The world is awful.
Armed conflict, genocides, a resurgence of far-right populism/fascism, the impact of late stage capitalism, mass starvation, complete inaction in the face of irreversible climate change and so on. And that’s just the macro list of woes. On the individual level, the rising cost of living, the precariousness of modern employment, inaccessible health care, the impossibility of owning a house and many more factors besides. And that’s just on a general level: if you’re a person of colour or queer or disabled, then you get to experience an even tougher world. And it’s only getting worse it seems.
It is very easy to want to give up. I’m not here to convince you not to give up, because frankly, that is quite the ask. Instead, my plea is for you not to succumb to optimism, especially the kind of optimism that robs you of hope: hope that a better world is indeed possible and even achievable.
The distinction between optimism and hope
People often mix up hope and optimism in the general bucket of positive feelings about the future. They are, in fact, quite different, and knowing the difference is crucial.
Optimism is a general sense things will just get better almost by themselves or with no specific action on our part. It’s a sort of faith in an “other” who will save the day for us, allowing us to sit back and wait.
Hope is the sense that things will get better if you do something. While optimism is general and abstract, hope centers on tangible actions.
Hope and optimism are not mutually exclusive; one can be hopeful and an optimist. I’m in this bucket. One can have hope and be a pessimist, too. This combination can be powerful, in that pessimism can provide fuel for action, so long as you don’t get so burned out by the pessimism.
Optimism is a dangerous tranquilizer; it numbs one and in doing so removes our ability to want to contribute to improving the world. As is apparent by now things won’t get better by themselves. The climate won’t fix itself, those committing genocide won’t convert their arms to ploughshares, big tech won’t stop invading our privacy, grifters won’t give up crypto/AI/scams, and billionaires won’t stop trying to ruin everything.
Optimism has been co-opted by those who push, cult-like, positive thinking. Anyone who has been in any sort of institutional or organisational setting over the past few decades has no doubt been indoctrinated in positive thinking. To face the world, we need to stop retreating to the fantasy of positive thinking and try to see the world as it is. That means paying attention to our emotions: we should feel sad when we see a homeless person struggling to stay warm on a winter’s eve. We should feel heartbroken when a parent has to forgo eating so they can feed their child. Positive thinking tells us to ignore our natural and human feelings.
These ways of thinking are dangerous. And it’s how things have become so bad in the first place.
Not only will things not fix themselves, but the optimist’s disengagement is itself complicity. Things get worse because we allow them to get worse through inaction and opting out of concern and care. And that, right there, demonstrates just how dangerous optimism can be. Optimists, believing evil will be defeated and peace will return, are inclined to let evil triumph by default. And perhaps, in a big enough time frame, good might defeat evil. But I’m not inclined to take such a cosmic perspective to time. I, for one, want to see the world get better not only in my lifetime, but starting right now.
Be hopeful (and create a better world)
And so the prescription is hope. With few exceptions, nothing that we have done as a species cannot be undone. There is nothing inevitable about the way the world is right now. The mess we have got ourselves into as a species is very much something we can get ourselves out of. We have the power to create a better, faired, kinder world. The sort of world we want. But it requires commitment and action and engagement from us all.
As with every human endeavour, starting small and imprecisely and immediately is superior to waiting until you have a perfect idea, or waiting for the perfect opportunity to present itself. That time will never come and in the meantime the enshittification of our world will continue.
Donate money to a cause that is doing good work in an area you care about. Or, if money for you is tight as it is for a lot, volunteer your time and skills to help. Join a union, or a political party or community action group or team up with some friends to pick up rubbish in a local wildlife area. The point is to do something; to have hope that things can get better if only we do something. Action has a funny way of inspiring more action. Once you get over the barrier of starting in the first place, it’s easier to do something else than it is to start.
There’ll be no immediate results, beyond whatever intrinsic satisfaction of the particular action you pick. But don’t lose heart; change and improvement is a slow and imperceptible thing but each contribution helps in its own way. The net result of hopeful people doing what they can is transformative, as history has shown time and time again.
Whatever action you take—and again, do something right now, whatever it is—realise that the endeavour we’re engaged with is not a sprint but a marathon. And it’s a marathon that’ll take the rest of our years on this earth. And the next generation will also have to keep it up. And onwards throughout the rest of human history. So you must look after yourself to make it possible to be hopeful in the first place, and to be able to do the work that is necessary.
Be kind to yourself; and, by all means, continue to be optimistic about our collective future. But don’t allow that optimism to drown out your ability to be hopeful. It’s only hope that will improve the world.