Theories of Hope: Exploring Alternative Affective Dimensions of Human Experience 9781498563628, 9781498563635, 1498563627

Table of contents :
Contents......Page 7
Introduction......Page 9
Part I: Theory......Page 17
Section One: Expanding the View of Hope from the Margins......Page 19
Chapter One: Faces of Hope......Page 21
Chapter Two: Secular Hopes in the Face of Death......Page 41
Section Two: Hope and Transgression......Page 61
Chapter Three: Shame, Hope, and the Courage to Transgress......Page 63
Chapter Four: Redemptive Transgressions......Page 87
Part II: Application......Page 111
Section Three: Hopes and Histories......Page 113
Chapter Five: Historia Abscondita......Page 115
Chapter Six: Cultivating Hope in Feminist Praxis......Page 127
Section Four: Application and Policy Implementation......Page 145
Chapter Seven: Education and the Construction of Hope......Page 147
Chapter Eight: Hope, the Environment, and Moral Imagination......Page 171
Index......Page 193
About the Editor......Page 201
About the Contributors......Page 203

Citation preview

Theories of Hope

Theories of Hope Exploring Alternative Affective Dimensions of Human Experience Edited by Rochelle M. Green

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com 6 Tinworth Street, London SE11 5AL Copyright © 2019 by The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-4985-6362-8 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-6363-5 (electronic) TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Introduction Rochelle M. Green

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Part I: Theory

1

Expanding the View of Hope from the Margins

3

1

Faces of Hope Nancy Snow

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2

Secular Hopes in the Face of Death Luc Bovens

Hope and Transgression

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Shame, Hope, and the Courage to Transgress Patrick Shade

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Redemptive Transgressions: The Dialectical Evolution of Hope and Freedom in the West Akiba Lerner

Part II: Application

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Hopes and Histories

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Historia Abscondita: Or, on Nietzsche, Hope, and History Allison Merrick

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Cultivating Hope in Feminist Praxis Rochelle M. Green

Application and Policy Implementation 7

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Education and the Construction of Hope Darren Webb

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Hope, the Environment, and Moral Imagination Lisa Kretz Index About the Editor About the Contributors

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99 111

129 131 155 177 185 187

Introduction Rochelle M. Green

Imagine standing in line at the gas station. You overhear a conversation about buying a lottery ticket. One woman is trying to convince another woman that buying lottery tickets on a regular basis is an indication of her degree of hopefulness. The woman implores her friend to consider the meaning of believing in the possibility, regardless how slight, that she may win. Such a strong commitment to this possibility, she argues, must indicate her generally hopeful nature. The conversation is playful and full of cheery banter but an undertone of wishful thinking pervades. Does the casual “hope” one expresses when one places a wager or buys a lottery ticket embody genuine hopefulness? Did the wishful thinking of these women signify a deeper, more conflicted reality regarding their respective economic situations? In stark distinction to this foregoing example, we can imagine a person in the throes of a life-threatening, or life-altering medical condition. Perhaps this person has just awoken from a coma only to discover that he has suffered a massive stroke and will likely never be able to speak, or read, or walk again without significant, perhaps painful, therapeutic interventions. How can we understand this man’s reluctance to participate in attempts to help him regain his abilities? Would we feel comfortable thinking of this man as having lost hope, even if he seemingly, happily continues on with his life, albeit in a style radically different from how he lived prior to his stroke? Or should we understand his choice as a hopeful acceptance of his fate? These two limited examples point to some of the ways in which we tend to employ the concept of “hope” and its attendant “hopelessness.” Indeed, as indicated, both scenarios elicit a number of conceptions regarding the nature of hope and the activity of hoping. In the former case, hope is used instrumentally: it has a clear means-ends formulation and represents a particular goal-directed wish. Further, and to stay with the example of women discussing the merits of purchasing a lottery ticket, hope can also be thought of as a desire and as commitment to exhausting all possibilities to achieve a particular goal before actually giving up that goal. Or, in turning our attention to the latter case, hope may be conceptualized as an acceptance of present realities and an expression of fortivii

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tude in the face of those realities. One possible implication of this view is that hope may be otherworldly in kind. The man suffering the stroke may have hope, but for what comes after his death rather than for a particular way of living. What is clear is that the concept of “hope” has assumed a wide range of meanings, can resonate in a plethora of disparate contexts, and has rich philosophical as well as theological histories. As the last “gift” left inside Pandora’s amphora, hope was often understood by the Greeks to be a negative human emotion. Whereas Thomas Aquinas helped to canonize hope as a theological virtue and Immanuel Kant suggested that the question of the proper domain of what we might properly hope for was one of the key questions in need of an answer. In the context of Kant’s directive, it may come as a surprise then that a great many of our nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophers spent much time considering affects like despair and anxiety rather than unpacking the concept of hope. Consider this example: A first-year college student enters a classroom, excited for his first class in college. He is jolted upon entering as his eyes come to rest on a series of bullet holes adorning the windows in the room. The bullet holes line the length of the room. The young man recalls the “active shooter drills” he had to participate in while attending high school. He feels intense anxiety fill his body as he tries to position himself in the room so as to minimize his view of the building’s scars. While such an example could most certainly be used as a springboard for a consideration of despair or anxiety, there is also something important to be said about the margins of hope and the contours such an affect takes in such trying situations. What is the context of hope for this young student? Is it distinct from the type of hopes expressed by someone eager to win the lottery or from someone desiring to have a good death or life after a stroke? Similarly, might we think of the hope held by someone wishing to overcome a social injustice as necessarily distinct from the hope experienced by someone seeking to maintain the status quo? Is there a distinction to be made in expressions from the margins of our social fields or from those people seeking to transgress social norms and the political establishment? This volume seeks to do more than merely consider hope from a dominant or particularly central philosophical view. Rather, this volume is dedicated to seeking out expressions of hope that echo and reverberate from the margins of our social fabric and from voices less often amplified. It looks to consider the ways in which transgressive and marginalized hopes and add nuance to and complicate our conventional understandings of this affective experience and demonstrate the multiplicity of hope. Hopes from the margins elucidate the gradations of all hopes and enrich our capacities to celebrate the variety of expressions hope can take.

Introduction

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Indeed, this volume is timely given that in our twenty-first-century political lives both hope and despair are seemingly ubiquitous. Whether one considers the state of global warming, of education, of ongoing wars and violence, or whether one takes focus on the plight of people reeling from starvation, conflicts over waterways, political displacement, or poverty, the point remains that hope is ever paramount in our rapidly changing world. As a consequence, this volume serves as an invitation for dialog regarding the plurality of our hopeful affectations. Considering the various ways in which hope can be thematized, understood, and brought to bear on our lived experiences not only affirms the relevance and importance of this mode of being; it also affords us the opportunity to reflect on the various ways in which hope is denigrated, devalued, and extinguished. That is, by looking at and inquiring into the varieties of our affective experience, considerations of hope may engender us to collectively consider ways to instill hope, ways to enliven and to uplift those who may feel most burdened by struggle, marginalization, and affliction. Thus, each chapter seeks to answer that call to reflect on the nuances of our experiences and expressions of hope, and to continue the conversation concerning the role of hope in our lives through a lens of multiplicity, difference, and broad-minded inquiry. This volume divided into four parts, each focusing on some aspect of marginal and transgressive ways of approaching the concept. The first half of the book concerns expanding our theoretical visions of hope. Section 1 considers how we might think of expanding our philosophical understanding of hope. Such an expansion includes thinking the variety and the multiplicity of ways in which hope can be experienced, resisting the temptation to reify the experience of hope into a static type of experience. Section 2 focuses on the nature of hope and transgression. The chapters within this section consider how hope serves transgressive ends and what role it plays in countering dominant social and religious doctrine, convention, and customs. The second half of the text moves from theory to practice, honing in on questions of the application of theory to practice. Section 3 looks at the ways in which hope is related to history and how our ways of understanding history may directly impact our capacities or our understandings of hoping. Thus, by reconsidering the ways in which history is always informing the present, both these chapters examine how hope may best be understood and made manifest. The last section examines the role of hope in relation to policy development and implication. Looking at the ways in which hope can be used to instantiate status quo legislation is used as a counter measure to consider how a robust conception of hope can be essential in overcoming stagnant and sometimes trivial accounts of policy. What weaves each of the pieces together is that they each elaborate specific complexities and perspectives regarding how we understand hope and what it means to hope, and they tend to do so in ways that

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challenge conventional, established, and accepted positions. This volume combines essays focused on theoretical matters and essays dedicated to the application of theoretical models to lived situations. They share an ongoing commitment to the exploration of hope’s many facets, to its potential in overcoming the oppression of marginalized and oppressed groups, as well as its role in engendering effective action and change. As such, a number of secondary questions are also addressed, such as: What is the nature and temporality of hope? What is the role of agency in hope? Is it possible to hope for goods outside the purview of what is deemed socially acceptable? What are the reasonable objects of hope? What is the relationship between philosophical and theological accounts of hoping? In an attempt to clarify and help us to better appreciate the questions that arise from various theoretical considerations of hope, chapter 1 initiates a reflection on the various “faces of hope.” In this piece Nancy Snow invites us to consider the complexities of our understanding and theorizing of hope in several important ways. Looking to C. R. Snyder and Victoria McGeer, Snow investigates what she terms the “agency account” of hope. Such an account that privileges the perspective that hope comprises both beliefs and desires, and is always goal directed. She further considers, aided by nursing science studies, and philosopher, Gabriel Marcel, whether hope must be understood as solely future oriented. She thus raises the important question: Can hope have differing temporal dimensions? The result of Snow’s inquiry is that we are left to consider the various ways in which our reflections on hope may be more deeply contoured such that they reflect more of the complexity of this deeply meaningful human experience. Chapter 2 is an inquiry into the nature of secular hopes in the face of death. Luc Bovens elaborates an understanding of what constitutes specifically secular hopes in the face of death as a means of challenging the too often assumed necessity of a religious hope in an afterlife as a singular available hope at the time of death. Furthermore, Bovens offers us the opportunity to consider what is reasonable to hope for at the end of life, particularly in light of the assumption so often made that hope must be future directed and, particularly in terms of death, otherworldly. As such, Bovens neatly throws into sharp relief the sheer variety and variability of hopes available to us at the end of life. This further demonstrates the complexity of hope and the multidimensionality of the concept. Patrick Shade opens chapter 3 with an inquiry into the nature of hope in search of “transgressive goods.” Taking up the central argument in Habits of Hope, Shade delineates an inquiry based on a recognition that people, on occasion, seek goods outside the established status quo of social norms. Consequently, hoping for such a transgressive good raises important questions with regard to how hope is understood, its relation to courage and to shame, as well as the ways in which hope may operate

