Character, Self-Reflection, and the Novelist's Role

This is our unabridged interview with Kim Stanley Robinson.

Do you feel the weight of climate dread—and wonder whether hope is still intellectually honest?

Acclaimed science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson joins Lee C. Camp to name our shared fear about the future without surrendering to despair. Drawing from ⁠The Ministry for the Future⁠, Robinson offers a sober, deeply hopeful vision of change, one rooted not in heroics or denial, but in ordinary people, communal action, and the slow work of making things better. Together they explore how science, faith, and moral imagination can help us live well, even in a warming world.

Key Ideas:

• Hope Without Illusion Robinson shows how genuine hope can coexist with fear, grounding optimism in science, collective action, and moral resolve rather than denial.
• Ordinary People Matter History often turns not on heroes or villains, but on everyday people, bureaucrats, scientists, neighbors, who do the right thing at critical moments.
• Utopia as Process A better future isn’t a flawless destination, but a continual movement toward less suffering, greater justice, and deeper solidarity.
• The Sacredness of the Biosphere Care for the planet is not just technical or political work, but a form of devotion rooted in humility, wonder, and reverence for life.
• Community Over Individualism Human flourishing depends on shared systems, food, labor, science, and governance that remind us how deeply we rely on one another.

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⁠Show Notes, Resources and Transcript⁠⁠ for abridged episode with Kim Stanley Robinson⁠

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No Small Endeavor: An award-winning podcast that asks what it means to live a good life. Through conversations with leading thinkers across theology, philosophy, psychology, politics, and the social sciences, we explore human flourishing, meaning and purpose, faith and culture, science and religion, virtue and character, community, and the practices that help shape a good life grounded in truth, beauty, and goodness.

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Host Lee C. Camp: Lee has worked as a professor of theology & ethics for more than 25 years, teaching and writing on topics of faith & politics, inter-religious dialog, and human flourishing at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and social sciences. Follow ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@leeccamp ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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