over a small number of theoretical subjects:
1. Is capitalism the devil, or our saviour?
2. Is climate change its own separate issue, or the end result of colonialist patriarchal white supremacy? and
3. Do you get better communication results by scaring the pants off people with the truth or giving them a boost of slightly deceitful hope?
Commanding Hope falls solidly in category three, though with occasional flourishes in 1 and 2 (short version: capitalism is not the devil, but climate change is an end result of colonialist patriarchal white supremacy).
What Commanding Hope offers to the (what one might assume is the) over-saturated hope-vs-fear marketplace is a detailed theoretical and philosophical discussion of the kind of hope climate activists should be aiming for, and how to operationalize it. Hope, he argues, should not be conceived of in a passive “hope that” way (eg. “I hope that it doesn’t rain tomorrow”) but in an active “hope to” sense (eg. “I hope to run a marathon one day”), where we look all of the dispiriting facts in the face and fully acknowledge how dire the situation is, but find a path to agency through acknowledging the remaining uncertainties and how many of them depend on human action.
In this sense, it’s not particularly new; Christiana Figueres argued much the same in The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis from earlier this year (and repeats the message in her podcast, Outrage and Optimism), and Rebecca Solnit beats the same drum in almost everything she writes: we need to hope, we need hope to function (and functioning is so important given our circumstances that it’s worth some internal state manipulation to get there), but the hope needs to inspire action.
Where Commanding Hope differs is in the several chapters analyzing positive psychology, philosophy, history, complexity science, Tolkein, Mad Max, and group psychology to analyze how we might best leverage the influence we have. The readers learns about WITs (Worldviews, Institutions and Technologies) and their combined ability to maintain the status quo; Donella Meadows’ leverage points, which argues that switching worldviews is incredibly effective and extremely difficult; Terror Management Theory and Immortality Projects; and the impact that fear and anxiety have on anger, polarization, and authoritarianism. He shares some tools he and his colleagues at UW have developed, including mindscapes, ideological state-spaces, and other tools to analyze and present worldviews to find points of convergence and agreement that can build a sense of “we” on our deeply fractured planet. In other words, it’s not just rhetoric (though there’s plenty of that); it’s academic analysis and tactics.
You may or may not appreciate academic analysis and tactics. But if you want them, this is where you’ll find them.
He also fully acknowledges how much of our success or failure on climate rests on our ability to tackle systemic social inequalities of all kinds (of course, no mention of disability; that docked a star). If fear drives anger and polarization, and if a positive future for all means being able to convince the vast majority of humans that the future contains more abundance than scarcity, then increasing economic inequality and insecurity and discrimination of all kinds must end. That is a mighty tall order. It is probably harder to end all forms of discrimination in the next 30 years than it is to fuel-switch our homes to electric heat pumps and our cars to batteries. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong–he’s not wrong–but these fights have in some cases been going on for centuries and have barely budged, and a bunch of you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about when I say “ableism.”
If Eric Holthaus’s recent book The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming showed a positive path forward for humanity with few nuts and bolts about how to make that happen, Homer-Dixon’s book writes a plausible version of that path. However, “plausible” here doesn’t mean likely or even probable. He makes it clear throughout that the path to a viable and desirable future for our children is no better than 1/5 and likely less. Not that this lets us off the hook. On the contrary. If your child were to be diagnosed tomorrow with a fatal cancer, for which there was one treatment with a 20% chance of success, you would move heaven and earth to get that treatment for your child. Why so many parents wash their hands of climate advocacy I will never understand. (Homer-Dixon argues that the desire of parents to protect their children is actually a universal bedrock value we can depend on to help unite us to act on climate; I wish I could be as optimistic on this point. A) abusive parents; they exist; I had some. B) many parents are apparently fully willing to expose their beloved children to unimaginable future harm so long as they can go on being able to fly to Spain on a whim indefinitely. So.)
One other issue I had, and it’s not just with this book, is the repeated statement that most people are good, or at least see themselves that way, so it’s best to take a generous approach to difficult conversations. And that’s not wrong, precisely. It’s just highly vulnerable. Let’s say 99% of the time it’s absolutely correct, and you’re talking to people who genuinely believe that the outright pursuit of maximum wealth is a social good and that government is evil. Sure, try to find common ground and work from there. That makes sense.
But some people are actually evil, and unless you have a base threshold for where that is and how to engage with those people, you can be sucked endlessly into debates on fundamentals with them that absolutely stall all action and even hope for action for all time. See: Exxon. They will never see themselves as evil, but Hitler also didn’t see himself as evil. That can’t be the standard. At what point do we draw a line and say that actively facilitating worldwide ecocide is evil and a punishable crime?
At any rate, and in an effort to conclude this review on a less wrist-slashing note: He’s not wrong in his general thesis. People do need to believe there is something to hope for, it needs to be something they can be involved in, and he has a great deal of knowledge and analysis to offer on how we might thread the 21st-century camel through the eye of the climate-collapse-and-Mad-Max needle. If you are looking to structure your climate action in a strategic and scientifically defensible way that is broadly compatible with social justice and works from the premise that very few people are actually evil, Commanding Hope is a great place to start.
