Get to know me!
Get to know me!
“For decades, William Ophuls has been among the world's most original thinkers about the implications of our global ecological crisis for freedom, democracy, and political order. In Plato’s Revenge, he goes to the essence of this crisis: the deep, tacit, and widespread beliefs that nature and society are nothing more than machines, that the state should play no role in cultivating citizens’ virtue, and that self-interested individuals should rely solely on reason to guide their lives. Ophuls weaves together the ideas of some of history’s greatest thinkers to argue that humankind's future lies in small, simple republics that cultivate their citizens’ virtue through natural law. In doing so, he shreds conventional wisdom and invigorates our conversation about the kind of world we intend our grandchildren to inherit.”
—Thomas Homer-Dixon, University of Waterloo, author of The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilizati
"For decades Patrick Ophuls has been a beacon of
clarity with his brilliant assessment of the human
prospect. Now in six brief essays, he brings
together much of his wisdom in one accessible
summary.
It offers a grim diagnosis.
The patient, human civilization, is desperately ill—
but, addled by denial, greed, and pride, persists in
rejecting the remaining slim possibilities of
treatment. Very few people, and certainly not the
leaders of the world’s remaining democracies, truly
grasp the dimensions of the challenge our societies
face, and even fewer are truly prepared for the
harsh future of scarcity, insecurity, and violence
that awaits our communities and families. Ophuls'
analysis is unsparing but almost certainly right,
and the slight hope that something meaningful
might be rescued from the human experiment
likely rests on us paying attention."
Thomas Homer-Dixon, PhD
Director, Cascade Institute, Royal Roads
University
Author, The Upside of Down and Commanding
Hope
Email me direct at plato@ophuls.org
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