As Bruce describes it, ‘time spent with the Penan inspired me to realise that radically different ways of living together are not only possible, but might even be the best way for us to collectively flourish. Perhaps what we need is a new set of values, embedded in a different kind of story. An upgrade, perhaps, away from the belief that champions

When times are good, people should be reluctant to challenge ancestral wisdom—their culture. In other words, they should be comparatively conservative. When things aren’t going well, people should be prone to endure the risks that come with change. They should be comparatively progressive—liberal, if you will.

Societies shape ways of thinking and feeling, which in turn shape how societies function—whether through damage and violence or through habits of collaboration and tolerance. But there is no reliable theory which can tell us which shifts in the present may presage the future.2 We may have to try to feel and sense them rather than deducing them.