Introduction

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in contexts of social conflict and negotiation. While focusing specifically on the historical example of the Christian Martyr, Perpetua, Shade aptly argues that hope and courage in tandem can enable resistance to seemingly overwhelming forces of social conformity. As a consequence of his inquiry, Shade’s chapter enables us to consider the ways in which hope can be operative in producing the courage needed to overcome difficult odds. Furthermore, it provides us with an articulation of how hopefulness can be understood as allied with courage, and consequently, as what Shade describes as, a “master habit.” Chapter 4 seeks to understand the history of the concept of hope from within the Biblical tradition and further enables us to understand contemporary opportunities for conceptualizing hope as both transcendental and immanent owing in large measure to the work of Ernst Bloch and Erich Fromm. Looking at early redemptive narratives developed by a variety of philosophical and theological perspectives, Akiba Lerner notes how such views associate the idea of hope with a transcendental vision of future redemptive possibility. This in turn is understood to give meaning to history and to experiences of freedom. Given this theoretical lineage, Lerner goes on to argue that contemporary conceptualizations of hope tend to relocate God as a force of freedom and as intimately situated within contexts of human communities. As a result of this historical shift away from an understanding of God as a distant and authoritarian deity, Lerner suggests a new means of reconciling conceptions of human freedom and hope. The conclusion to part I of this collection enables us to consider a breadth of theoretical perspectives available to help us conceptualize and better understand the multidimensionality and variability of experiences of human hopefulness. Thus, the first part raises a number of questions regarding the nature of hope, from the secular to the deeply theological. Where, in one instance, we may experience hope as a motivational force enabling us to achieve a very specific and desired goal, in a wholly different context, we may find ourselves in search of explanations for more existentially rich and enigmatic experiences of hoping. Part I enables us to consider the ways in which hope may be future directed, as is most often assumed, but the chapters here challenge us to further elucidate the multiple ways in which hope may be felt as a present condition geared toward present circumstances. Furthermore, part I opens up the possibilities for exploring hope as being rooted in or contested by existing social orders. Gaining theoretical insight into these various ways of formulating accounts of hope further encourages us to apply such accounts to lived, concrete practices and circumstances. It is to that concern this we turn in part II. Part II begins with Allison Merrick’s chapter which explores the possibility of finding hope in the past. Further concretizing an insight raised in part I, Merrick queries the assumption that hope must always be future

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directed. Drawing on the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, she argues that it is indeed possible to extend hope to include aspects of our histories that may have been overlooked, sidelined, or otherwise occluded. As a result, Merrick’s contribution argues for a reconsideration of the work of historiography, one that implores us to consider hope within the context of what can, from a present vantage point, perhaps, present history as the wreckage of catastrophes. Signaling the importance of finding hope in the past, Merrick prepares the ground for a more complex consideration of the ways in which hope can be effectively (and affectively) utilized in concrete practices of historiography and of genealogy. The final chapter of section 3 is a contribution that considers how a new conception of hope may be developed to understand contemporary feminist struggles against expressions of misogyny, as well as to help formulate a theoretical framework capable of propelling such activism forward. Rochelle Green articulates a hybrid theory of hope that draws together aspects of Gabriel Marcel’s and Ernst Bloch’s respective theories of hope. Green locates in Marcel important resources for underscoring the necessity of community for the substance of hope, as well as for considering the important role of social solidarity in expressions of hope in the face of oppression. From Ernst Bloch, Green emphasizes the importance of drawing out accounts of resistance from historical sources such that contemporary struggles are situated within meaningful intergenerational legacies. Chapter 7 moves into the sphere of education with Darren Webb’s contribution, which looks into the nature of hope and the ways in which it is constructed in educational settings. Webb understands hope as “a positive orientation toward an uncertain future good,” and as a result he further identifies various modes of hoping (this volume, 136). Thus, while he maintains a future-directedness about the nature of hope, he still maintains that within that stipulation, hope offers us a wide variety and multiplicity of potential experiences. Indicating the timeliness of such considerations in terms of education policy discourse in the UK, Webb demonstrates that because education is a fundamental means by which people learn to orient themselves in the world and amid uncertainty, it is also a key means through which hope is constructed and instilled. Thus, a concrete analysis of this process, and the modes of hope that may be facilitated there in, is of fundamental importance. In chapter 8, Lisa Kretz invites us to consider the role of hope and the moral imagination in combatting the tendency to despair in the face of current environmental and climatological dangers. Kretz develops an analysis of hope that shows it to be integral to expanding our moral imaginations and overcoming tendencies to despair in light of what can be overwhelmingly distressing concerns regarding the future of the planet. Kretz observes how hope flourishes in the imagination with an eye

Introduction

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toward further exploring ways of fostering a fertile and nurturing ground in which hope might grow. Concluding the second half of the volume, we are presented with a series of examples demonstrating how multiple theories and perspectives of hope can lend themselves to, not only better understanding hope conceptually, but also making sense of our experiences of history, education, and political struggle and oppression. Similarly, the final four chapters reflect on ways of thinking about the concrete processes by and through which we learn to hope, and once again, they remind us that hope is a variable experience with multiple points of access and construction. Taken together, parts I and II seek to accomplish two things. Firstly, the volume suggests a number of ways in which we can account for the phenomenological experience of hope. It is worth reflecting on how hope in different contexts can express itself differently: for example, as an affect, as motivation, as commitment, as a present disposition, as a means of making sense of the past. Experiences of hope are multiple and diverse. Secondly, this volume raises the specter of how we think through our concrete experiences and practices of hope, particularly concerning the experiences of marginalization and transgression. Thus, it is not enough to merely theorize hope’s multiplicity, it is equally relevant, important, and meaningful to see hope in action, to consider its applicability and its variation from within the habits of our daily lives. As a consequence of this twofold approach, it is with great hope that we offer this volume as an invitation to further reflection, dialog, and thought.

Part I

Theory

Section One Expanding the View of Hope from the Margins

3

ONE Faces of Hope Nancy Snow

I want to sketch for you a number of perspectives on hope. The first is what I call the “bare bones” structure of hope. The second focus is on what I take to be the dominant conception of hope on the contemporary psychological and philosophical scenes, the “agency account” held by the psychologist C. R. Snyder and the philosopher Victoria McGeer. I then present two challenges to the agency account. The first challenges the view that hope is predominantly agency-oriented, and is found in what I call “receptivity theories” of hope. The second is from nursing science studies of terminally ill patients. These studies provide grounds for questioning the commonly held view that hope is primarily future-oriented. These two challenges invite us to supplement agency thinking about hope. THE “BARE BONES” STRUCTURE OF HOPE Most conceptions of hope incorporate a “bare bones” structure: hope is a desire for an end perceived to be good and the belief that the end is possible or probable. In this sense, hope is a complex mental state that has an intentional object. To hope is to hope for something of which we are not assured—a good biopsy outcome, fine weather for the picnic, an end to the drought. Hope occupies a conceptual space between certainty and impossibility. The hoped-for end is at least a possibility. It makes no sense to hope for that which is certain, or for that which cannot be.

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J. P. Day champions the “bare bones” view in a pure form. He argues that hope involves desiring and estimating a probability: “‘A hopes that P’ is true if and only if ‘A wishes that P, and A thinks that P has some degree of probability, however small’ is true” (1969, 89). 1 Bucking a trend in the history of philosophy, Day contends that hope is not an emotion. His full argument for this claim is too extensive to be pursued here, but the short version is this: “since a hope is identical with a desire plus a probabilityestimate, and neither desires nor probability-estimates are emotions, hope is not an emotion either” (1969, 89). He situates this reductionist account of hope within a schema of what he claims are four contraries of hope: fear, resignation, despair, and desperation, which are also analyzed as composites of desires and probability-estimates. Day has been criticized—rightly, in my view—for having too thin a conception of hope (see Walker 2006, 47–48). Indeed, most hope theorists do not think that hope is merely a belief-desire complex directed toward the attainment of some end perceived to be good. They retain this structure, but build upon it. A prominent view of hope that goes beyond the “bare bones” is the agency theory, here discussed in the work of the psychologist C. R. Snyder and the philosopher Victoria McGeer. 2 AGENCY THEORIES OF HOPE Snyder: Hope as Goal Pursuit Snyder’s view, which he calls the “agency-pathways” theory of hope, stresses hope’s roles in effective agency. He gives two definitions of hope, each reflecting his view that hope is essentially a matter of taking effective means to achieving one’s goals. According to the first, hope is “a positive motivational state that is based on an interactively derived sense of successful (a) agency (goal-directed energy) and (b) pathways (planning to meet goals)” (Snyder, Irving, and Anderson 1991, 287; quoted in Snyder 2000a, 8). The second describes hope as “a cognitive set that is based on a reciprocally-derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed determination) and pathways (planning to meet goals)” (Snyder, Harris, et al. 1991, 571; quoted in Snyder 2000a, 8–9). From a philosophical perspective, the two definitions can be analyzed in different ways, depending upon which side one takes in a complex debate, that between motivational internalists and externalists. 3 Very roughly, motivational internalists hold that thoughts alone are capable of intrinsic motivational force. Motivational externalists deny this, holding that thoughts by themselves are insufficient to motivate, and must be accompanied by desires to have motivational power. Externalists would not see the two definitions as equivalent, since the first refers to a “motivational state,” which they think would include desires as well as beliefs,

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whereas the second refers to a “cognitive set,” which they would see as referring to cognitions only. Snyder claims that the motivational force of hope resides in a person’s sense of agency, and believes that a welldeveloped sense of agency contains both cognitive and motivational content. In taking this position, he seems to sidestep the internalism/externalism debate by conceptual stipulation. Whatever his position on this debate, Snyder contends that high-hopers have the motivational determination and cognitive tools to successfully pursue their goals, that they are flexible in their pathways thinking, and can generate multiple means to goal achievement. They are able to identify barriers to goals and to invent new means to achieve goals that can circumvent such impediments. According to Snyder’s theory, goaldirected cognitions elicit specific emotions. These emotions feed back to reshape cognitions during goal pursuit (Snyder 2002, 254). The process of goal pursuit is thus characterized by a reciprocal interplay of mutually shaping cognitions and emotions. Snyder and psychologists Rand and Cheavens also mention the emotional sets of people who are dispositionally high or low in hope (Snyder 2002, 252–54; Rand and Cheavens 2009, 325–26). They predict that high-hopers should have enduring positive emotions and should set about goal pursuit with affective zest, and that low-hopers should have enduring negative emotions, and display affective lethargy and passivity in goal pursuit. Additionally, they maintain that high-hopers are less likely than low-hopers to view impediments as stressful, and are more likely than low-hopers to entertain thoughts that minimize stressful impact. In other words, high-hopers regulate their thoughts and emotions in ways that reflect their ability to cope successfully with barriers. The foregoing description captures the “event sequence,” which is the heart of the hope model. The full hope theory introduces two prior stages: an agent’s learning history, and a pre-event sequence of assessment of the values of outcomes. The learning history stage analyzes how high or low hope is inculcated in agents (see Snyder 2000b). As children, we are taught the cognitive skills needed for successful goal pursuit (or not), are encouraged to have confidence in our agential abilities (or not), and learn how to be cognitively resourceful and emotionally resilient when faced with impediments (or not). McGeer, as we’ll see, also recognizes the importance of early nurturance in the development of hope and capacities for effective agency; the empirical studies that give credence to Snyder’s view also lend support to her perspective. Numerous empirical studies support Snyder’s conception. This work takes the agency-pathways theory as a testable hypothesis, and confirms that people do in fact use this type of thinking in many domains. 4 However, they do not challenge the conceptualization of hope as agencypathways thinking. This is a question we need to confront. Why think that the agency-pathways theory captures “hope”? Why not call the pro-