3.5 stars rounded down to 3.
Climate activists tend to obsess over a small number of theoretical subjects:
1. Is capitalism the devil, or our saviour?
2. Is climate change its own separate issue, or the end result of colonialist patriarchal white supremacy? and
3. Do you get better communication results by scaring the pants off people with the truth or giving them a boost of slightly deceitful hope?
Commanding Hope falls solidly in category three, though with occasional flourishes in 1 and 2 (short version: capitalism is not the devil, but climate change is an end result of colonialist patriarchal white supremacy).
What Commanding Hope offers to the (what one might assume is the) over-saturated hope-vs-fear marketplace is a detailed theoretical and philosophical discussion of the kind of hope climate activists should be aiming for, and how to operationalize it. Hope, he argues, should not be conceived of in a passive “hope that” way (eg. “I hope that it doesn’t rain tomorrow”) but in an active “hope to” sense (eg. “I hope to run a marathon one day”), where we look all of the dispiriting facts in the face and fully acknowledge how dire the situation is, but find a path to agency through acknowledging the remaining uncertainties and how many of them depend on human action.
In this sense, it’s not particularly new; Christiana Figueres argued much the same in The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis from earlier this year (and repeats the message in her podcast, Outrage and Optimism), and Rebecca Solnit beats the same drum in almost everything she writes: we need to hope, we need hope to function (and functioning is so important given our circumstances that it’s worth some internal state manipulation to get there), but the hope needs to inspire action.
Where Commanding Hope differs is in the several chapters analyzing positive psychology, philosophy, history, complexity science, Tolkein, Mad Max, and group psychology to analyze how we might best leverage the influence we have. The readers learns about WITs (Worldviews, Institutions and Technologies) and their combined ability to maintain the status quo; Donella Meadows’ leverage points, which argues that switching worldviews is incredibly effective and extremely difficult; Terror Management Theory and Immortality Projects; and the impact that fear and anxiety have on anger, polarization, and authoritarianism. He shares some tools he and his colleagues at UW have developed, including mindscapes, ideological state-spaces, and other tools to analyze and present worldviews to find points of convergence and agreement that can build a sense of “we” on our deeply fractured planet. In other words, it’s not just rhetoric (though there’s plenty of that); it’s academic analysis and tactics.
You may or may not appreciate academic analysis and tactics. But if you want them, this is where you’ll find them.
He also fully acknowledges how much of our success or failure on climate rests on our ability to tackle systemic social inequalities of all kinds (of course, no mention of disability; that docked a star). If fear drives anger and polarization, and if a positive future for all means being able to convince the vast majority of humans that the future contains more abundance than scarcity, then increasing economic inequality and insecurity and discrimination of all kinds must end. That is a mighty tall order. It is probably harder to end all forms of discrimination in the next 30 years than it is to fuel-switch our homes to electric heat pumps and our cars to batteries. That doesn’t mean he’s wrong–he’s not wrong–but these fights have in some cases been going on for centuries and have barely budged, and a bunch of you probably don’t even know what I’m talking about when I say “ableism.”
If Eric Holthaus’s recent book The Future Earth: A Radical Vision for What's Possible in the Age of Warming showed a positive path forward for humanity with few nuts and bolts about how to make that happen, Homer-Dixon’s book writes a plausible version of that path. However, “plausible” here doesn’t mean likely or even probable. He makes it clear throughout that the path to a viable and desirable future for our children is no better than 1/5 and likely less. Not that this lets us off the hook. On the contrary. If your child were to be diagnosed tomorrow with a fatal cancer, for which there was one treatment with a 20% chance of success, you would move heaven and earth to get that treatment for your child. Why so many parents wash their hands of climate advocacy I will never understand. (Homer-Dixon argues that the desire of parents to protect their children is actually a universal bedrock value we can depend on to help unite us to act on climate; I wish I could be as optimistic on this point. A) abusive parents; they exist; I had some. B) many parents are apparently fully willing to expose their beloved children to unimaginable future harm so long as they can go on being able to fly to Spain on a whim indefinitely. So.)
One other issue I had, and it’s not just with this book, is the repeated statement that most people are good, or at least see themselves that way, so it’s best to take a generous approach to difficult conversations. And that’s not wrong, precisely. It’s just highly vulnerable. Let’s say 99% of the time it’s absolutely correct, and you’re talking to people who genuinely believe that the outright pursuit of maximum wealth is a social good and that government is evil. Sure, try to find common ground and work from there. That makes sense.
But some people are actually evil, and unless you have a base threshold for where that is and how to engage with those people, you can be sucked endlessly into debates on fundamentals with them that absolutely stall all action and even hope for action for all time. See: Exxon. They will never see themselves as evil, but Hitler also didn’t see himself as evil. That can’t be the standard. At what point do we draw a line and say that actively facilitating worldwide ecocide is evil and a punishable crime?
