Rebecca Solnit provided me with a helpful framework for finding hope in a challenging and disappointing world. For her, hope is not about absolute optimism and trust but rather recognizing that in the world that surrounds us there is both hope and damage. This dichotomy or intersectional approach carries through her piece, Grounds for Hope. The now is an “extraordinary time” but also a “nightmarish time.” How is that so? It works out that understanding hope, as defined by Solnit, is accepting the threats to our privacy posed by major tech companies and to our environment exacerbated by climate change. Despite this darkness, we have to appreciate and find hope in the social justice movements that were established and did spread positivity and equality. These movements are examples of finding hope today. They did not ignore the cynicism and challenges that surround us but instead rooted themselves in it in order to grow from it.
As a lover of the environment and someone educated about climate change, it is often easy to lose hope while watching the people around you show no care or intent on providing for a better earth. It becomes easy as an environmentalist to take on the optimistic or pessimistic approach outlined by Solnit. Either to ignore the problems in the world and push one’s own agenda forward or alternatively, to accept your reality and do nothing. Hope situates one in the middle, where critical thinking and common sense exist. In this position, acting is still possible and acting effectively is possible.
Memory plays an important role in hope. Solnit suggests that the way in which we think about the past and tell of the past can change our view of hope in the present. If we remember the past as filled with failure and disappointment, then we cannot recognize the ways in which things have changed or possibly improved. She gives an example of the times when gay bars were raided because being gay was illegal. In order to move towards a future of marriage equality and justice for all sexual preferences, we must recognize the improvement from these times.
Such a mindset is necessary for our activism project. We can easily recognize a past in which divestment was rejected and ignored by the Duke University administration. Or we can remember a time in which people spoke our, conversation begun, and we were given answers. Since the administration claimed there was a lack of conversation among students about divestment and the affects of divestment were unknown, we as a new curious activist group rose naturally and other universities have pursued such a path. This is the change that we must recognize to continue holding hope.
Sources:
Solnit, R. (2017). Grounds For Hope. Tikkun, 32(1), 30-39. doi:10.1215/08879982-3769066
