Hope vs Hope

The NYTimes article I quoted in the last post about fruitless hope and its ill-effects made me want to distinguish that sentiment from something else that also goes under the title of hope.

I remember having lunch about six years ago with a German diplomat and friend. He was very skeptical about the latest plans for Mid East peace and suggested people were basically giving lip service to something that they were not planning to do anything to realize.

I was actually very taken aback. To me, the talking points according to which I was working still had a significant kernel of substance.

It was important for me to explain that neither I nor anyone I knew were just biding time with excuses. In fact, none of us would still be involved if there were actually no trajectory - realistic even if difficult - that would lead to peace.

Yes, it was unlikely that xx and yy would happen making zz concessions possible, and aa outcomes probable. Nevertheless it was that path to which we were totally committed and doing what was in our power to realize. And we needed friends like him on board since any real move forward would require understanding and concessions on both side, and our credibility with the other was limited.

Maybe he had been in the field too long, but I'm not sure I convinced him of anything other than my own naïveté.

And now, having been in the world a few years longer, I  also wonder myself. I wonder about how realistic I was, how clearly I was seeing.

But I don't wonder about the principle. "Hope" in this constellation, meant a possible if not probable way forward that was better than the present situation. That sort of hope, I retain, is totally crucial. It's not all that different from attainable dreams, inspired ideas or innovations.

It is different from the "hope" in the NYTimes because it is not a way of seeing the present (gratitude is that), but rather of contemplating the many possibilities of the future and picking a best.

Gratitude vs Hope

I just read a hard-hitting and disturbing piece called "Abandon (Nearly) all Hope" http://mobile.nytimes.com/blogs/opinionator/2014/04/19/abandon-nearly-all-hope/ and had a moment to contemplate the vast differences between gratitude and hope, and also between two different types of hope.

The author of the article, a professor at The New School, Simon Critchley, ruminates on the nature of foolhardy hope, hope in the face of truth, as a method of ignoring reality, and describes grim consequences in classical literature of its effects (the Melian people are killed and enslaved as they hope beyond hope for salvation that does not come).

Such hope- and Critchley claims, with an eye toward the Easter holiday, that religious hope is generally of this variant- is not only self-delusional and foolhardy, but also de-motivates possible, positive, action. Real action must be based on a solid understanding of the here-and-now and of real possibilities for change.

The article rang an important note for me as I feel when faced with challenges of our world today (environmental degradation, for one) - people either have a tendency to ignore altogether or hope vainly. (Another interesting article this weekend highlighted a man in the UK who has become very critical of the quick fixes that cannot possibly really fix the big problem but that are nonetheless offered to followers of the movement as if hey could, and therefore bound to end in a sort of hard crash landing for anyone who truly heeds them.)

On the other hand, hating things and complaining about them, even if it is laudable to be honest with oneself and others, doesn't solve any problems either (that was of course the critique of the somewhat nihilist ex- environmentalist).

Gratitude in the way I've become interested in, is not an opposite, but maybe something of an alternative. It is about looking at the world with open, honest eyes and identifying what is good, what has been accomplished (so easy to forget across generations), and what must at all costs be preserved. What is it that is worth fighting for, actually?

I have thoughts on the importance of another kind of hope as well... For next time. Curious if anyone has thoughts on this.