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cess of goal pursuit “tenacity” or “perseverance,” and talk about highand low-tenacity or high- and low-perseverance? Alternatively, why not call this theory the “theory of successful goal pursuit”? In an important commentary, the psychologists Aspinwall and Leaf raise similar concerns when they point out the conceptual similarity of what Snyder calls “hope” to many personal control-related constructs (2002, 276–77). Additionally, they indicate that “most (if not all) of the [empirical] findings attributed to hope have also been found for optimism” and claim that “Control beliefs, such as self-efficacy, self-mastery, and perceived control, have a similar track record in predicting . . . aspects of self-regulatory and social competence” (Aspinwall and Leaf 2002, 277). In short, they give voice to the suspicion that Snyder, in thinking that hope just is agencypathways thinking, has not really captured the essence of hope. 5 A richer agency theory is provided by Victoria McGeer, to whose view we now turn. McGeer: Agency and Good and Bad Hoping McGeer argues that hope is “a unifying and grounding force of human agency,” and claims that “[t]o live a life devoid of hope is simply not to live a human life; it is not to function—or tragically, it is to cease to function—as a human being” (2004, 101). In her view, the ability to hope is both a precondition of and a constitutive element in our abilities to function as effective agents. It not only underwrites our actual capacities as agents, but also provides us with the imaginative vision, resolve, and practical wherewithal to project our agential capacities into the future (she cites Snyder’s hope theory approvingly in this regard, see 2004, 103). She writes: “human agency is about imaginatively exploring our own powers, as much as it is about using them. Hence, it is about imaginatively exploring what we can and cannot do in the world” (2004, 104). This is where hope comes in: “For, no matter what the circumstance, hoping is a matter, not only of recognizing but also of actively engaging with our current limitations in affecting the future we want to inhabit” (2004, 104). Good hope is not wishful thinking or flights of imaginative fancy, but clear-headed engagement with our capacities as they are, geared to bringing those capacities to where we want them to be. Thus, hope grounds effective human agency. Even in the limited case in which circumstance or our limitations prevent us from affecting the world we inhabit, hope enables us to orient our energies toward the future, in thought if not in deed (2004, 104). Hope, as a forward-looking ground and unifying force of human agency, is a complex dynamic of many things: attitude, emotion, activity, and disposition (2004, 101). With this rich conceptualization of hope, McGeer avoids the pitfall to which Snyder’s agency-pathways view falls prey, namely, the suspicion that agency-pathways thinking is part, but not all, of what it is to hope. To hope well, McGeer claims, is not

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just to formulate and pursue desired ends; it is to “take a reflective and developmental stance toward our own capacities as agents—hence, it is to experience ourselves as agents of potential as well as agents in fact” (2004, 115). Drawing on psychologist Jerome Bruner’s theory of parental scaffolding, McGeer provides a backstory to our abilities to hope (2004, 105–8). 6 Parental scaffolding—the kinds of support and encouragement parents provide their children—enables children to learn how to be effective agents. She notes that good parents encourage children to explore their own agency, to experience and overcome agential limitations. Good parental scaffolding allows children to deal with these limits in constructive ways—to experience frustration and other negative emotions, to be sure—but to learn from such episodes how to do better next time. Good parental scaffolding also teaches children the cognitive skills needed for effective agency, such as how to choose their ends well and take effective means to their ends. Children thereby learn to have confidence in their agency and to be resilient in the face of failure. Developing these and other qualities are part of the process of becoming effective agents, as well as good hopers. One important lesson of this backstory is that hope is deeply social (2004, 108). Though we eventually become independent agents, or “self-scaffolders,” in McGeer’s terms, we never completely lose the need for supportive others in maintaining our agency and our hope (2004, 108). The social dimensions of hoping are apparent in McGeer’s descriptions of three forms of hoping: responsive hoping, which is good, and wishful and willful hoping, which are bad (2004, 109–24). Let’s begin with bad hoping. She sums up the deficiencies of wishful hoping, also called the “hope of desire” as follows: The most glaring defect of wishful hope can be summarized as a failure to take on the full responsibilities of agency in both formulating and working toward the realization of one’s hopes. One’s capacity for formulating hopes is corrupted through their becoming attached in undisciplined ways to pure desire, and one’s capacity for realizing hopes is corrupted by an overreliance on external intervention to secure one’s hoped-for ends. (2004, 115)

In short, wishful hopers are deficient in two ways: their desires are fanciful and impractical, and their capacity for effective agency in realizing their desires has been impaired by too much dependency on the agency of others. Willful hoping is the other form of bad hoping. McGeer (2004, 114) labels this “the hope of fear,” and maintains that it is intimately bound with unreflective dread and ego-anxiety. She writes: Willful hopers invest all their energy in the achievement of their ends . . . having little understanding of the self-aggrandizing passions

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Nancy Snow that often drive them to those ends. Willful hopers are therefore quite disciplined in the way they reason from means to ends. . . . But they are also quite unreflective and sometimes unscrupulous, about the impact on self and others of the means they use, always justifying these in terms of the ends pursued. Moreover, they are also quite unreflective, indeed often self-deceived, about their reasons for valuing such ends. (2004, 115–16)

By contrast with wishful hopers, who seem inept in both desire formulation and in their practical abilities to realize their hopes, willful hopers, whose hope is motivated by “self-protective dread or fear” seem neurotically driven to achieve their ends, blind to the passions that animate them, and impervious to the devastation the pursuit of their plans might cause (2004, 116). Unsurprisingly, both wishful and willful hopers can be created by defective parental scaffolding (2004, 113, 116). Presumably, since both forms of hoping are defective, neither could count as virtuous hoping. Now for good hope. Responsive hoping, “the hope of care,” has both intrapersonal and interpersonal dimensions (2004, 122). We have already seen some of the intrapersonal features of good hoping—for example, clear-sighted, yet imaginative engagement with reality, resilience, flexibility, and the willingness to stretch one’s agential capacities. What McGeer calls “peer scaffolding” is paramount for the interpersonal aspects of good hoping (2004, 118). Peer scaffolding is a form of interpersonal support for one’s hoping that supplants the structures of parental scaffolding. It is made possible by being part of a community of selfscaffolding hopers—sympathetic, caring others who help one to formulate and pursue hopes in a positive way. Peer scaffolding helps to keep one on the “straight and narrow” and away from the pitfalls of wishful and willful hoping, as well as to cope with the debilitating emotions that can result when hopes are not realized. Perhaps most importantly, creating a community of responsive hopers fosters clarity—clarity about the limits of our own agency and those of others (2004, 124). All of this points to the importance of care in being a responsive hoper. Care is, in a sense, at the bottom of responsive hoping (2004, 124). We must care for ourselves as well as for others in our guise as agential hopers. This care helps us continually to develop as responsive hopers—to progress in what McGeer calls “the art of good hope.” McGeer’s is a powerful and appealing conception of hope. Though she stresses the importance of good hoping for effective agency, her account, as I understand it, does not preclude the possibility that hope need not always involve the hoper’s agency. The notion that we can or should hope even when we are powerless to achieve a desired end invites us to consider the possibility that agency theories leave something of importance out of the picture.

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RECEPTIVITY THEORIES OF HOPE What is it about hope that agency theories neglect? Two very different conceptions of hope, put forward by the French Christian existentialist Gabriel Marcel and the contemporary philosopher Jonathan Lear, explore this further dimension of hope. I call theirs and similar approaches “receptivity theories” to highlight the notion that, for them, part of hoping involves forms of receptivity, such as patience, waiting, and openness. Marcel: Fundamental Hope Three thinkers writing in post-war Europe developed very interesting theories of hope: the French existentialist Marcel, the German Thomist Josef Pieper, and the East German Marxist Ernst Bloch. 7 The structure of these theories is similar: hope for all three is teleological—it is directed not just toward specific ends in agents’ lives, but toward shared ends. More precisely, the theories of Marcel and Pieper are eschatological— hope points to an end beyond human history. For Marcel and Pieper, hope is fundamentally for unification with God. God is the ground and end of human hope. This is true, they think, both for individual believers as well as for faith communities and humankind as a whole. Bloch did not advocate theism, but endorsed Marxist utopia as the end toward which individual and social hopes are oriented. He regarded this utopia as the terminus of world history. For Bloch, human hope is “world historical.” For these thinkers, hope provided a way forward through the devastation wrought by World War II. The war not only left Europe in shambles, it also left Europe debilitated and sandwiched between two superpowers with atomic weapons—the United States and the USSR. These thinkers thought hope offered the only way forward. Focusing now on Marcel, we should note that his account does not stress the power of human agency, but instead, emphasizes that hope requires forms of receptivity to the influences of a higher power. He writes of fundamental or existential hope, without which human beings fall into despair (1978, 10–11, 32). This sense of hope resonates with McGeer’s notion that hope as the sine qua non of meaningful human life and agency. Unlike McGeer, however, Marcel recognizes a transcendent dimension of hope. He stresses hope’s prophetic character, contending that: “[H]ope is a knowing which outstrips the unknown—it is a knowing which excludes all presumption, a knowing accorded, granted, a knowing which may be a grace but is in no degree a conquest” (1978, 10). Fundamental hope transcends the boundaries of that which is known because it is bestowed by the grace of a higher power upon struggling humanity. It transcends the human condition and is eschatological insofar as it pulls one forward through time to a better, as yet unrealized

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future. Hope is fully given to us by God, and not acquired through our own efforts. Hope, for Marcel, is the virtue of humanity in process and progressing toward an infinite end, which is God. The challenge of the not-yet-fulfilled and still-in-the-process-of-becoming creature is not to turn toward nothingness. Hope is the virtue that orients the creature toward the possibility of the fullness of being. In this scheme of things, the realization of the self through hope is the realization of the self in God. Yet both the turn toward nothingness and the turn toward fulfillment of being through hope are free acts of the creaturely will. In other words, though hope orients humanity in the direction of God, humans have choices to make. The role of the will in the drama of creaturely existence brings talk of hope out of the realm of transcendent ontology and into the ambit of moral psychology. At the intersection of transcendent ontology and moral psychology Marcel offers one of his most brilliant insights (1978, 30). It is the idea that fundamental hope is a response to the experience of trial or captivity. Writing as Marcel does in the wake of World War II, it is difficult not to connect this thought to the Holocaust. Yet his views have a wider range, for “trial” or “captivity” can be interpreted in many ways. He writes of a deep psychological trial, in which “I find I am deprived for an indefinite period of a certain light for which I long. In fact, I should say that every trial of this order can be considered as a form of captivity” (1978, 30). How is such a trial a form of captivity? In one sense, such a trial holds us captive insofar as it trammels our capacities for agency. We are not able to do that which we want or need to do. Deep depression can be viewed in these terms—our cognitive and affective processes are impaired and we are sapped of the will to act. Another interpretation of captivity arises from the experience of physical illness as cutting us off from the robust experience of our embodied being. In yet another sense, trial and captivity alienate us from our deepest spiritual and psychological selves. As Marcel states, “We can, therefore, say, that all captivity partakes of the nature of alienation” (1978, 30). All of these trials, which are assaults on psychological, spiritual, and sometimes physical dimensions of the self, can be considered forms of captivity. For Marcel, the deepest sense of trial as a form of captivity is that in which, being immersed in sin, I am cut off from the light of God. Here we might interpret captivity as a cognitive-affective deficit. Ensnared in the attractions of sin, I lose my way; my vision of the good becomes occluded. Not knowing where to turn to find the path, I can only wait for God to rescue me. He does this by eliciting my hope as a response to the trial I endure. The trial—the captivity—itself evokes or elicits fundamental hope. Marcel writes: “Hope is situated within the framework of the trial, not only corresponding to it, but constituting our being’s veritable response” (1978, 30; his italics). According to him, the only possible source of this absolute hope is God (1978, 46–47). I would add that the hope so

