Homer-Dixon: How radical ideologies “take on a life of their own”

Complexity researcher Thomas Homer-Dixon, director of the Cascade Institute at Royal Roads and author of Commanding Hope: The Power We Have to Renew a World in Peril shares what prompted him to write his opinion piece in The Globe and Mail, which has garnered world attention, in an interview on Background Briefing with Ian Masters.

Homer-Dixon has been “very concerned about the political, social and cultural developments in the United States for years,” and discusses how his article has helped to start the important conversation about radical ideology and extremism and how “ideologies take on a life of their own.”

Here’s some of what he had to say:

“The conversation about civil war has received a lot of attention in the headlines in the last couple of weeks, my greater concern is ultimately the consolidation of the anti-democratic right-wing regime and I think what my article did was just put a straightforward label on it…a dictatorship.”

He goes on to say: “This particular piece emerged from a sense that, especially in Canada, we had come to the conclusion that all that disarray in the United States had gone away with the election of President Biden…and we didn’t have to worry anymore.”

Listen to the full interview on the Background Briefing with Ian Masters.