At any rate, and in an effort to conclude this review on a less wrist-slashing note: He’s not wrong in his general thesis. People do need to believe there is something to hope for, it needs to be something they can be involved in, and he has a great deal of knowledge and analysis to offer on how we might thread the 21st-century camel through the eye of the climate-collapse-and-Mad-Max needle. If you are looking to structure your climate action in a strategic and scientifically defensible way that is broadly compatible with social justice and works from the premise that very few people are actually evil, Commanding Hope is a great place to start.
3.5 stars rounded down to 3.
March 8, 2021
What is the difference between a salesperson and a scholar when writing books? The salesperson spends most of the book building up to the big idea, the scholar delivers the big idea at the start and spends the rest of the book defending it. By such a score, this is very much the work of a salesperson.
I bought this book on a whim. The arms were already laden with books at my local bookstore, what harm could one more do to the credit card I figured. And I was intrigued by the title. I am a firm optimist. Not only in terms of my personal outlook, but through careful study have come to believe that having a hopeful story to tell is the foundation of enduring political influence.
This book leaves me with less hope than I began with. For someone with – if the cover is to be believed – a reputation as a leading Canadian public intellectual and ‘link between leading edge research and the lay reader’, then standards have definitely slipped. Commanding Hope reads like a self-help guru decided to try and solve political debates about climate change – as a morning project.
I like to make notes of things I think useful or good quotes in books, but on review, after about page 94 my notes and underlines dry up. Instead, I found myself feeling insulted that the country that had produced John Raulston Saul as a deep thinker on the malaise of western culture, was now, two decades later treating academia as something that gives an author reputation but requires no serious effort to read into or engage with the scholarship of.
This isn’t a terrible book, but it does show the lack of firm editors. If pitched at about 160 pages maximum and tightly concentrated on A) the value of Hope as a political strategy and B) a focus on understanding the stronger common grounds within disagreeing worldviews over this issue then this book could be a worthwhile read. Instead, it’s an indulgent 374 pages of guff.
Endless discussions of the authors kids as a convenient plot device, ‘Ben’s innocent question as a 10 year old went to the heart of the global debate’. Endless promises of how his own scholarly insights could help break the political deadlock by showing how people really think. And often lazy analysis – apparently everyone in the West thinks the same about capitalism, and Fukuyama’s End of History book proposed a ‘blissful’ future (which is a sure sign the author hasn’t read it).
At its best, this books messages of needing hope and needing to understand how others think are important. They should be more widely discussed. But this is a book that however much it may point towards the volcano, lacks all courage to actually peer in. Why do people so fundamentally disagree about this issue. Why don’t people like those promoting the argument about climate change.
At times, Homer-Dixon even suggests he recognises that perhaps, maybe, his own side could be less than perfect, that changes or hard discussions might be necessary if understanding and persuasion are our actual aims. But moment’s later we’re back to bland paeans about the need to save the world and how through ‘this one weird trick’ the author has produced we’re on the cusp of doing so. Join today for only $19.99 at your local bookstore.
Buyer beware.
I bought this book on a whim. The arms were already laden with books at my local bookstore, what harm could one more do to the credit card I figured. And I was intrigued by the title. I am a firm optimist. Not only in terms of my personal outlook, but through careful study have come to believe that having a hopeful story to tell is the foundation of enduring political influence.
This book leaves me with less hope than I began with. For someone with – if the cover is to be believed – a reputation as a leading Canadian public intellectual and ‘link between leading edge research and the lay reader’, then standards have definitely slipped. Commanding Hope reads like a self-help guru decided to try and solve political debates about climate change – as a morning project.
I like to make notes of things I think useful or good quotes in books, but on review, after about page 94 my notes and underlines dry up. Instead, I found myself feeling insulted that the country that had produced John Raulston Saul as a deep thinker on the malaise of western culture, was now, two decades later treating academia as something that gives an author reputation but requires no serious effort to read into or engage with the scholarship of.
This isn’t a terrible book, but it does show the lack of firm editors. If pitched at about 160 pages maximum and tightly concentrated on A) the value of Hope as a political strategy and B) a focus on understanding the stronger common grounds within disagreeing worldviews over this issue then this book could be a worthwhile read. Instead, it’s an indulgent 374 pages of guff.
Endless discussions of the authors kids as a convenient plot device, ‘Ben’s innocent question as a 10 year old went to the heart of the global debate’. Endless promises of how his own scholarly insights could help break the political deadlock by showing how people really think. And often lazy analysis – apparently everyone in the West thinks the same about capitalism, and Fukuyama’s End of History book proposed a ‘blissful’ future (which is a sure sign the author hasn’t read it).
At its best, this books messages of needing hope and needing to understand how others think are important. They should be more widely discussed. But this is a book that however much it may point towards the volcano, lacks all courage to actually peer in. Why do people so fundamentally disagree about this issue. Why don’t people like those promoting the argument about climate change.
At times, Homer-Dixon even suggests he recognises that perhaps, maybe, his own side could be less than perfect, that changes or hard discussions might be necessary if understanding and persuasion are our actual aims. But moment’s later we’re back to bland paeans about the need to save the world and how through ‘this one weird trick’ the author has produced we’re on the cusp of doing so. Join today for only $19.99 at your local bookstore.