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exhibited is a manifestation of God’s grace, a respect in which the creature, encountering the darkness of sin, makes contact with the spark of light that guides her toward salvation. Fundamental hope in captivity is the creature’s response, but it is a response that is in the first instance and essentially an irruption of divine power into the sinful conditions that alienate the creature from full participation in her own being. In other words, fundamental hope is not only the person’s response to conditions of captivity, it is also and more essentially the creature’s response to God’s invitation to salvation. From the creature’s perspective, it is at once response, restoration, and relief: response to God’s goodness, restoration of the creature to a fuller participation in the life that God offers, and relief from the pangs of darkness. At bottom, then, fundamental hope is the experience of God’s grace breaking into the world. The hope given by God breaks into the world, but, untrammeled by the limits of human possibilities, also breaks out of it, leading the individual to envision, or at least, await, new ways of coping with the limits of her conditions. Marcel maintains that hope is a mean between presumption and despair (1978, 36–37). When we despair, we turn away from God and give up on the possibility of his grace. Presumption, by contrast, is the assumption that we are assured of God’s intervention and of an afterlife with Him. Hope occupies the middle ground: we desire unification with God, but do not know with certainty that we will attain this good. Marcel goes so far as to assert that there can be no hope without the temptation to despair: “Hope is the act by which this temptation is actively or victoriously overcome” (1978, 36). He also distinguishes hope from related phenomena: the mere acceptance of one’s trial, which can be a form of resignation, and abdication or giving up (1978, 37–38). Hope is a form of non-acceptance. As such, it is positive, and thus distinguishable from abdication, which can be a way of relinquishing. What are the positive elements that mark hope as nonacceptance of one’s trial? Patience, relaxation, confidence, and a kind of “domestication of one’s circumstances” are hallmarks of hope (1978, 39–40). Each of these speaks to the fact that, for Marcel, hope is the inner working of a creative process, a “taking of one’s time.” When one hopes, one does not give up or accept defeat; neither does one accept one’s trial in the sense of becoming resigned to what one thinks inevitable. Instead, one waits in patient expectation. One relaxes into an openness to possibility. He explains, “From this point of view, hope means first accepting the trial as an integral part of the self, but while so doing it considers it as destined to be absorbed and transmuted by the inner workings of a certain creative process” (1978, 39). In other words, one accepts the trial and absorbs it into one’s being, while waiting for the creative working of God’s grace to provide a way through it. I read Marcel’s claim that hope involves a “domestication of one’s circumstances” in this light (1978, 40). One “tames” the conditions that would otherwise frighten or upset one

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by integrating them into one’s life and letting them be transformed by God working within and through one. Marcel here reminds us that there is an active element of hope; the hoper participates in the creative process and is not a mere spectator. He warns against the degradation of the patience that is integral to hope into mere weakness or complacency (1978, 40). Just as agency theories do not rule out the possibility that we can hope even when we cannot effectively act, so receptivity theories maintain that there is an active element on the part of the hoper. There is much in Marcel’s view that sounds mysterious and perhaps, alienating, to non-theists. Yet it contains an interesting agency-receptivity dynamic to hope that is worth further investigation. We can see this element at work in another receptivity theory, that described by Jonathan Lear. Lear: Radical Hope In his interesting book, Radical Hope, Jonathan Lear reconstructs the story of how a Crow chief, Plenty Coups, led his tribe to cope with white domination, whereas other tribes were exterminated or lost touch with traditional ways of life. 8 For Lear, radical hope is hope that takes us beyond the bounds of what we have always known. As with Marcel’s view of fundamental hope, radical hope is an openness to new and previously unimagined possibilities. Lear argues that this form of hope enabled the Crow to successfully cope with their trial and captivity. According to Lear, radical hope would have come to Plenty Coups through the religious rituals of his tribe. These rituals involved Plenty Coups’s going into the wilderness and, through dreams and visions, making contact with the Chickadee Person, a spirit whose messages guided him. Essential to this process was Plenty Coups’s patience in waiting for signs from the spirit world of how he should lead his people forward. Though the story is more complex than this brief sketch can convey, the structure of radical hope is the same as that of fundamental hope for Marcel. Each type of hope stresses receptivity to the influences of a higher power. These influences then guide the hoper’s agency. Marcel and Lear would say, I think, that the hoper does not act on his or her own, since the messages she receives guide her forward in ways that can outstrip her conceptual repertoire. The Crow were guided into new ways of living in the white world—they had no conception of private property or of homesteading, for example. Yet, guided by the Chickadee person, they were able to preserve tribal values when confronted with a world based on concepts that they neither shared nor fully fathomed. In receptivity theories, one’s inner self, one’s thoughts and feelings, are re-oriented through the experience of hope. What is not claimed is that one’s external circumstances also change. One might still be in a state of “trial” or “captivity,” because of the nature of one’s external circum-

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stances. Hope allows one see these conditions in a different way. Furthermore, hope in a time of trial or captivity comes about as the result of seeking. When we face a trial, we look for ways to cope. We seek guidance, illumination, inspiration, or the strength to see us through our difficulty. Yet we need to wait for transformation to come to us. Need receptivity theories involve the element of drawing on a higher power? It seems to me that they need not. Fundamental or radical hope would then be hope in some benevolence that extends beyond the self, such as hope in the goodness of humanity, hope that things will turn out alright, hope in a kind of informal “karma” or justice in the universe, or simply hope for the best, whatever that might be. Of course, the conceptualizations of such factors are much thinner than God as thought of by Marcel or the spirit world as envisioned by the Crow. Yet we can imagine scenarios in which receptivity or openness to new possibilities are integral to the experience of hoping. Suppose that Martha has lost her job and is unsuccessful in finding another for months or years. The end for which she hopes—employment—might not be completely beyond human agency to bring about, but could require systematic changes to the economy that would be difficult for a single person, or even a group acting in concert, to produce. I think here of entire towns where jobs have been lost due to the relocation of industries. Short of moving from one’s town, which many people do, there is no work to be had. Suppose Martha has exhausted all avenues open to her agency and comes up short. What then? Despair? A receptivity theory of hope would advise her to step back and patiently wait for something to happen. Perhaps she will “domesticate” or “tame” her circumstances not only by accepting them, but by thinking about them in new and creative ways. Perhaps she will come to grips with the notion that she needs to relocate—to move from the place that has always been her home and that can now no longer support her. Perhaps she will think again about ventures she had ruled out in the past, such as going back to school, getting a degree, and starting a new career. Stepping back and patiently waiting can allow for cognitive and affective receptivity to new ideas and possibilities. This receptivity provides a space in which one can reconsider one’s circumstances, look at them from fresh angles, and perhaps, find in oneself the wherewithal to cope in ways that draw on inner resources one did not know one had. I have friends who lost their jobs and, instead of looking in the same field, decided to go back to school in middle age and become social workers. They’ve been successful, due in no small part to their receptivity to changing circumstances and new options, their openness to change, and their courage to try something new and different. I want to conclude this section with a few observations about receptivity theories and agency theories. Both types of theory admit roles for human agency and for dependency on others in the fulfillment of hopes. Agency theories stress the former and receptivity theories, the latter. Re-

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ceptivity theories of hope, it might be claimed, present pictures in which supernatural power threatens to overwhelm or subsume the power of the agent. Supernatural agents, however, leave a space for human agency. The hoper must be receptive to the higher power’s capacity to transform and illuminate the situation in which the hoper finds herself. In other words, the hoper must be open to seeing the world as the higher power wants it to be seen, and this could be a jarring experience for the hoper. All of this entails that the hoper in fact hope—that she turn away from despair and presumption, that she avoid complacency, weakness, resignation, and other states of mind that cut off the possibility of hope. Thus, the person has choices to make. She must retain receptivity and openness, and, once her view of her circumstances is transformed, she must allow her agency to be guided by her new outlook. The non-theistic parallels that I’ve briefly suggested here offer thinner accounts of that which transforms the vision of the hoper. Does that mean they place more emphasis on the hoper’s agency? Perhaps, but I’m not so sure. It seems to me that they indicate underexplored areas of human psychology, not necessarily incompatible with agency theories, which the latter could profitably investigate. One might need to wait, relax, and be patient, open and receptive to forming new ideas and mindsets before the effective agency involved in hoping can find ground in which to take hold. Thus, I think receptivity theories could conceivably complement agency theories of hope. HOPE IN THE PRESENT FOR THE PRESENT Most theories of hope assume that hope is predominantly in the present, but for the future. Nursing science research with terminally ill patients challenges this view. This research has found that the hope of the dying is not fully captured by such specific future-oriented hopes as the hope for a good death, for an afterlife, for goods for loved ones, or for the continued success of projects in which the dying have been engaged. In addition to future-oriented hopes, the dying can have hope in and for the present (see Nekolaichuk and Bruera 1998; Herth and Cutcliffe 2002; and Parker-Oliver 2002). This idea invites us to rethink whether hope is always or even primarily future-oriented. Nursing science scholars Herth and Cutcliffe stress the point that hope need not include an emphasis on future-oriented agency (2002, 979). They define hope in palliative care contexts as “an inner power directed towards enrichment of ‘being’” (Herth 1990, cited by Herth and Cutcliffe 2002, 979). Drawing on a study by Benzein, Norberg, and Saveman of eleven terminally ill cancer patients experiencing palliative home care in Sweden, Herth and Cutcliffe note a tension between “hoping for something” and “living in hope” in the terminally ill (2002, 980; see Benzein,

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Norberg, and Saveman 2001). The phrase “living in hope” calls to mind fundamental hope as conceptualized by Marcel. The terminally ill face a trial or captivity that robs them of effective agency. The lived experience of hope in the cancer patients in Sweden included the hope of living as normally as possible and having supportive relationships (2002, 981–82). This involved patience and coping as effectively as possible with circumstances beyond their control. Nekolaichuk and Bruera, also in nursing science, offer a framework for instilling hope in terminally ill patients. To do this, they devise strategies to shift patients’ focus away from future-oriented hopes to hopes centered on the construction of meaning in the present. For example, they stress the cultivation in the dying of “the hoping self” (1998, 38). This is an “inner self” that focuses more on being than on doing. As the patient’s capacities for agency contract, hope can be maintained, they believe, by focusing on the patient as a “be-er” rather than a “do-er.” Even as the patient loses physical functionality, she can maintain a hopeful presence in the world through connection with past memories. The hoping self imbues the present situation with meaning. The meaningfulness of the present for the dying person, then, is constructed by reaching back into the past. Hope arises from the meanings the terminally ill patient constructs for and ascribes to her present situation. These meanings, the researchers stress, should involve neither a false hope for a cure, nor for a physical life that is not possible in the circumstances. Many of these themes are reiterated and reinforced by Debra ParkerOliver. She defines hope as “the positive expectation of meaning attached to life events with the emphasis on meaning instead of life events” (2002, 115). She clarifies: “Hope lies in meaning that is attached to life, not in events themselves. This recognizes that individuals can shape their hopes by finding new meanings for living” (2002, 116; italics hers). Parker-Oliver follows a definition of hope according to which hope is not the belief that something will go well, but rather, the belief that whatever happens will make sense (Mitchell 1997, cited by Parker-Oliver 2002, 115). Psychologists, too, maintain that hope “requires a sense of trust that the world makes sense” (Tennen, Affleck, and Tennen 2002, 312). ParkerOliver contends “as long as there is meaning, there is hope. . . . The process of dying is an opportunity to discover new meanings, not a dark death sentence, void of meaning and value” (2002, 116). She succinctly states: “Hope is connected to the interaction between individuals, rather than to future events. Hope becomes tied to today, not tomorrow” (2002, 119). The present-orientation of the hope of the dying is prima facie at odds with the typical view of hope as predominantly future-oriented. But I think a case can be made that we hope in and for the present in a deep sense, and this case relies on two factors: the structure of intentional attitudes, and the insight that hope is about that which is unsettled. With-

