Embracing epic hope
An Insight Lab on how to think about climate after Trump
During the first Trump administration, I binged The West Wing. It felt necessary to connect with some symbol of the American constitutional order surviving and thriving.
This time around, my wife and I have been catching up on Doctor Who. It offers a different kind of promise: humanity will advance and explore and cause whole new problems on whole new planets. It isn’t a utopian future, but it tells us that we’ll be doing something much more interesting than doomscrolling.
A friend who is also interested in getting us to put down our phones and embrace wonder is Anya Kamenetz. I’ve admired her work for a long time, ever since reviewing her book DIY U for The Common Review back in the day. Her current project, The Golden Hour, offers the exact mix of insights into climate, crisis, family, and hope that so many of us need right now.
After the election, Anna authored a piece asking how we cope with the climate crisis after Trump. Specifically, she wondered if we were still well-served by “counting down” until the point where climate impacts become irreversible. I reached out to her suggesting an Insight Lab to explore alternatives.
Today Anya published my reflections on the event. The short version is that instead of a ticking time bomb counting down, we need an epic story of humanity’s future. In the post, we explore what it might mean to organize a political movement around an epic story that is still being written. It’s an effort to find hope at the scale we need. I hope you enjoy it.
We are considering organizing a virtual follow-up on Zoom — please leave a comment there if that interests you. And I just wanted to say thank you to Anya and her network for organizing a great event when so many of us were still in shock. Not that the shock has ended, but I’m putting one foot in front of the other.
I am sure the current crisis explains in part my lack of posts here lately. I haven’t been idle, but I’m trying to figure out the highest and best use of the space. But you can expect more posts along these lines.