Buyer beware.
October 3, 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, finds himself quite taken with the tale. Gandalf, it turns out, provides some deep insight 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.
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, finds himself quite taken with the tale. Gandalf, it turns out, provides some deep insight 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.
January 30, 2024
not for me…
July 29, 2021
Didn't finish, as he spent so much language saying so very little. Superfluous verbage. After 3 hrs in on an 11 hr audiobook, I turned him off.
April 13, 2021
I struggled a bit to get through this book. It was obviously thoughtfully written, and the author sincerely attempted to investigate how humanity might make it through the climate crisis. (Conclusion: we must recognize our shared humanity.) I have to salute him for his efforts.
For me, however, it didn't present much in the way of new or compelling ideas or information.
For me, however, it didn't present much in the way of new or compelling ideas or information.
May 1, 2022
It was ok. I felt like much of what was said in 372 pages could have been said in a lot less! Some interesting ideas about hope in a challenging time of climate change, and some cool links to the author’s family and life experiences. I liked learning about Stephanie May, Elizabeth May’s mother - she sounds like she was amazing!
February 25, 2021
[I stalled out halfway through. What follows is a review of the first half of the book only.]
I heard Thomas Homer-Dixon at a public talk one time and I liked his humble and gentle style. His previous book, The Upside of Down, overlapped almost exactly with the content I had set out to study in my undergraduate degree: why and how do complex societies come apart? (Homer-Dixon calls his field 'complexity studies'; the closest I could find at the undergraduate level was 'medieval studies'. So I have a degree in medieval history even though my main interest is the future).
This book, his third in a trilogy of sorts on climate change and the future of human civilization, I found less useful. There's a pattern I think I've noticed among writers of the boomer generation who tackle this topic, which is that they tend to talk about it in all-or-nothing terms. Either we change now, or we're all doomed. Either we act before the 'tipping point', or there's no point.
As a person still in the first half of life, I see this somewhat differently. Regardless of what happens to the planet in the next few decades, I intend to keep living on it, which means I'm more interested in climate change mitigation and adaptation than I am in prevention. Prevention of climate change, as a technical problem, was solved back in the seventies; we just didn't do it. Mitigation and adaptation, as technical problems, are more challenging, but frankly more relevant to my life.
Which brings me to the subject of the book: hope. Homer-Dixon offers some useful insights here, namely that there's a difference between passively hoping FOR something and actively hoping TO make something happen. It sounds obvious, but is worth reflecting on. That's why I've spent the last several years learning how to grow vegetables, for example. The yearly rhythm of gardening gets me paying attention to nature and incrementally increasing my skills and resilience.
Homer-Dixon's main idea, though, seems to be that we urgently need to build a shared global identity that allows us to recognize our mutual need in the face of climate change. Actually, I don't think this makes very much sense. Movements for shared global identities have too often been masks for Western cultural or economic domination. I don't think such a proposal would gain much traction in today's multi-polar world. I would propose instead a bioregional approach: how is climate change going to affect my watershed, and how can I help my community prepare?
I've taken a lot of hope from books about the future by John Michael Greer (especially The Long Descent and Green Wizardry) because they offered answers to my question: how do I hope to live in the kind of future unfolding before me? (Note the hope TO in that sentence). This book was a sometimes interesting psychological exploration of the nature of hope, but didn't offer much that I hadn't seen before.
I heard Thomas Homer-Dixon at a public talk one time and I liked his humble and gentle style. His previous book, The Upside of Down, overlapped almost exactly with the content I had set out to study in my undergraduate degree: why and how do complex societies come apart? (Homer-Dixon calls his field 'complexity studies'; the closest I could find at the undergraduate level was 'medieval studies'. So I have a degree in medieval history even though my main interest is the future).
This book, his third in a trilogy of sorts on climate change and the future of human civilization, I found less useful. There's a pattern I think I've noticed among writers of the boomer generation who tackle this topic, which is that they tend to talk about it in all-or-nothing terms. Either we change now, or we're all doomed. Either we act before the 'tipping point', or there's no point.
As a person still in the first half of life, I see this somewhat differently. Regardless of what happens to the planet in the next few decades, I intend to keep living on it, which means I'm more interested in climate change mitigation and adaptation than I am in prevention. Prevention of climate change, as a technical problem, was solved back in the seventies; we just didn't do it. Mitigation and adaptation, as technical problems, are more challenging, but frankly more relevant to my life.
Which brings me to the subject of the book: hope. Homer-Dixon offers some useful insights here, namely that there's a difference between passively hoping FOR something and actively hoping TO make something happen. It sounds obvious, but is worth reflecting on. That's why I've spent the last several years learning how to grow vegetables, for example. The yearly rhythm of gardening gets me paying attention to nature and incrementally increasing my skills and resilience.
Homer-Dixon's main idea, though, seems to be that we urgently need to build a shared global identity that allows us to recognize our mutual need in the face of climate change. Actually, I don't think this makes very much sense. Movements for shared global identities have too often been masks for Western cultural or economic domination. I don't think such a proposal would gain much traction in today's multi-polar world. I would propose instead a bioregional approach: how is climate change going to affect my watershed, and how can I help my community prepare?