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out hope in and for the present, I believe our lives would be largely bereft of meaning and lacking in positive affect. But if we can hope in and for the present in this deep sense, we need an “error theory” to explain why we often seem to miss this dimension of hope. Consider first the case that we do in fact hope in and for the present. Note, first, the plight of people who have sunk into despair. Suffering from deep depression, they need to muster great effort to do even simple things, such as get out of bed in the morning. Seeing no point to their present (or future), their lives in the here and now become a burden and a struggle. Their state is one of hopelessness. Can we infer from this observation alone that those of us who do not suffer from depression are hopeful? I think not. Lying between hopelessness and hopefulness is an intermediate state of indifference, in which one is not struggling with despair, but is simply apathetic. One doesn’t struggle to go on living; one simply doesn’t care much about it. One is lethargic, exhibiting a kind of anomie, or feeling of disconnectedness from the world around one. Another possibility is that those lacking in hope are neither despairing nor apathetic, but simply resigned. They have not succumbed to hopelessness, yet they do not see the present or future as having much to offer. For them, life is a form of drudgery, something to be endured. They are resigned to enduring it, in the sense that they choose to “stick it out,” but they do not enjoy life or savor its pleasures. Despair or hopelessness and apathy and resignation are certainly different attitudes. Though I have not discussed their nuances in detail, my point in mentioning them is simply to illustrate the range of possible attitudes people can have in and toward their daily lives that do not exhibit hope. Hope, I believe, is the state of those who have a positive attitude toward life. One might admit that such people are hopeful but insist that their hope is for the future, not for the present. Those who look forward to a good day are hopeful for the day ahead—for a state of affairs that will obtain in the immediate future. But the immediate future is not the present. They might trust in the present that the day will be a good one, and this trust, it could be claimed, undergirds their futureoriented hope. But their hope is, nonetheless, future-oriented. I think this is not the whole story. Surely, people with a positive attitude toward life can trust that the immediate future will be rewarding, just as those who are depressed can trust (or be resigned to) a future they see as unutterably bleak, or the apathetic can float along toward a future they see as boring or trivial, or those who are simply resigned can just “tough it out.” All of these unhopeful states of mind exhibit the attitude that the future will have a certain negative or undesirable quality. But note the intentional structure of our attitudes: we have present attitudes about something. 9 Our present attitudes can be about objects or events in the past, present, or future, or about imaginative or fantasized objects or events. The present itself or the future itself can be the object of

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our present attitudes. The depressed, the apathetic, and the resigned have these attitudes in and about the present moment, and these mental states inform their views of the future. A parallel point can be made about the positive person. We can call her attitude in and about the present “positive,” but I think it can also be designated “hopeful.” According to this view, the hopeful person has positive attitudes toward what is as yet unsettled—her present experiences as well as of those in the future. Her hopeful attitude in and for what is unsettled in the present is carried forward into what is unsettled in the future. This hope in and for the present is similar to that which caregivers find and seek to cultivate in the terminally ill, insofar as it is intimately connected with the meanings we find in and give to life events. A telling phrase for this is “living in hope.” I submit that many of us “live in hope” in our experiences of the present. We find, or make, meaning in our lives and this meaning gives us hope that our present unsettled experiences will be positive, enriching, or at least, make sense. Living in hope is precisely what the depressed, apathetic, and resigned cannot do, or do only in truncated, withered ways. These observations lead us back to McGeer’s point that hope is a sine qua non of meaningful human life and agency. Meaning and hope are intertwined—joined at the hip, so to speak. If, as in the case of the dying, hope responds to context and meaningful life events, hope is imperiled when events become so unintelligible that a person cannot make them meaningful. Consider how the sudden and unexpected death of a loved one can rob someone of a sense that life is intelligible or makes sense. If, in a moment, the life you’ve led for years is destroyed by your spouse’s unexpected heart attack, the ground falls out from under you in the sense that the life you’ve built with her is suddenly over. Captors brutally try to destroy hope in their prisoners by rendering their lives unintelligible— subjecting them to unpredictable, senseless routines, or compelling them to undertake meaningless tasks, such as digging deep holes and filling them up again. When life ceases to make sense, hope becomes difficult. Yet, if there is some meaning that can be found or constructed around life events, hope can take root. We see this in some of the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and others who survived torture or genocide (see Walker, 40–44). Despite shattering accounts of inhumanity, some of these people maintained a sense of meaning and hope. If I am correct in thinking that we can hope in and for the present, we need an error theory to explain why we so seldom notice that fact and focus on hope as future-oriented. I offer two conjectures. The first is that the present-orientation of hope is often missed because of its very ubiquity in our lives. Hope, inculcated in our lives from our earliest childhood experiences, as Snyder and McGeer maintain, is as natural to us as water is to fish. Its present-orientation comes to the fore when we consider the plight of those who are without hope, who have sunk into despair, apa-

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thetically float along, or resignedly endure a life bereft of happiness. When we live in hope, we live with an interest in how our lives will go; we care about how events unfold, and how our projects and plans will turn out. When we lose hope, we become disinterested. Chronic apathy, despair, and the sense that life is meaningless or absurd are the most serious symptoms of the loss of hope. 10 Less serious manifestations are boredom, or the frenzied quest for continual amusement, which fills the void of meaninglessness in lives lacking in hope. 11 Both types of symptoms have been documented in patient populations by nursing science scholars. My second conjecture is that we miss the present-orientation of hope because hope is about that which is unsettled, and we often complacently regard the present circumstances of our lives as generally settled. If a trauma occurs that shatters our complacency—our spouse unexpectedly drops dead of a heart attack, for example—we can then tell whether, and the extent to which, we live our lives in hope. Those who live in hope, I would say, will be able to access that resource—after the shock of the traumatic event has worn off—in ways others will not be able to do. To be sure, such occurrences could be occasions for those who do not live in hope to develop a hopeful attitude; they could be “wake-up” calls that alert people to how valuable and meaningful their lives can be. But often, the regularity of our lives leads us to complacently believe that what is, in reality, unsettled, is actually settled, and this complacent belief, along with the very ubiquity of what I’ve called “living in hope,” can cause us to miss this enduring mental state. I am not sure that hope theorists who focus on the future orientation of hope would disagree with this analysis of hope in and for the present. The significant feature of hope, it might be claimed, is that it concerns what is unsettled—whether that is in the present or the future. Viewing hope as an intentional attitude toward that which is unsettled provides a unifying thread between accounts of hope as present- and future-oriented. CONCLUSION In this essay, I’ve presented a number of perspectives on hope. The “bare bones” structure of hope is of hope as a belief-desire complex that is aimed toward some future end perceived to be a good. This structure is typically incorporated into richer accounts. Agency theories of hope are the dominant form of hope theory on offer today. Yet, alternative perspectives challenge agency theories by stressing other dimensions of hope. Receptivity theories emphasize roles for patient waiting and openness. Nursing science studies of the hope of the dying highlight the notion that hope is not exclusively future-oriented. They inspire arguments

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that hope in and for the present is an important aspect of our daily lives. I do not think that these challenges supplant agency theories of hope, yet they invite us to extend our thinking in new directions. 12 NOTES 1. For more on Day’s view, see Day (1998, 1991). 2. See also Walker (2006). 3. For more on the internalism/externalism debate, see Finlay and Schroeder (2012). 4. See, for example, Rand and Cheavens (2009, 326–30); Snyder (2002, 259–60); Snyder et al. (2002, 115–18; 258–59; 262–63); Bar-Tal (2001, 605); Snyder (2000a); and Snyder (2000d, 129–42). 5. See Shorey et al. (2002) for replies to Aspinwall and Leaf (2002); see also Martin (2011, 169) for skepticism that the construct Snyder investigates is hope. 6. McGeer’s view of the development of hope and agency has strong affinities with that of the psychologist Erik Erikson. See Erikson (1964, 1997). 7. See Marcel (1978), Pieper (1994), and Bloch (1986). 8. See Lear (2006). 9. I am grateful to Bronwyn Finnigan for helpful conversation on the presentorientation of hope. 10. For empirically documented manifestations of hopelessness in patient populations, see nursing science scholars Farran, Herth, and Popovich (1995, 26ff). 11. The Thomist philosopher Josef Pieper defines acedia as the “sorrow according to the world” that “produces death” (1997, 119). Pieper claims that acedia is the root of despair (1997, 120). In addition to despair, acedia gives rise to a number of interesting phenomena. They include an uneasy mental restlessness that Aquinas calls evagatio mentis (1997, 120–21). Evagatio mentis is manifested in excessive talkativeness and curiosity, irreverent urges, interior restlessness, and instability of place or purpose (1997, 121). Interestingly, a similar phenomenon has been identified by nursing science researchers in people lacking hope (see Farran, Herth, and Popovich 1995, 32). They describe it as a sort of busyness that is an avoidance of the real issues that a person must face in order to overcome hopelessness and restore effective agency. 12. My discussion of McGeer draws on pp. 17–18 of my contribution to the “The History of Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives on Hope: Toward Defining Hope for the Science of Positive Human Development,” Kristina Scmid Callina, Nancy Snow, and Elise D. Murrary in The Oxford Handbook of Hope, edited by Shane Lopez and Matt Gallagher (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 9–26; my discussion of Marcel draws on my forthcoming chapter on “Fundamental Hope, Meaning, and SelfTranscendence,” in Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology, edited by Jennifer Frey and Candace Vogler, Routledge Press.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aspinwall, Lisa G. and Samantha L. Leaf. 2002. “In Search of the Unique Aspects of Hope: Pinning Our Hopes on Positive Emotions, Future-Oriented Thinking, Hard Times, and Other People.” Psychological Inquiry 13 (4): 276–321. Bar-Tal, Daniel. 2011. “Why Does Fear Override Hope in Societies Engulfed by Intractable Conflict, as It Does in the Israeli Society?” Political Psychology 22 (3): 601–27. Benzein, E., A. Norberg, and B. Saveman. 2001. “The Meaning of the Lived Experience of Hope in Patients with Cancer in Palliative Home Care.” Palliative Medicine 15 (2): 117–26.

