Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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168 farther horizons
psychology not excepted, was imprinted with faith in progress
and the infallibility of human rationality. The problem, however,
is not that the authors of Western culture were wrong but rather
that we believed them too much for too long. And there were
wiser minds all along who knew that the atomistic self of the West
was an illusion.
The difference between a future ranging from outright catastrophe
to the evolution of a global civilization moving toward
justice and sustainability will come down to our capacity to
understand ourselves more fully at all levels, ranging from individuals
to the deeper and wider currents of mass psychology. Leaders,
specifi cally, will need to understand as never before how to foster
the habits of thought and clarity of mind that will enable us to do
the things that we must do in order to go through diffi cult times.
Historian and student of leadership James MacGregor Burns
distinguishes two types of leadership, transactional and transformational.
The former is essentially a broker between competing
interests at normal times when the stakes are low (Burns, 2003,
p. 24). Transformational leaders, on the other hand, “defi ne public
values that embrace the supreme and enduring principles of
a people . . . at testing times when people confront the possibilities—and
threat—of great change” (p. 29). By all reckonings the
years ahead will be a testing time, calling for both transformational
leaders and transformational followers. At all levels, leaders must
be master psychologists, empowering and inspiring, not simply
ruling, followers. They must help foster the traits necessary to a
higher order of human behavior, among which I include gratitude,
openness, compassion, generosity, good-heartedness, mercy,
tolerance, empathy, humor, courage, and attachment to nature.
Listing such things sounds naïve and Pollyannaish, but is less so
than might fi rst appear. What do we actually know about the cultivation
of such traits?
First, we know that sociability, kindness, and other positive
traits are not at all rare: to the contrary, they are common