The most intimate hope is born from despair

The ghost of fear is lurking. We are constantly facing apocalyptic scenarios such as pandemics, world wars or climate catastrophes: disasters that continually make us think about the end of the world or the end of human civilization. In 2023, the Doomsday Clock The Doomsday Clock indicated that there were 90 seconds left until midnight. It is said that its minute hand had never been so close to twelve.

It seems that apocalypses are in fashion. They are already being sold as if they were merchandise: Apocalypses sell“apocalypses sell.” And not only in real life, but also in literature and in cinema, an atmosphere of the end of the world is breathed. For example, in its narration The silenceDon DeLillo tells the story of a total blackout. Numerous literary works also tell us about rising temperatures and rising sea levels. Climate fiction has already established itself as a new literary genre. Another example: TC Boyle’s novel A friend of the earth It tells us about a climate change of apocalyptic dimensions.

We are suffering from a multiple crisis. We look anxiously at a grim future. We have lost hope. We go from one crisis to the next, from one catastrophe to the next, from one problem to the next. With so many problems to solve and so many crises to manage, life has been reduced to a survival. The panting one survival society It is like a sick person who tries by all means to escape from an approaching death. In such a situation, only hope would allow us to recover a life in which live be more than survive. She displays a whole horizon of meaning, capable of reviving and encouraging life. She gives us the future.

A climate of fear has spread that kills every germ of hope.Fear creates a depressive atmosphere. Feelings of anxiety and resentment push people to join right-wing populisms. They fuel hatred. They lead to a loss of solidarity, cordiality and empathy. The growth of fear and resentment leads to the brutalisation of the whole society and ultimately becomes a threat to democracy. The outgoing US President Barack Obama rightly said in his farewell speech: Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear (democracy can collapse if we give in to fear). Democracy is incompatible with fear. It only thrives in an atmosphere of reconciliation and dialogue. Those who absolutize their opinion and do not listen to others he has ceased to be a citizen.

Fear has always been an excellent instrument of domination. It makes people docile and easy to blackmail. In a climate of anxiety, people do not dare to freely express their opinions, for fear of repression. Hate speech and digital lynchings, which clearly fuel hatred, prevent opinions from being freely expressed. Today, we are already aware of this. fear to even thinkIt seems that we have lost the value of thinking. And yet, it is thought, when it becomes empathetic, that opens the doors to what is totally different. When fear reigns, differences do not dare to show themselves, so that only a continuation of the same occurs. Conformism prevails. Fear closes the doors to what is different. (…)

Where there is fear, freedom is impossible. Fear and freedom are incompatible. Fear can transform an entire society into a prison, it can quarantine it. Fear only sets up warning signs. Hope, on the other hand, leaves indicators and road signs. Hope is the only thing that makes us stand up for ourselves. path. It gives us sense and orientationwhile fear makes it impossible march.

Today we are not only afraid of viruses and wars. We are also afraid of climate fear It worries people. Climate activists confess to being “afraid of the future.” Fear steals the future from them. There is no doubt that there are reasons to be “climate-afraid.” That is undeniable. But what is truly worrying is the spread of climate of fearThe problem is not the fear of the pandemic, but the pandemic of fear. Things that are done out of fear are not actions open to the future. Actions need a horizon of meaning. They must be narratable. Hope is eloquent. Narrates. On the contrary, fear is denied to language, is incapable of narrating.

Distress (in Middle High German angerin Old High German anguish) originally means, as in Latin, “narrowness.” By constricting and blocking vision, anxiety suffocates all breadth, all perspective. Those who are anxious feel cornered. Anxiety brings with it the sensation of being imprisoned and confined. When we are anxious, the world seems like a prison to us. We have closed all the doors that would take us out into the open air. Anxiety prevents the future by closing the doors to the past. possibleto the new.

The etymology of the term indicates that hope is the opposite of fear. Friedrich Kluge’s etymological dictionary explains the word as follows: hoffen“to hope”: “When one wants to see further or tries to see better, one stretches forward.” Therefore, hope means “to look into the distance, to look into the future.” Hope opens our eyes to what is to come. The verb to behold“to take the wind”, still has the original meaning of waiting, hoffenIn hunting jargon it means “to investigate or track game by the wind”, that is, to stop to listen, to stalk, to sniff. That is why it is said “the dog takes the wind”. Whoever waits “takes the wind”, that is, looks where to stand and what to do. direction to take.

The most intimate hope is born from the deepest despair. The deeper the despair, the stronger the hope. (…)

Despair and hope are like valley and mountain. negativity The inherent nature of despair is hope. This is how Nietzsche explains the dialectical relationship between hope and despair: “Hope is a rainbow unfolding over the fountain of life, which rushes down in a dizzying cascade; a rainbow swallowed up a hundred times by the foam and remade a hundred times, and which with tender and beautiful boldness breaks forth over the torrent, where its roar is wildest and most dangerous.”

There is no more accurate description of hope. It has a tender and beautiful boldness. Those who have hope act with boldness and do not allow themselves to be confused by the rigors and harshness of life. At the same time, hope has something of contemplative. Stretches forward and sharpen your ears. He has the tenderness of receptivity, which gives him beauty and charm. It is not the same to think with hope to be optimistic. Unlike hope, optimism lacks all negativity. It knows no doubt and despair. (…) Unlike optimism, hope supposes a search movement. It is an attempt to find support and direction. Perhaps that is precisely why it launches us towards the unknowntowards the untraveledtowards the opentowards what It is not yetbecause it does not stay in what has been or in what already is. It sets course for what is yet to come. is about to be born. He goes out in search of the new, of the totally different, of what has never existed.

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