Keynote: Knowledge, Activism, and Hope: Finding the Balance

You're invited to a keynote session with Dr. Thomas Homer-Dixon!

You're invited to attend Knowledge, Activism, and Hope: Finding the Balance featuring Thomas Homer-Dixon, Director of the Cascade Institute at RRU. This event is one of four keynote sessions and is part of RRU's Doctoral Conference,

Event description

Most of us understand intuitively that if we try to live without hope, we won’t flourish; we’ll exist only in the most basic physical and psychological sense. As the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel marvelously said: “Hope is for the soul what breathing is for the living organism.”

But problems like climate change are now hope’s most formidable enemy. Global warming isn’t even bad yet—we’re experiencing today just the leading edge of its disruption—but the threat of climate catastrophe is already causing thousands of women to forgo having children. It’s driving a worldwide surge in anxiety and depression, especially among young adults. And it’s energizing misguided discussion of whether human civilization is destined to collapse.

This loss of hope can be self-fulfilling, because it fatally weakens our agency. The absolute best way to ensure we’ll fail to solve our problems, is to believe we can’t. I argue for “honest hope”—a moral attitude that starts from a presumption about the importance of a commitment to truth and that’s anchored in resolute scientific realism about the gravity of the dangers we face. Honest hope can motivate our agency, and that agency can be a catalyst for action to solve our most critical problems.

Once you register, you’ll receive a zoom link that gives you access to this presentation.

Other keynote sessions of interest:

Formation Of Scholars For The 21st Century
Supporting Emerging Research Leaders 
The Research Process: Dealing with Complex, Wicked Challenges

Please contact doctoral.conference@royalroads.ca if you have any questions.

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