I've taken a lot of hope from books about the future by John Michael Greer (especially The Long Descent and Green Wizardry) because they offered answers to my question: how do I hope to live in the kind of future unfolding before me? (Note the hope TO in that sentence). This book was a sometimes interesting psychological exploration of the nature of hope, but didn't offer much that I hadn't seen before.
May 6, 2022
Still waiting for the "hope" part. This book left me more depressed and hopeless than I was before I started it.
January 17, 2022
For any reader who seeks to engage the rational and emotional/spiritual parts of their mind in thinking about the climate crisis, this is a really special book. Thomas Homer-Dixon is one of the most thoughtful and informed writers when it comes to social-ecological interactions, having spent a significant part of his academic career researching environmental stressors on social systems. It is clear that nearly every aspect of this book (and his other writing) comes from well thought-out principles and dialectical frameworks. Whereas many authors on climate change and social movements either over-simplify (e.g. making the story about one individual hero or villain), or figuratively throw their hands up in the air ("it's complicated!"), Homer-Dixon leans into the complexity with his prodigious interdisciplinary expertise, and often comes out with very useful frameworks.
As just a few examples from this book, he clarifies much of what seems so unsatisfying about current climate pledges through the feasible vs. enough dilemma (most solutions that seem feasible are not enough; most solutions that would be enough are not feasible) and offers a framework of how to expand the overlap between these areas. He lays out five broad questions with which to characterize the wide diversity of social and political arrangements around the world, which he later broadens to a rubric of 15 questions, allowing us to envision new potential worldviews more conducive to facing the humanity's grand challenges of the 21st century. And in the final chapters, he derives a compelling vision of the future by appealing to three general human predispositions he's found in his psychological research: exuberant, prudent, and empathetic.
While each of these frameworks is useful in its own right, what really makes this book special is the way in which Homer-Dixon weaves his analytical frameworks with deep reflection on what it means to have moral courage. This comes in several forms - we learn of the moral clarity and political acuity of Stephanie May (mother of Canadian politician Elizabeth May), who almost single-handedly started a civil movement to pause nuclear weapons testing in the late 1950s-1960s. We read a sampling of philosophers' conceptualization of hope and courage over the ages. And most poignantly, we witness Homer-Dixon's own dilemmas in balancing honesty with hope while thinking of his responsibilities to his children in a climate-shaped world. What emerges is a concept he terms "commanding hope" - a hope based in realism, but mindful of the possibilities that uncertain, complex systems afford - which is both commanding in its attractiveness, and commanding in the sense that it compels us to act.
This is a unique, urgent, and wonderfully educational book that I can't recommend enough. Like anything, it is not perfect. One large gap for me was the relative paucity of non-Western/European voices, especially in the first half of the book as Homer-Dixon reviews concepts of hope across history. To the author's credit, he does reflect on whether these frameworks are culturally-specific or universal in the latter section of his book; his research, travels, and collaborations lead him to believe that his vision for commanding hope should be sufficiently inclusive of cultures around the world. Still, it seems to me that to achieve a positive vision of hope that can appeal to a planetary identity and compel action, we should be learning deeply from Indigenous concepts of hope and responsibilities (after all, this is not the first potential catastrophe they have lived through), East and South Asian thought (where roughly half of the population and an increasing portion of emissions reside), and African traditions (where we will see the largest population increase over the coming decades), among others.
Perhaps that is for another book. In the meantime, Commanding Hope already gets us going with a thought- and action-provoking vision that is almost certain to shape how the reader sees their role in sustaining civilization in the years to come.
As just a few examples from this book, he clarifies much of what seems so unsatisfying about current climate pledges through the feasible vs. enough dilemma (most solutions that seem feasible are not enough; most solutions that would be enough are not feasible) and offers a framework of how to expand the overlap between these areas. He lays out five broad questions with which to characterize the wide diversity of social and political arrangements around the world, which he later broadens to a rubric of 15 questions, allowing us to envision new potential worldviews more conducive to facing the humanity's grand challenges of the 21st century. And in the final chapters, he derives a compelling vision of the future by appealing to three general human predispositions he's found in his psychological research: exuberant, prudent, and empathetic.
While each of these frameworks is useful in its own right, what really makes this book special is the way in which Homer-Dixon weaves his analytical frameworks with deep reflection on what it means to have moral courage. This comes in several forms - we learn of the moral clarity and political acuity of Stephanie May (mother of Canadian politician Elizabeth May), who almost single-handedly started a civil movement to pause nuclear weapons testing in the late 1950s-1960s. We read a sampling of philosophers' conceptualization of hope and courage over the ages. And most poignantly, we witness Homer-Dixon's own dilemmas in balancing honesty with hope while thinking of his responsibilities to his children in a climate-shaped world. What emerges is a concept he terms "commanding hope" - a hope based in realism, but mindful of the possibilities that uncertain, complex systems afford - which is both commanding in its attractiveness, and commanding in the sense that it compels us to act.
