HOPE

Maude Barlow is a Canadian activist and writer who has produced numerous books of which this is the most recent Still Hopeful – lessons from a lifetime of activism ; Maude Barlow (2022)

The Principle of Hope, published in the 1950s, by the great German philosopher Ernst Bloch saw all of human history as the story of hope for a better future. Deeply marked by the two world wars and the class struggles and divisions within his own country, Bloch distinguished between what he called “fraudulent” or “false” hope and “genuine” hope, which, to be effective, needs to be stoked by “informed discontent.” False hope, he warned, is often used by governments to tamp down dissent among the marginalized and can find us staring at a blank wall, blind to “the door that may be close.”

American Zen Buddhist teacher Joan Halifax clarifies how she sees the difference between optimism and hope.

Optimism, she says, can be dangerous as it doesn’t require engagement. Things will be better on their own, says the optimist, and if they aren’t, one can become a pessimist, taking refuge in the belief that there is nothing to be done. Optimists and pessimists actually have something in common, says Halifax — they are excused from engagement. She calls instead for “wise” hope, and wise hope most surely requires engagement.

The book she talks about is The Principle of Hope Ernst Bloch (1986)

Bloch's theory of cultural criticism is rooted in his anthropological and philosophical perspectives, which are delineated in the first two parts of The Principle of Hope. Part three contains explorations of "Wishful Images in the Mirror," in which Bloch decodes traces of hope permeating everyday life and culture. No philosopher since Hegel has explored in such detail and with such penetration the cultural tradition, which for Bloch contains untapped emancipatory potential. Yet Bloch concentrates not only on the great works of the cultural heritage, but on familiar and ordinary aspects of everyday experience, within which Bloch finds utopian potential. Fashion, grooming, new clothes, and how we make ourselves appear to others exhibit the utopian potential of transforming us into something better.

Perceiving the utopian potential of advertising, Bloch recognizes that it invests magical properties into commodities, which will produce allegedly magical results for the customer. "Shop-windows and advertising are in their capitalist form exclusively lime-twigs for the attracted dream birds". To be sure, the promises of advertising and consumer culture are often false promises and often produce false needs, but their power and ubiquity shows the depth of the needs that capitalism exploits and the wishes for another life that permeate capitalist societies.

Moreover, many people wear masks, often derived from magazines or mass cultural images, to transform themselves, to attempt to invent a more satisfying life. Thus, do youths join subcultures, even fascist ones like the Ku Klux Klan. Criminals and crime provide powerful attractions to oppressed youth, promising transcendence of their everyday misery. Similar motivations lead individuals to join the Klan and other racist groups, to try to get a new and more satisfying identity through immersion in violent subcultures. Magazines, best-selling novels, and film and television also offer advice and models for self-transformation and how to achieve romance, success, and wealth.

Active Hope – how to face the mess we’re in without going crazy Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone (2012)

In any great adventure, there are always obstacles in the way. The first hurdle is just to be aware that we, as a civilization and as a species, are facing a crisis point. When we look at mainstream society, and the priorities expressed or goals pursued, it is hard to see much evidence of this awareness. In the first chapter we try to make sense of the huge gap between the scale of the emergency and the size of the response by describing how our perceptions are shaped by the story we identify with. We describe three stories, or versions of reality, each acting as a lens through which we see and understand what’s going on.

• In the first of these, Business as Usual, the defining assumption is that there is little need to change the way we live. Economic growth is regarded as essential for prosperity, and the central plot is about getting ahead.

• The second story, the Great Unraveling, draws attention to the disasters that Business as Usual is taking us toward, as well as those it has already brought about. It is an account, backed by evidence, of the collapse of ecological and social systems, the disturbance of climate, the depletion of resources, and the mass extinction of species.

• The third story is held and embodied by those who know the first story is leading us to catastrophe and who refuse to let the second story have the last word. Involving the emergence of new and creative human responses, it is about the epochal transition from an industrial society committed to economic growth to a life-sustaining society committed to the healing and recovery of our world. We call this story the Great Turning. The central plot is finding and offering our gift of Active Hope.

There is no point in arguing about which of these stories is “right.” All three are happening. The question is which one we want to put our energy behind. The first chapter is about looking at where we are and choosing the story we want our lives to express. The rest of the book focuses on how we strengthen our capacity to contribute to the Great Turning in the best way we can. Each chapter is summarised here (in 159 pages!)