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Bloch, Ernst. 1986. The Principle of Hope. 3 vols. Trans. Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. Day, J. P. 1998. “More About Hope and Fear.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1: 121–23. ———. 1991. Hope: A Philosophical Inquiry. Helsinki: The Philosophical Society of Finland. ———. 1969. “Hope.” American Philosophical Quarterly 6 (2): 89–102. Erikson, Erik H. 1964. Insight and Responsibility: Lectures on the Ethical Implications of Psychoanalytic Insight. New York, New York: Norton. ———. 1997. The Life Cycle Completed: Extended Version with New Chapters on the Ninth Stage of Development by Joan M. Erikson. New York, New York: Norton. Farran, Carol J., Kaye A. Herth, and Judith M. Popovich. 1995. Hope and Hopelessness: Critical Clinical Constructs. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Finlay, Stephen and Mark Schroeder. 2012. “Reasons for Action: Internal vs. External.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2012/entries/reasons-internal-external/. Herth, Kaye. 1990. “Fostering Hope in Terminally Ill People.” Journal of Advanced Nursing 15: 1250–59. Herth, Kaye and John R. Cutcliffe. 2002. “The Concept of Hope in Nursing 3: Hope and Palliative Care Nursing.” British Journal of Nursing 11 (14): 977–83. Lear, Jonathan. 2006. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Marcel, Gabriel. 1978. Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope, trans. Peter Smith. Chicago, Illinois: Gateway Editions. Martin, Adrienne M. 2011. “Hopes and Dreams.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research LXXXIII (1): 148–73. McGeer, Victoria. 2004. “The Art of Good Hope.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 592: 100–27. Mitchell, Deborah R. 1997. “The ‘Good’ Death: Three Promises to Make at the Bedside.” Geriatrics 52 (8): 91–92. Nekolaichuk, Cheryl L. and Eduardo Bruera. 1998. “On the Nature of Hope in Palliative Care.” Journal of Palliative Care 14 (1): 36–42. Parker-Oliver, Debra. 2002. “Redefining Hope for the Terminally Ill.” American Journal of Hospice and Palliative Medicine 19 (2): 115–20. Pieper, Josef. 1997. Faith, Hope, Love. San Francisco, California: Ignatius Press. ———. 1994. Hope and History: Five Salzburg Lectures. Trans. Dr. David Kipp. San Francisco, California: Ignatius Press. Rand, Kevin L. and Jennifer S. Cheavens. 2009. “Hope Theory.” In Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, 2d ed., ed. Shane Lopez and C. R. Snyder. 323–33. New York: Oxford University Press. Shorey, Hal S., C. R. Snyder, Kevin L. Rand, Jill R. Hockemeyer, and David B. Feldman. 2002. “Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Hope Theory Weathers Its First Decade.” Psychological Inquiry 13(4): 322–31. Snyder, C. R. 2000a. “Hypothesis: There is Hope.” In Handbook of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications, ed. C. R. Snyder. 3–21. San Diego, California: Academic Press. ———. 2000b. “Genesis: The Birth and Growth of Hope.” In Handbook of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications, ed. C. R. Snyder. 25–38. San Diego, California: Academic Press. ———. 2002. “Hope Theory: Rainbows in the Mind.” Psychological Inquiry 13(4): 249–75. Snyder, C. R., C. Harris, J. R. Anderson, S. A. Holleran, L. M. Irving, S. T. Sigmon, L. Yoshinobu, J. Gibb, C. Langelle, and P. Harney. 1991. “The Will and the Ways: Development and Validation of an Individual-Differences Measure of Hope.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 60: 570–85.

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Snyder, C. R., L. Irving, and J. R. Anderson. 1991. “Hope and Health: Measuring the Will and the Ways.” In Handbook of Social and Clinical Psychology: The Health Perspective, eds. C. R. Snyder and D. R. Forsyth. 285–305. Elmsford, NY: Pergamon Press. Tennen, Howard, Glenn Affleck, and Ruth Tennen. 2002. “Clipped Feathers: The Theory and Measurement of Hope.” Psychological Inquiry 13 (4): 311–17. Walker, Margaret Urban. 2006. Moral Repair: Reconstructing Moral Relations After Wrongdoing. New York: Cambridge University Press.

TWO Secular Hopes in the Face of Death Luc Bovens

Many religions offer hope for a life that transcends death and the faithful tend to find comfort in this. Non-believers typically do not have such hopes. In the face of death, they may find consolation in feeling contented with the life they have lived. But do they hope for anything? I will identify a range of distinctly secular hopes at the end of life. Nothing stops religious people from sharing these secular hopes, in addition to their hope for eternal life. I will distinguish between (a) hopes about one’s life, (b) hopes about one’s death, (c) hopes about attitudes of others, and (d) hopes about the future. But before turning to these hopes, I will ask: What might keep a person from hoping for eternal life? WHY WOULD ONE NOT HOPE FOR ETERNAL LIFE? I have argued in “The Value of Hope” that to hope for something is (a) to believe that it is neither certain nor impossible, (b) to desire it, and (c) to be mentally engaged with it, say, by daydreaming about it or imagining how great it would be (Bovens 1999, 673–75). As to (a), if I believe something to be certain, then I can look forward to it, but I cannot hope for it; if I take it to be impossible, I can wish that it would be so, but I cannot hope for it. As to (b), clearly, I do not hope for things that I do not at least in some respect desire. As to (c), think of the prospect that a loved one might stop by. I am not hoping for this to happen unless I do at least some daydreaming about how great it would be, picture the things we might do together, etc.

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What first comes to mind as to why one would not hope for eternal life is that one embraces a world view that excludes the supernatural. I may consider eternal life to be simply impossible. In this case we can at best wish that eternal life is awaiting. But what if we consider it possible, yet rather unlikely? This epistemic attitude does not exclude hope, but the less one believes, the more one’s hopes merge into wishing. What stops a person from hoping for eternal life need not be strictly cognitive. It may well be the case that one simply lacks the desire for eternal life. When Einstein was asked, “Do you believe in immortality?” he responded, “No, and one life is enough for me” (Isaacson 2007, ch. 7 with reference to Viereck 1930, 372–78). The exchange has the same structure as: “Do you think that there is more beer in the fridge?” “No, and one beer is enough for me.” This expression indicates that the speaker neither believes that the object under discussion exists, nor that they have any desire for it. The lack of desire for eternal life may come from a dark disposition toward one’s own life or toward human life in general. A person may desire not to have existed at all or for humanity not to have existed at all, so why would they desire eternal life? But it need not be a morose attitude that underlies this lack of desire. Following Williams’ (1973) reflections on the life of the fictional Elina Makropulos, one may think that an endless life would become tedious and devoid of meaning. Or one may simply find beauty in the ephemeral character of life or find the desire for eternal life to be rooted in an unfitting sense of self-importance. Finally, one may find the whole notion of eternal life too foreign and incomprehensible for hoping. Eternal life may strike one as a possibility and an object of desire, yet there is nothing to go on when it comes to imagining what it would be like and this is what prevents hoping. In the poem “My life closed twice before its close” Emily Dickinson writes that the prospect of immortality is “so huge, so hopeless to conceive.” The Preacher in Ecclesiastes 3:22 asks, “Who shall bring [a man] to see what will be after him?” and concludes that the better thing for man to do is “to rejoice in his own work; for that is his portion” rather than, I might add, dwelling on eternal life (Bible, King James). Compare: A child may hope very much for their yearly upcoming trip to the local beach resort. But they may be much less excited when told that the family is going to some exotic place next summer—they may believe and desire it, since they know that their parents always take them on fun trips. But they have nothing to go on when it comes to daydreaming about it and hence can hardly be said to be hoping for it. Let us now turn to the first type of secular hope in the face of death.

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HOPES ABOUT ONE’S LIFE I might say: I hope that I have lived a worthwhile life. What is it that could validate the claim that one’s life was worthwhile? Consider the following passage from a letter by John Keats (1820) to his beloved Fanny Brawne: Now I have had opportunities of passing nights anxious and awake I have found other thoughts intrude upon me. “If I should die,” said I to myself, “I have left no immortal work behind me—nothing to make my friends proud of my memory—but I have loved the principle of beauty in all things, and if I had had time I would have made myself remembered.”

This quote brings out an interesting tension. Should we have made a mark in order to make our lives worthwhile? Or, is what matters that we live our lives in a particular fashion? Keats believed that because he would die so young (due to tuberculosis), he had not been able to make a mark. But he sees the worth of his life in living it in accordance with an aesthetic principle. Others might say that they have lived with integrity, with honesty, with love, with passion, etc. They also consider their lives worthwhile precisely because they lived in accordance with ideals that they subscribe to or identify with. How does this leave room for hope? In looking back on life, a person may have doubts because they are not fully transparent to themselves. They may hope that they have lived a life of integrity but at the same time fear that self-interest was often no less of a driving force. An artist may hope that they have lived a life of aesthetic appreciation, but at the same time fear that they were a phony at heart. A philanthropist may hope that they were motivated by empathy, but at the same time fear that they really were after fame and recognition. A concern to live one’s life according to some ideal is quite different from a concern to have made a mark. David Rönnegard is a humanist philosopher who was diagnosed with stage-four cancer at a relatively young age. In his aptly titled “An Atheist in a Foxhole,” he asks: “[L]ooking in the rear-view mirror, how do I feel about what I leave behind?” (2015). What gives him a sense of “a life fully lived” are “the sentiments . . . that spring from events that touched the lives of others.” These “footprints we leave behind” can take many forms for different people, such as “the friendships we maintain, the children we give birth to, the enterprises we start, and the books we write.” Making a mark is about making a difference to the lives of other people. Beyond this, “conceptual precision may need to give way” and “poetry might take over where analytic philosophy ends.” I will try to push on a bit further with philosophy and, be it with the help of some poetry, draw two further distinctions within this notion of making a mark.

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The other day, I was talking to a retired medical doctor who spends his days in archives doing genealogy. With some pride he told me that the only mark he had made in his life was the construction of a particular family tree. Genealogy never engaged me much, but I have always felt envious of the medical profession when it comes to giving meaning to life. If healing the sick and relieving suffering does not give meaning to life, then what does? So, I responded: “What about your patients?” He shrugged and responded: “Nothing of that will remain—most of them are dead by now and all of them will die someday.” This dialogue reveals the distinction between the enduring and the ephemeral. Some people consider their lives only worthwhile if they have left an enduring trace. The ephemeral does not suffice, whatever its value may be at the moment of delivery. In Ode 3:30 Horace gives expression to a writer’s aspiration to make a lasting mark, to gain immortality through their art. Here is the first part of the Ode, in a translation by Brundige 2015. (For a more standard and literal translation, see Horace 1882.) I have finished a monument more eternal than bronze and taller than the kingly site of the pyramids, which no gnawing rain, nor fierce North wind can destroy, nor countless rank of years nor the flight of years. Not entirely shall I die; and a great part of me will evade Lady Death; ever after I shall arise, renewed by praise, so long as the Pontifex ascends the Capitoline accompanied by the silent virgin.

Other people find their lives worthwhile because of the value that is embodied in fleeting moments. Imagine a DJ who can throw the greatest parties. They can make the dance floor burn until the early morning hours. In old age the DJ may look back and say that those parties just made it all worthwhile. Nothing remains, but who cares? There was great beauty in the ephemeral. The second distinction is the distinction between making grand and small marks. Let’s start with the Dickinson poem “If I can stop one heart from breaking”: If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

Dickinson, unlike Keats, did not strive to do grand things—at least not in the persona she assumes in her poetry. What gave worth to her life were

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small differences—with helping a fainting robin being paradigmatic. Neither did she care much for the grandeur of being in the public eye. In the second stanza of the poem “I’m nobody! Who are you?” she writes “How dreary to be somebody!/ How public like a frog/ To tell one's name the livelong day/ To an admiring bog!” There are many conceptions of making a grand mark. Being in the public eye is one way, but it is not the only way. Consider raising a family. This is certainly a grand thing to do and one may indeed look back on one’s life and say that raising one’s family well is what made it all worthwhile. But others would shrug and say that this does not make one stand out from the crowd. It is what millions of people are doing right now and have done before. For them, making something of oneself requires doing something out of the ordinary. They measure the extent to which their lives are worthwhile by the more or less extraordinary things they have done. The distinctions between the enduring and the ephemeral and between the grand and the small are not independent. Grand things tend to endure, whereas small things tend to fade away. But this is not always the case. There are things that are grand yet ephemeral, such as the DJ who could throw the greatest parties. There are things that are enduring yet make only a small difference. This is the case when we see the small things we do as worthwhile because they are part of a greater scheme that will stand the test of time. There is the old Chinese story of moving the mountains. An old man wants to move mountains by moving small loads of stones. When a wise man mocks him, the old man responds that his descendants will carry on his work and that the mountains will eventually be moved (Giddens and Giddens 2006, 39). Scientists may see their professional life in this light—their contributions may have been small, but they are worthwhile because they are part of a larger endeavor or an enduring pursuit. Whether we find meaning in the ephemeral or the enduring, or in the small or the grand, there is always some uncertainty that leaves room for hope. This is certainly the case if I aim for the grand and enduring. If I wish to live on through my art, my heart may sink when I see styles change and auction prices drop. I have no control over future tastes and all I can do is to hope that my work will not be buried and forgotten. (For a discussion of why some authors are forgotten and some are remembered, see Jackson 2015.) The small and ephemeral has the virtue of greater epistemic certainty. If, with Dickinson, one finds meaning in the beauty of a loving gesture, then, as the saying goes, they can’t take that away from you. There is often little doubt that the uptake of such gestures was as intended, and this leaves us with a sense of satisfaction. This category is close to living in accordance with certain ideals. Dickinson might say that she strives to