This is a unique, urgent, and wonderfully educational book that I can't recommend enough. Like anything, it is not perfect. One large gap for me was the relative paucity of non-Western/European voices, especially in the first half of the book as Homer-Dixon reviews concepts of hope across history. To the author's credit, he does reflect on whether these frameworks are culturally-specific or universal in the latter section of his book; his research, travels, and collaborations lead him to believe that his vision for commanding hope should be sufficiently inclusive of cultures around the world. Still, it seems to me that to achieve a positive vision of hope that can appeal to a planetary identity and compel action, we should be learning deeply from Indigenous concepts of hope and responsibilities (after all, this is not the first potential catastrophe they have lived through), East and South Asian thought (where roughly half of the population and an increasing portion of emissions reside), and African traditions (where we will see the largest population increase over the coming decades), among others.
Perhaps that is for another book. In the meantime, Commanding Hope already gets us going with a thought- and action-provoking vision that is almost certain to shape how the reader sees their role in sustaining civilization in the years to come.
February 27, 2021
A compelling book on hope in a time when there is so much bad news about our ability to save ourselves from a climate disaster and a multitude of other challenges we face as a human race. The author spends the first few chapters of the book developing the case for hopelessness in a world that has so many huge problems/challenges. He then begins to define what hope is in the midst of these huge problems. This was helpful for me. The difference between "hope that", a passive statement moving to "hope to" which requires a verb. He defines three characteristics of hope: Honest, Astute, and Powerful. We need to face our problem head on and not delve into wishful thinking, We need to understand the gravity of the situation; Being astute means we need to understand our allies and our enemies' worldview and find a way to connect with them over a common cause; and to be powerful hope needs to have a shared vision that unites people of the world who are divided by nationality, race, religion, etc. He says a unifying vision could be: We all love our children so lets create the best future for them.
He lost me in the middle as he goes into two strategies which he has employed to explore how people can find common cause. I can understand what he is saying and doing but it seems more complicated than I can hold in my head or even use for myself. It is good know these strategies exist but in the end I had to move through them more quickly with the question, "What is practical for me in what he is saying." He says climate change is so problematic because it demands we change our Worldview, our Institutions, and our Technology (WIT). Our life will need to change if we take the climate crisis seriously. The hope for me is that he shows how our worldview is beginning to change with the confluence of science and religion. (This may be my take on it). The Worldview that says humans are above all else in the scheme of things on Earth and our technology will save us is the worldview that is killing us. Growth is not the end game here. Connection is what we need; not just with other humans but with the Earth/Nature as well. As far as I am concerned he succeeded in building a case for the changes that are needed and leading me to understand that I need to be ready and I need to begin now to make the changes that are needed for our human race to survive.
To use his words sort of: A commanding hope is honest about the dangers ahead and is astute about the strategies we should use to face these danger and is powerful as it motivates us to push through adversity to work together to create a future we want. And why this is so challenging from p.372 "A concerted effort to ve the Earth will require calling for the replacement of the encompassing, entrenched, powerfully interlinked set of worldviews, institutions and technologies in which we are currently embedded."
He references the world getting together to identify slavery as a moral evil and the time and energy it took to fight this practice. It is a moral fight that requires our whole attention.
He lost me in the middle as he goes into two strategies which he has employed to explore how people can find common cause. I can understand what he is saying and doing but it seems more complicated than I can hold in my head or even use for myself. It is good know these strategies exist but in the end I had to move through them more quickly with the question, "What is practical for me in what he is saying." He says climate change is so problematic because it demands we change our Worldview, our Institutions, and our Technology (WIT). Our life will need to change if we take the climate crisis seriously. The hope for me is that he shows how our worldview is beginning to change with the confluence of science and religion. (This may be my take on it). The Worldview that says humans are above all else in the scheme of things on Earth and our technology will save us is the worldview that is killing us. Growth is not the end game here. Connection is what we need; not just with other humans but with the Earth/Nature as well. As far as I am concerned he succeeded in building a case for the changes that are needed and leading me to understand that I need to be ready and I need to begin now to make the changes that are needed for our human race to survive.
To use his words sort of: A commanding hope is honest about the dangers ahead and is astute about the strategies we should use to face these danger and is powerful as it motivates us to push through adversity to work together to create a future we want. And why this is so challenging from p.372 "A concerted effort to ve the Earth will require calling for the replacement of the encompassing, entrenched, powerfully interlinked set of worldviews, institutions and technologies in which we are currently embedded."
He references the world getting together to identify slavery as a moral evil and the time and energy it took to fight this practice. It is a moral fight that requires our whole attention.
October 25, 2020
Probably better than Naomi Klein's No is Not Enough, though they share in their effort to find a superordinate (normative) connection that will allow us to create a collective Worldview and supporting Institutions and Technologies ('WIT' for Homer-Dixon) that will help solve emerging environmental, social and political challenges.
His 'commanding hope' is intended to be more of an audacious tenacity than a slack-jawed-slobber-chinned optimism. In that, I think, this book may have threaded the needle.
