Make Hope
“To be truly radical is to make hope possible rather than despair convincing.” -Raymond Williams
Yesterday I learned a lesson about hope.
It was “with great hope” that Dr. Tedros declared the end of the Covid-19 emergency. It was without much hope that Katharine Wu outlined a few depressing scenarios for the future of Covid.
Usually we ask what gives each other hope. If we take Raymond Williams’ words above seriously, we should be asking instead, “how do we make hope possible?”
The goal is not to manufacture hollow hopes, blurry optimism, or manic action. We want “real grounds for hope.” Hope, just like any other social good, is a bond we construct.
Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now … to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom—poets, visionaries—realists of a larger reality. — Ursula K. LeGuinn
When we wear our masks, we’re hoping we don’t catch or transmit illness, especially those most at risk.
When we smile under our masks, using our eyes to delight, we hope we make a small difference in each other’s day.
When we reach out, online or in-person, to create Covid-safer relationships, gatherings, and protests, we create the real grounds for hope.
Hope is tiny and hope is huge. In Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life,
writes:“Our society is decadent and stagnant because it lacks hope. Hope is the desire for something that is (1) in the future, (2) good, (3) difficult to achieve, and (4) possible. The fourth point is critical. Without the conviction that the fulfillment of a desire is possible, there is no hope—and therefore no desire.”
A Covid-safer future is all these things: good, difficult — and possible. How?
By modeling it.
Burgis’ main point is our human desires — what we want and hope and strive for — always arises from others. Not exactly a newsflash, right? We see someone having brunch, we want to have brunch. But those kinds of desires are thin, unsatisfying.
Instead, we need to focus on wanting what we need — the innovations, infrastructure, and culture that protect health— and modeling the world we want. It’s by tapping into our thickest, deepest desires that we become anti-mimetic. That’s a term for the counter-cultural icons who create reality distortion effects, who bend the future towards what they want… just by wanting differently.
The Covid-safe world we want can become real. We just need to make it visible, using all the tools we have. Because people can’t desire what they can’t see.
As we tell our kids, you need to set a good example.
Can’t believe it yet? Remember that change happens when it’s least expected. And that hope is something made, not given.
No one expected it. In a world darkened by economic distress, political cynicism, cultural emptiness and personal hopelessness, it just happened…. People came together. They claimed their right to make history. — Manuel Castells
“Make love, not war,” the hippies used to chant. Today, as the horsemen of the apocalypse summon a whole cavalry, we need an updated slogan:
Make hope, not despair.
I hope you’ll share your favorite hope-making practice, quote, or resource below.
Movement News and Resources
I just want to highlight one: the Week of Action! Keep Masks in Healthcare. Be daring. Make hope. May 15-21, 2023.
Dear Chi, I'm a million-and-a-half years old, and came up in a time when everyday people could receive "scholarships," as they were known then. As a result, I received a liberal arts education that might have prepared me, a charmless working-class kid, to . . . oh, inherit 300 acres of Wiltshire, let's say.
Instead, I taught English (broadly conceived of) to generations of salt-of-the-earth young people, often in inner-city schools. I was a Village Explainer, let's say. (An honorable calling, I think.)
All this by way of making one observation, & asking one question:
1) The observation: WOW, I am TRULY impressed by your literacy. The Powers That Be today DON'T WANT young people, or anybody else, reading scholars & tribunes of the people like Raymond Williams, whom you quote today.
Just seeing his name makes the two of us here, in our little bungalow feel more hopeful. Seriously.
2) I realize that this site you're running here is anti-commercial, all about helping people without glorifying yourself or trying to exploit people.
But can you or anybody there help my partner and me? We're an elderly couple, living reclusively & I hope thoughtfully.
So far, blessedly, neither of us has had COVID (in any of its variants).
(Decades ago though, my wife was struck down by a viral infection that at the time no one could diagnose: an infection that left her with a bundle of symptoms that today would certainly be called "Long COVID.")
But here's our problem TODAY.
We need high-quality replacement masks,
preferably re-usable ( = washable) ones. We've got an internet connection, a debit card, and money adequate to pay for decent quality.
Can you or anyone direct us to a site that could help us, preferably one run by people with good values (if there IS such a site)?
Regardless of my question, THANK YOU again for the great work you're doing!!
Your friends, Steve & Martha
Chi - thank you for this wise and timely post!