Hope is a passive affect called upon when we lack capacity to act

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). — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1870

Categorization

• XREF: Builds on Zamyatin’s We-like critique of hoping as a passive superstition — and overturns the common valorisation of ‘hope’ as a political virtue. — connects to: Freire held hope as an ontological human need, not a voluntary choice. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 834; Hope is active struggle rooted in human incompletion, not waiting — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 267; Confidence can degrade into hope when it no longer tracks one’s own actions — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2767 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Hope is active struggle rooted in human incompletion, not waiting #contradicts (0.95) — Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 267
• Confidence can degrade into hope when it no longer tracks one’s own actions #expands (0.75) — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2767
• Absent visible organizations, optimism means stoic endurance rather than action #complicates (0.75) — Nina Eliasoph, Avoiding politics, 960