"As the century unfolds, fear is likely to become humanity’s overriding emotion. Successful worldviews— those that survive and spread through large populations— will exploit this fear to motivate people’s hero stories, for bad…. or just maybe for good. People’s heightened anxiety about their own mortality and that of their children could induce broad cooperation instead of conflict, because some people will recognize that humanity has a stark choice between denial, disengagement, and division on one hand, and honesty, engagement, and unity on the other— that, put simply, it’s not the case that some of us will live, while others of us will die; instead, we’re either going to survive together or die together. This century’s unfolding trauma could be exactly what we need to ensure we flourish together in the future, by obliging us to learn some collective wisdom and develop institutions, ways of governance, and technologies that promote opportunity, ensure fairness, and guarantee our security within the remaining fabric of life on Earth."
His 'commanding hope' is intended to be more of an audacious tenacity than a slack-jawed-slobber-chinned optimism. In that, I think, this book may have threaded the needle.
"As the century unfolds, fear is likely to become humanity’s overriding emotion. Successful worldviews— those that survive and spread through large populations— will exploit this fear to motivate people’s hero stories, for bad…. or just maybe for good. People’s heightened anxiety about their own mortality and that of their children could induce broad cooperation instead of conflict, because some people will recognize that humanity has a stark choice between denial, disengagement, and division on one hand, and honesty, engagement, and unity on the other— that, put simply, it’s not the case that some of us will live, while others of us will die; instead, we’re either going to survive together or die together. This century’s unfolding trauma could be exactly what we need to ensure we flourish together in the future, by obliging us to learn some collective wisdom and develop institutions, ways of governance, and technologies that promote opportunity, ensure fairness, and guarantee our security within the remaining fabric of life on Earth."
Read
February 6, 2021Commanding Hope is a rich explanation of why hope , should be something we humans take an active stance in our global efforts. I liked the focus on complex global problems, through a interdisciplinary lens.The central topic of is climate change, but not just through the lens of environmental sciences. Social sciences, computer sciences, Arts and Humanities all help inform our perception and response of climate change.
The author also centre’s his personal motivations for a better world frequently in the book. Hope comes in, explicitly, at chapter 5. There are chapters that offer good critiques of techno optimism, populism, authoritarianism and the like.
The Author, Dr.Thomas Homer Dixon, recently started a research laboratory at the university i study at. I tried to use the digital tools offered in the second chapter, it’s in the early stages - still a bit buggy - but the interdisciplinary research tools do show great promise for research.
The author also centre’s his personal motivations for a better world frequently in the book. Hope comes in, explicitly, at chapter 5. There are chapters that offer good critiques of techno optimism, populism, authoritarianism and the like.
The Author, Dr.Thomas Homer Dixon, recently started a research laboratory at the university i study at. I tried to use the digital tools offered in the second chapter, it’s in the early stages - still a bit buggy - but the interdisciplinary research tools do show great promise for research.
January 30, 2025
I challenge you to read every line of the book either without feeling your eyelids closing or raising your eyebrows. A book where you almost feel less hopeful when you've read it than before.
Thomas Homer-Dixon states the obvious and is incapable of answering his own questions. In our world, we need a little bit of this and little bit of that, but not too little, neither too much, or the wrong kind... Couldn't even read all chapters.
Thomas Homer-Dixon states the obvious and is incapable of answering his own questions. In our world, we need a little bit of this and little bit of that, but not too little, neither too much, or the wrong kind... Couldn't even read all chapters.
November 5, 2020
Thought provoking book exploring the only possible way out of our miserable earth with its climate change, inequity and consumer capitalism...commanding hope and adapting nearly an immediate and global paradigm shift in our thoughts and values. Read as an audiobook. Very up to date including references to Covid 19.
April 7, 2021
Although somewhat repetitive and wonky with details in a few parts, the main arguments are solidly defended. I took away some good ideas and information from this book. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning what they can do to create a cleaner and greener planet.
April 24, 2023
Very disappointed in this book.
Obviously there have been numerous articles and books on how to improve our environment. So I was hoping to get a detailed look on what can be done for now and the future. Instead about 100 pages in I was reading about how time is not real, at that point I gave up.
Obviously there have been numerous articles and books on how to improve our environment. So I was hoping to get a detailed look on what can be done for now and the future. Instead about 100 pages in I was reading about how time is not real, at that point I gave up.
August 11, 2021
L'auteur du magnifique et érudit The ingenuity gap tente ici de trouver une façon de ne pas désespérer de l'avenir de la planète.
Il n'y arrive pas.
Il n'y arrive pas.
Read
September 30, 2021I found it especially fascinating to look at how our values combine and inform our political views, actions and reactions. I found this book and author through an interesting CBC Ideas Podcast.
February 10, 2025
had to read for school, interesting but didn't agree with everything said
January 30, 2023
A well-meaning rough outline in need of a serious edit. The authour rambles away from his stated purpose. I see little practical experience or serious study in how to make concrete policy change.
- So, how could this book have been good? -
1. Cut out the climate change doom
I don't need someone to tell me that climate change threatens our kids. Not when it's October in Canada and people are sunbathing under the orange skies from burning forests.
