Our world is increasingly dominated by fear. 

What if it was dominated by inquiry, inspiration, exploration, learning, and compassion instead? What if we were able to flick a switch and change the culture of our species – its moral compass as it were – to hope?

In his book “Commanding Hope” Thomas Homer-Dixon writes: 

“The mood shift that much of humanity has experienced in the last two decades – from excitement about the future’s boundless possibility to deep pessimism about worsening insecurity and diminishing opportunity  – still seems to be underway ; it may even be gaining momentum in the wake of the pandemic. This shift is occurring, I’m convinced, because many of us, indeed perhaps most of us now, are increasingly afraid. And we’re increasingly afraid largely because we can’t reconcile the profound and rapid changes that we sense are happening around us with the assumptions about social order, fairness, opportunity and identity that often remain at the core of our worldviews.”

“Our worldviews connect us with our communities , stabilize our sense of who we are as individuals and groups through time, anchor our visions of a desirable and hopeful future, and, not least, provide us the raw materials for our personal hero stories. So we’re terrified when they’re threatened, and often come passionately and sometimes even blindly to their defense.”

“In extreme situations of insecurity and fear, we dehumanize other groups – we no longer see the people in them as individuals, each with distinct and complex characteristics, histories, and goals. And by denying the legitimacy of another group’s ways of life, interests, actions and even existence, we also exclude its members from our shared moral community, and so from the protection afforded by our community’s moral constraints. This kind of psychological flip makes it easier for people to fight and imprison or kill others seen as threats, and it’s a key feature of the most pitiless acts of human violence.”

“In the end, though, as we all essentially know, embittered reactions only make us more afraid and more divided – and collectively less able to solve our common problems. We need instead worldviews that are complementary enough to unite us around an immortality project for our entire species as we work to stop, and even reverse, the rapid deterioration of our planet’s vital natural systems – worldviews that help us surmount fear by inspiring rather than extinguishing the hope that motivates our agency.”