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live her life with empathy. In this respect she resembles Keats in that she takes the worth of her life to lie in the attitude with which it was lived. Kieran Setiya (2014) tries to understand what is at the core of a midlife crisis. He appeals to Aristotle’s distinction between telic and atelic activities in the Metaphysics θ. A telic activity is an activity that aims at an end that is outside of the activity itself and that can be completed, whereas atelic activities are the things we do for their own sake and are not geared toward completion. What sets off a midlife crisis is that one sees one’s life as a concatenation of telic activities brought to completion and all that one can say in response is: “So now what?” Setiya’s advice is to structure one’s telic activities in the service of atelic activities. For example, we should take up the telic activity of doing a joint project in order to engage in the atelic activity of hanging out with friends. This is helpful in understanding the connection between small marks and living in accordance with certain ideals. Those who find meaning in making small marks typically structure their telic activities in function of an atelic activity such as leading a life of empathy, or simply leading a morally decent life. Small marks stand to living in accordance with certain ideals as being successful at small telic activities stands to an atelic activity. The telic activities (helping the fainting robin into its nest) are the things we do to engage in an atelic activity (living a caring life) and this atelic activity is what gives meaning to the telic activities. The grand and ephemeral also leaves room for hope: The DJ may hope that these raves they played for really were all they were cracked up to be. The small and enduring invites the hope that the grand project will endure over generations and that the small stones that we carried will be part of the big mountains that need moving. Setiya’s distinction is relevant here as well. We can find meaning in the success of small telic activities by seeing them in the context of an atelic enduring activity. For example, our hope to have made a small contribution to science can be understood within the context of seeing oneself as a participant in the enduring life of the mind. In “Death and the Afterlife,” Samuel Scheffler (2014) argues that the existence of a “collective afterlife,” that is, future generations succeeding us here on earth, are essential to giving meaning to our lives. In their responses, Susan Wolf (2014) and Harry Frankfurt (2014) argue that people would still manage to find meaning in various activities, e.g., caring, friendship, music, intellectual activities, and puzzle-solving, even if they knew that they were the last generation. This connects to our discussion of making a mark. Hopes that one has made enduring marks are dependent on the existence of a collective afterlife. In contrast, hopes that one has lived a life that measures up to certain ideals, or that one has made ephemeral marks (be they small or grand), are not dependent on a collective afterlife.

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Scheffler responds that our inability to forge links to some future would lead to a sense of despair that makes it difficult to enjoy even the momentary pleasures. But this presupposes that one at least partly derives meaning from making a difference that is contingent on there being a collective afterlife. If what most matters to a person is the atelic activity of, say, having led a life of aesthetic appreciation or a morally decent life, or telic activities leaving only ephemeral marks, such as helping the fainting robin or setting the dance floor on fire, then the loss of a collective afterlife would matter very little indeed to the meaning we give to our own lives. This does not mean that we would be indifferent to the world’s predicament—we may find it tragic that human life will come to an end yet finding it tragic is not tantamount to thinking that our own lives are therefore less worthwhile. HOPES ABOUT ONE’S DEATH There are two distinct hopes with respect to our own death. First, we may hope to die well. And second, we may hope that our death will not be in vain. Hoping to Die Well We may hope to die in a way that is expressive of the ideals that we stood for in our lifetime. Aristotle includes “a death worthy of [one’s] life” and “dying as befits one’s life” in his description of the happy life. A brave person dislikes the thought of death due to disease or at sea (unless he is a sailor), because it does not provide “the opportunity of showing prowess” and it would not be a noble death. What a brave person is concerned with (and presumably hopes for) is to die courageously in battle, since this is both a noble death and permits a display of courage and skill (Nicomachean Ethics, Bk I, Sect. 10 and Bk III, Sect 6). In Cacoyannis’ film Iphigenia (1977, 1:46–1:47) adapted from Euripides’ play Iphigenia at Aulis, he places Iphigenia in the chaos of an argument of how she could be saved from being sacrificed. She steps forward and says: “Today I will die. I cannot avoid it. But how I will die, only I can decide. And I have decided. I will die peacefully, proudly, and beautifully. This will be for me some kind of victory.” Iphigenia hoped to die in a way that fits her ideal of a life lived well. Hoping to die well is central to the euthanasia debate. Proponents of euthanasia hinge their case on the fact that patients should have the opportunity to die in a way that is reflective of what they stand for in life. If what they stand for is independence, control and autonomous agency then they may consider euthanasia to be the most fitting death for them when they are afflicted by a debilitating disease. They do not want to see

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their bodies helplessly deteriorate further. They do not want to be dependent on a regimen of painkillers for pain control. They do not want to see themselves as being dependent on care-givers. They want to have control over their deaths as they have had control over their lives. Others lived a life believing that some things should be left in the hands of God or should be determined by natural processes. For them there should be proper access to palliative care. They should be able to live through the natural dying process without having to endure excruciating pain. People also hope to die in circumstances or at a time that is reflective of what they value in life or that is symbolic of something that they stand for or identify with. This can take many forms. Some hope to die surrounded by their families or in the comfort of their homes. Others hope to die as martyrs for a faith or a political struggle. Mark Twain was born in the year of Halley’s Comet and hoped to die in the year of its return. He wrote in 1909: I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” Oh! I am looking forward to that. (Paine 1912, ch. 282)

His hopes were met when he died in 1910 due to heart failure. Mark Twain was a great storyteller and he saw dying in the year of the return of Halley’s Comet as a way to go that would give the world yet one more story. J. David Velleman (2012) writes that he does not want death “to catch [him] napping” since he considers it to be a “momentous life event.” There is a curious contrast between people. Some hope to die suddenly, preferably doing what they like to do best, say, skiing or hunting or just typing away on their laptops. Others hope to die while seeing it all coming from far ahead, preferably painlessly of course, but with ample warning. What is it that sets these people apart? Are people who believe in eternal life more inclined to hope for preparation time, since they believe that there is something after death and hence something to prepare for? Does being a more competitive type-A personality correlate with hoping to die suddenly and does being a more relaxed type-B personality correlate with hoping to die with ample preparation time? Is there a difference between the young, the middle-aged and the old in this respect? These are questions that would merit an empirical study. Hoping that One’s Death Will not Be in Vain Tony Hancock (1959) joked: “Does Magna Carta mean nothing to you? Did she die in vain?” Humor aside, one may hope that one’s death

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will do some good, advancing some cause that one believes in. Soldiers tend to hope that their untimely deaths will advance the war effort. If I volunteer for a randomized control trial of an experimental drug in an advanced stage of cancer and the treatment is not effective, then I hope that my death will at least contribute to the advancement of science. We may also feel uncertainty about the very cause we are fighting for. Kahlil Gibran (1926) writes: “A woman protested saying: ‘Of course it was a righteous war. My son fell in it.’” A soldier may hope that their death is serving a righteous cause. One does not want to die being mistaken about the moral worth of the cause that one chose to die for. In Belgium and the Netherlands there have been a number of cases in which people ask for euthanasia wanting to be an organ donor. They hope that their death will give other people a new lease on life. These are mainly patients who are affected by ALS or MS. There are some drawbacks. ALS and MS patients who ask to be euthanized typically choose to die at home, but if they wish to be organ donors, they will need to die in a surgery room in a hospital. Cancer patients typically cannot be organ donors because their organs are compromised, though some ask for euthanasia at an earlier stage in the disease precisely because they wish to be organ donors. There are the usual moral reservations about euthanasia as well as the concern that patients will be pressured. On the other hand, can we deny the terminally ill their last wish for their deaths to gain meaning through a life-affirming gift? In a case of euthanasia combined with organ donation, one might expect a patient to say that they hope that the transplants will be successful and that their sacrifice of giving up on dying at home or choosing to die earlier rather than later will give a few people a new lease on life (Wilkinson and Savalescu 2012; Ysebaert et al. 2009; Caldwell 2011; Van Dijk 2014). HOPES ABOUT THE ATTITUDES OF OTHERS People care about how others will relate to them after they are gone. There are three types of future attitudes of others that we may hope for. We may hope to be missed, we may hope to be remembered, and we may hope to be respected. These hopes are not independent, but they are conceptually distinct. Let us look at each type in turn. Hoping to Be Missed Mark Twain wrote: “Let us endeavor so to live so that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry” (Graham 2014, 44). Being sorry is one thing but missing a loved one who has left us can be mental anguish. “Parting is all we know of heaven—And all we need of hell,” Dickinson writes in the poem “My life closed twice before its close.” But

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why would we want to be missed? There is clearly a tension here. As I will discuss in the next section, we also hope that our loved ones will flourish. And if their lives are marred by the mental anguish of loss, then that impedes their flourishing. Rönnegard (2015) recognizes this tension in “The Party without Me”: We want those we love to remember us, and if we are really honest, we want them to be saddened by our absence. How can we want to be the cause of sadness for our loved ones? [New paragraph] This paradox is only apparent. We all feel this way, but not because we are egotistical self-centred maniacs. We don’t want our loved ones to be unhappy per se. What we want is for the feeling of love to be mutual, and sadness is the unavoidable consequence of missing someone who has touched our lives deeply. One might say that the proof of the loving is in the dying.

So being missed is a sign that we were loved, and we hope to be missed because we hope that we were loved. However, at the same time we do not wish any anguish on our loved ones. There are many ways in which this tension can play out. Being missed should be more than a sign of being loved. If it is just a sign, then there is no need for it if I know that I am being loved. The hope to see signs comes with uncertainty about the presence of their cause. If we want fire, then we hope for smoke when we can’t see the fire. However, if we are confident that there is fire, then why hope for smoke? But even if people are certain that they were loved, they may still hope to be missed. What can we make of this? There remain two reasons why we might hope to be missed. First, Dan Moller (2007) discusses how the deceased are missed because their loved ones need them. They are important to them because they are unique and irreplaceable in their relationships with their loved ones. We hope that we have this kind of importance to our loved ones and hence we hope to be missed. Second, we may also hope that their love does not suddenly extinguish when we die. We hope that we will continue to be loved in some form or other when we are gone—even if over time it will just be a presence in a small corner of their hearts—and being missed is constitutive of being loved in absentia. But certainly, this should be balanced against our concern for the wellbeing of our loved ones. If we hope to be missed by loved ones, we should hope to be missed through a kind of grief that is edifying. We should not want to be missed by a hellish grief that mars flourishing in life. We may hope to die in a way that is not traumatic for our loved ones, in a way that they can accept and that allows them to come to terms with their loss. The hope to be missed can spill over in a shameful hope that feeds our sense of self-importance. A person may relish the expectation that they

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will be sorely missed when they are gone because they want to think of themselves as being entirely irreplaceable. Compare: Suppose you quit your job in protest or are fired from your job and you relish the expectation that things will go haywire in the company and that your boss will wish they had treated you better or had kept you on the payroll. This is not a model for hoping to be missed in death. One may also be wary of particular types of expressions of loss. John Wayne said: “God—how I hate solemn funerals. When I die, take me into a room and burn me. Then my family and a few good friends should get together, have a few good belts and talk about the crazy old times we all had together” (Mueller 2007, 18). In line with the public character of John Wayne, one could interpret this quote as follows. John Wayne thinks that there is something phony about expressions of loss that are typical in our culture and he abhors phony emotions. So, it is not that he does not want to be missed. Rather he does not want to be missed by people bawling their eyes out in church pews. He distrusts such sentiments, because he does not take them to be genuine. But we may go one step further. John Wayne might think that a healthy relationship is a relationship that permits us to let go, be it when paths split during our lives or be it in death. A few good stories and laughs are a good means to do precisely that, whereas a relationship that generates a Dickinson-style grief is itself pathological. Christina Rossetti’s poems “Song” (1909–1914) and “Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes After Death” invite an even more troubling interpretation. Let us first look at the first stanza of “Song”: When I am dead, my dearest, Sing not sad songs for me; Plant thou no roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; if thou wilt, remember And if thou wilt, forget.