Cut this 40% of the book down to 2 pages and few wikipedia links.
2. Dial back on your personal reflections
Unless you have an overlooked perspective (Braiding Sweetgrass) or a unique insight (Benjamin Spock), your feelings about your kids are an introduction to your thesis, not your thesis itself. As it stands, the repeat references to his childrearing is as wordy as one of those rambling recipe pages that you have to scroll through just to find out the cooking temperature.
Cut this 15% of the book down to 1 page.
(at this point, this 464 page book has been cut down to 258 pages)
3. If you're going to use case studies, use several and do it in depth
It's nice that one activist got the ball rolling on nuclear test treaties back during the cold war. But don't pepper the book here and there with anecdotes from her life - just give it focused examination. How did that end? How exactly did she apply her skills? Who fought her on it? How did she respond? Use multiple examples. Get something more recent, and harder.
And if you want to compare fighting climate change to abolishing slavery, then don't just mention abolishing slavery at the end of the book. Look at the abolitionists throughout history. Figure out how they got it done. They were smart, motivated, and up against horrible, powerful people - and, in many countries, they made amazing progress in a short span of time. What made this work?
Ask: How did the suffragettes get the vote? How did anti-colonial struggles break up the British Empire? How did lead get out of our gasoline? Non-violent revolutions? Violent revolutions? Gay marriage? Legal pot?
When someone tried to make change, what did the other side do? And how did the change-maker respond and win?
Look at one real example per chapter. Summarize and analyze.
4. Ditch your political blinkers
The authour states that he has the limited perspective of an older a left-of-center Canadian white guy. In case you missed that, he repeats that several times. Then he sort of guesses at why people expect climate doom in what he calls a "Mad Max" scenario. The only other serious analysis he makes of a rival political standpoint is of one snide passing comment from a cold war era cop about nuclear arms control. This is especially bad in a book that's supposed to be about how to persuade people with different viewpoints.
For example: I live in the same province as the authour, and one regional concerns about carbon disincentives is that 95% of the area of our province has months-long winters, and minimal to no public transit. How are you supposed to travel and stay warm while cutting back on oil? How do you engage with that?
5. When proposing solutions, break them down into clear steps
The three-part hope idea is cool. Work through that and give examples.
That mind map thing is pretty cool. How exactly do you apply it in different scenarios?
This is the meat of your idea. Cut it thick and cook it well.
Do these things and you'll have a better book.
- So, how could this book have been good? -
1. Cut out the climate change doom
I don't need someone to tell me that climate change threatens our kids. Not when it's October in Canada and people are sunbathing under the orange skies from burning forests.
Cut this 40% of the book down to 2 pages and few wikipedia links.
2. Dial back on your personal reflections
Unless you have an overlooked perspective (Braiding Sweetgrass) or a unique insight (Benjamin Spock), your feelings about your kids are an introduction to your thesis, not your thesis itself. As it stands, the repeat references to his childrearing is as wordy as one of those rambling recipe pages that you have to scroll through just to find out the cooking temperature.
Cut this 15% of the book down to 1 page.
(at this point, this 464 page book has been cut down to 258 pages)
3. If you're going to use case studies, use several and do it in depth
It's nice that one activist got the ball rolling on nuclear test treaties back during the cold war. But don't pepper the book here and there with anecdotes from her life - just give it focused examination. How did that end? How exactly did she apply her skills? Who fought her on it? How did she respond? Use multiple examples. Get something more recent, and harder.
And if you want to compare fighting climate change to abolishing slavery, then don't just mention abolishing slavery at the end of the book. Look at the abolitionists throughout history. Figure out how they got it done. They were smart, motivated, and up against horrible, powerful people - and, in many countries, they made amazing progress in a short span of time. What made this work?
Ask: How did the suffragettes get the vote? How did anti-colonial struggles break up the British Empire? How did lead get out of our gasoline? Non-violent revolutions? Violent revolutions? Gay marriage? Legal pot?
When someone tried to make change, what did the other side do? And how did the change-maker respond and win?
Look at one real example per chapter. Summarize and analyze.
4. Ditch your political blinkers
The authour states that he has the limited perspective of an older a left-of-center Canadian white guy. In case you missed that, he repeats that several times. Then he sort of guesses at why people expect climate doom in what he calls a "Mad Max" scenario. The only other serious analysis he makes of a rival political standpoint is of one snide passing comment from a cold war era cop about nuclear arms control. This is especially bad in a book that's supposed to be about how to persuade people with different viewpoints.
For example: I live in the same province as the authour, and one regional concerns about carbon disincentives is that 95% of the area of our province has months-long winters, and minimal to no public transit. How are you supposed to travel and stay warm while cutting back on oil? How do you engage with that?
5. When proposing solutions, break them down into clear steps
The three-part hope idea is cool. Work through that and give examples.
That mind map thing is pretty cool. How exactly do you apply it in different scenarios?
This is the meat of your idea. Cut it thick and cook it well.
Do these things and you'll have a better book.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews