Educated hope is an ethical ideal embedded in daily practice

Evidence

Hope and fear are essentially interchangeable; they are passive affects, which arise from our incapacity to actually act. Like all superstitions, hope is something we call upon when we have nothing else. This is why Obama’s “politics of hope” ended up so deflating — not only because, inevitably, the Obama administration quickly became mired in capitalist realism, but also because the condition of hope is passivity. The Obama administration didn’t want to activate the population (except at election time). … We don’t need hope; what we need is confidence and the capacity to act. “Confidence”, Spinoza argues, “is a joy arising from the idea of a past or future object from which cause for doubting is removed”. Yet it is very difficult, even at the best of times, for subordinated groups to have confidence, because for them/us there are few if any “future objects from which cause for doubting is removed.” — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1870 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Students today demand meaningful, healing education connecting knowledge to lived experience — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 52; Pedagogical hope makes students question the naturalness of present conditions; Pedagogical hope must be anticipatory and critical rather than merely compensatory — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2684 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Hope is a passive affect distinct from confidence and undermines political action #complicates (0.85) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1870