When you take on hope, you take on its opposites and opponents: despair, defeatism, cynicism and pessimism. And, I would argue, optimism. What all these enemies of hope have in common is confidence about what is going to happen, a false certainty that excuses inaction. Whether you feel assured that everything is going to hell or will all turn out fine, you are not impelled to act. All these postures undermine participation in political life in ordinary times, and in the climate movement in this extraordinary time. They are generally both wrong in their analysis and damaging in their consequences.
Not acting is a luxury those in immediate danger do not have, and despair something they cannot afford. But despair is all around us, telling us the problems are insoluble, that we are not strong enough, our efforts are in vain, no one really cares, and human nature is fundamentally corrupt. Some push their view like evangelists, not merely surrendering to defeat but campaigning vigorously on its behalf. I’ve encountered a lot of them since I began to talk about hope almost 20 years ago.
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