In the late fall of 2006 I sat down to read “The Audacity of Hope”, the book that was the unofficial launch of Barack Obama’s first presidential campaign. Like many people in my circles there was a lot that resonated with me in the framing and the vision that was being put forward. I liked his writing, I was excited about him as a national figure, I was even inspired by the notion that we could orient ourselves towards the future, that we could be audacious in our hope of what that future could look like.
But even then, at the height of the “hope and change” fervor, despite the “got hope?” t-shirt that was on regular rotation in my wardrobe, there was something about the notion of hope and the way that people spoke about it that didn’t quite sit right with me. This hope, I would come to realize, did not question the fundamental inequities in the power structure of our society but was in fact rooted in a belief in those structures, in their ability to reform themselves, in the possibility that the people in power would suddenly act against their interest and stop the consolidation of that power to become motivated by the common good. It was, in my estimation, a hope that lived inside of a delusion, the delusion that things in this world, in this society, are better than they actually are.
It is this delusion that colors my experience of hope when I see it enacted in what I understand to be irresponsible ways. It is this delusion that turns hope into magical thinking, that makes hope feel like an abdication of responsibility, like an act of throwing up one's hand and relinquishing agency. It is this delusional belief that the system that we live inside of is inherently just and simply needs to be tweaked in order to achieve all of the dreams of our “democratic” society that makes hope feel false to me, that makes it feel like it is not based in reality.
Delusional hope looks at this political moment, at the rise of fascism in the place we call the United States and says: "this is not who we are, so maybe all these people who are supporting the wannabe dictator and his fascist party, who I just don't understand, will wake up, or come to their senses”. This hope is delusional about the present because it is rooted in a delusional story and framing about the past. "This is not who we are" is a delusional statement when talking about a racist and anti-democratic movement in the place we call the United States. The “we” who has made up the empowered citizenship of the United States has a long history of racist and anti-democratic tendencies. It is a core component of the power structures here, not some kind of bug or defect. It is the operating system. Any hope that does not root itself in that starting point is delusional and will inevitably lead people towards disappointment and confusion as to “how things got to this point”.
So what would a hope that is rooted in reality look like?
The hope I have is rooted in my belief in people, not systems. I understand that all of our actions are driven by the ways we have internalized these systems. My hope is not that the systems will save us. My hope is not that any person or group of people will save us. My hope has nothing to do with being saved at all. My hope is not utopian. It is not about suddenly solving or fixing all of the ills in our world. It is a hope that is not outcome dependent.
My hope has more humility than that. My belief in people is not that we will suddenly “be better” but that we have the ability to heal, to repair, to try and keep trying. My hope is that I believe in the future - not that in the future things will be better, not that suffering will end or conflict will cease to exist, but that the future will come and we, as people who are here, will continue to meet it, sometimes at our best, and sometimes not.
It is not a hope without pain. It is not a hope that always leaves me feeling better. It is a hope that requires a clear and honest look at the world around me. It is a hope that requires a deep and honest look at myself. It is a hope that believes that this act of clear reflection and confrontation with the hard things will ultimately make for a more joyful and fulfilling life.
My hope holds the truth that the world is beautiful, and that life is a miracle, while also not shying away from the truth that the world contains tragedy, that people are not always at our best, and that the systems that we’ve built often divide us and bring out the worst of us.
Mine is a hope that can hold both sides of that truth and continue to believe in life. My hope comes with the requirement that I show up to life with an understanding of my sacred responsibility to dedicate myself to the betterment of my communities and the world. It is a hope that manifests in the practice of paradox, in the centering of relationships, and in the insistence on experiencing the full range of human emotion in response to the full range of human experience.