We can read these lines as an expression of an ideal of Victorian female self-forgetfulness—do not bother shedding tears on my behalf. But her pen is much sharper in “Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes After Death” (1916), where she gives a voice to a deceased woman commenting on her husband’s tears during the wake: (. . .) He leaned above me, thinking that I slept And could not hear him; but I heard him say: ‘Poor child, poor child’: and as he turned away Came a deep silence, and I knew he wept. He did not touch the shroud, or raise the fold That hid my face, or take my hand in his,

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Luc Bovens Or ruffle the smooth pillows for my head: He did not love me living: but once dead He pitied me; and very sweet it is To know he still is warm though I am cold.

The two poems together can be interpreted as a distrust of tears for the dead. These tears are often not indicative of a love for the deceased while they were alive. They are mixed with pity and many other sentiments that make them suspect as an expression of love. This is a darker explanation of Rossetti’s indifference about being remembered than self-forgetfulness (Landow 2002). Hoping to Be Remembered Hoping to be remembered is connected to hoping to have made a difference, but it is not quite the same. Alfred Russell Wallace and Charles Darwin came up with the core ideas underlying evolutionary theory at roughly the same time. Now suppose Wallace’s work did more for evolutionary theory than Darwin’s work, but that it was still the case that Darwin is more remembered than Wallace. Would you prefer to be Wallace or Darwin? People may give different answers to this question depending on whether they hope more strongly to have made a difference or hope more strongly to be remembered. People do not just hope to be remembered, they hope to be remembered well. John Stuart Mill and Harriet Taylor managed their correspondence and destroyed whole letters and parts of letters because they knew that scholars would go through them with a fine tooth comb (Harriet Taylor Mill 1998, 322). Would we rather be forgotten than be remembered poorly? The Oscar Wilde quote comes to mind: “. . . there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about” (1891, ch. 1). Something like this also holds for being remembered. But presumably there are limits to this. People typically would rather be forgotten than (truly or falsely) remembered as a villain. But they might prefer the mix of some good and some bad to complete oblivion. But why do we hope to be remembered? I can see three answers. First, we hope to be remembered well because we take being well thought of as a sui generis good. My posthumous reputation as such matters to me, as does my reputation during my lifetime. Second, we hope to be remembered as a special case of hoping for a worthwhile life. We can make sense of this on evidential grounds. We may hope to be remembered because it is a sign of having done things that are memorable and hence of having made a difference. We care about having made a difference because we care about our lives having been worthwhile. Third, we can also make sense of hoping to be remembered if we believe that a worthwhile life leaves a trace. In this case the trace is a trace in the minds and

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hearts of other people. Woody Allen makes light of this desire: “I do not want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve immortality by not dying. I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen, I want to live on in my apartment” (Allen and Sunshine 1993). Even if the joke belies this, for some people there is a semblance of immortality gained by continuing to live in the memory of future people. Hoping to Be Respected Let us start with two stories that are in the philosophical lore—one about Diogenes and one about Jeremy Bentham. Cicero (2006) reports: Diogenes (. . .) ordered that he should be cast away without burial. Then his friends objected to him: “Like fodder for birds and beasts?” “No, in no way,” he responded. “Rather, place a little stick next to me, so that I may frighten them off.” They said, “How could you? For you will not be conscious.” And he concluded: “Therefore, how will being shredded by beasts harm me, if I will not be conscious?”

Jeremy Bentham’s body was embalmed and put on display at University College London, in accordance with his own wishes. King’s College London students stole the head in 1975 and there is a legend that it was used for an impromptu game of football (“Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon”). Most people prefer that their corpses will not be fodder for wild animals and would rather not see their heads used as footballs. We are horrified when we hear reports of the corpses of U.S. soldiers that were dragged through town in Mogadishu, the severed heads being displayed by ISIS, neo-Nazis desecrating Jewish graveyards with swastikas, etc. Furthermore, we hope that the things that we have created will be treated with the respect that is due to them. We don’t use the books that a deceased loved one wrote as door stops. We wouldn’t appreciate that a hymn we composed came to be used in a commercial for a cleaning product. We hope that our bodies, our grave sites, and our creations will be treated with respect. And when we see instances in which others are not paid such respect, our stomachs turn, and we may think to ourselves, I sure hope that something like that won’t happen to me after I am dead and gone! This brings us to a tension in the ethics of photojournalism. In the previous section, I discussed how one might hope that one’s death will lead to some good. Now think of Alan Kurdi, the toddler fleeing from Syria whose corpse was washed ashore on September 2, 2015 in Turkey. Some newspapers pictured his lifeless body washed ashore with his face half exposed to the camera. Others found the picture disrespectful and published a picture where a rescue worker carries away the body with

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only the boy’s legs in view. The fact of the matter is that this very picture was very much a turning point for world opinion (Gunter 2015). A newspaper’s editorial team is caught between two poles. On the one hand, they owe it to the victim and their family that the corpse be treated with respect and not be captured in sensational pictures making newspaper sales jump. Yet, on the other hand, we could also presume that the victim would not object to his death being instrumental in bringing about a better world, by their own light, and a better world by a refugee’s own light is a world that is more receptive to the plight of refugees. One way of paying respect to the deceased is by making their hopes and dreams come true. A newspaper can do this by giving publicity to their suffering and graphic depictions may often be more instrumental. The situation with Alan Kurdi is more complicated because he was just a toddler and had no understanding of the political context. But in general, to know what a person’s stronger desires and sensitivities would have been often requires guesswork or intimate knowledge of the deceased, which we typically do not have in the context of photojournalism (Bovens 1998, 205–6, 210–11). HOPES ABOUT THE FUTURE There is a Greek anonymous fragment from a lost tragedy quoting the lines: “When I die, let earth and fire mix; It matters not to me, for my affairs will be unaffected.” We find this line echoed in Lucretius, a follower of Epicurus, writing in On the Nature of Things (De Rerum Natura): “Certainly then, when we do not exist, nothing at all will be able to affect us nor excite our senses, not even if the earth mixes with the sea, and the sea with the heavens.” Seneca quotes the Greek fragment in indirect speech. He writes that the verse “urges (iubet) that after [one’s] death, the earth be mixed with the fires.” He finds this attitude despicable and puts it on the same level as Nero’s “Let them hate me, as long as they fear me.” In more recent history, we find a similar attitude in Louis XV saying “Après moi, le dé luge” (“After me, the downfall”). It is ironic that he proclaimed this a few decades before the French Revolution, which led to the execution of his grandson Louis XVI, who was heir to the throne (Laguna 2006). Consider the line “It matters not to me, for my affairs will be unaffected.” Now certainly someone might agree that their affairs will be unaffected, yet the future still matters to them and they have (non-selfaffecting) hopes for the future. What is more interesting though is whether it is true that future events do not affect us in any way. These historical fragments are intriguing because they invite different interpretations of how we may hold self-affecting hopes for the future.

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First, we might say, with Lucretius, that posthumous calamities do not affect us in that they do not make a difference to the goodness of our lives. Second, Seneca and Louis XV can be read as asking whether posthumous calamities do not affect us in the sense that an attitude of indifference toward them is warranted, with Louis XV endorsing such an attitude and Seneca despising it. And third, we may read the optative (“Let . . .”) in the Greek fragment or the verb “. . . urges . . .” in Seneca’s rendering of the fragment as expressing a wish for posthumous calamities. Hence, they affect us insofar as we have reason to wish for them. Let us take up each interpretation in turn. First, is it the case that posthumous events do not make a difference to the goodness of our lives? In the Nicomachean Ethics (Bk. I, Sect. 10–11) Aristotle discusses whether events after one’s death could affect the happiness of one’s life. He concludes that the good and bad fortunes of one’s descendants and friends after one’s death have some effect on the happiness of one’s life, but the effect is weaker than if these events happen during one’s lifetime. They may have some effect, but they cannot turn happy lives into unhappy lives or vice versa. We can easily reconcile Lucretius’s and Aristotle’s claims. Lucretius is right that what happens after my death may not be able to affect me then because it cannot “excite my senses.” But with Aristotle, what happens then may be able to (non-causally) affect the goodness of my life now. Consider the following analogy. Suppose that I take on the task of running a company and I befriend its employees. My tenure as CEO runs out at the end of the year and I decide to leave for an island in the Pacific with no intention to keep contact or ever return. The future fortunes of the company and my friends after my departure will not “excite my senses” since I will never know about them. But how the company will do affects the goodness of my tenure as CEO. Whether the company’s stocks will dive the day after I take off affects how well I am doing as a CEO now. If I have invested in my friends, then it matters to me now that they do not join the mafia the day after I leave or that misfortune awaits them. On the grounds of my caring for them, their present and future lives matter to me even though I will never find out what the future has in store for them. Hence, events after my departure as CEO can affect the goodness of my tenure as CEO. Similarly, events after my departure from this world can affect the goodness of my life. And it is on such self-affecting grounds that I may have hopes for the future. People do indeed care about the well-being of descendants, loved ones and projects that they have invested in. And these are not just hopes for a better world, but they are hopes for things that affect them. Second, is an attitude of indifference toward posthumous calamities warranted? With Seneca, we might think that minimally decent people are not indifferent to the well-being of future people, just as they are not

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indifferent to the well-being of distant people. Such concerns may be expressed in hopes for the well-being of distant and future people. This is particularly relevant today in the face of the resistance to making any sacrifices to mitigate climate change for future generations. Once we heed this call to care not just for our near and dear but also for future people, these hopes become self-affecting because they reflect our own concerns. Third, the Greek fragment and Seneca’s rendering of it border on a wish for posthumous calamities rather than just an expression of mere indifference. In this case there is a different kind of self-affecting hope at work here. Suppose that I have to leave a party early. I may console myself by saying that the party is really winding down. This may be mere wishful thinking. But it can also spill over into a kind of petty and shameful hope. I just can’t stand the idea that the DJ will pick up the pace and that I will be missing out. So, I may hope that such great things won’t happen because I won’t be there to enjoy them. What I hope to hear tomorrow from my friends is that the party venue closed down a few minutes after I had left. Some people selectively focus their attention on unwelcome developments in society and the world at large as they grow old. They may even become enamored by religious or secular doomsday scenarios. It is easier to go if the future is not worth living for or if we all have to go together anyway. This may be just a way to find consolation, but there is a fine line between consolation through selective focus and wishful thinking on the one hand and petty and shameful hopes on the other. IN A NUTSHELL I started with the question: Considering my analysis of hope, why might one not hope for eternal life? The standard line is that people refrain from such hope because they believe eternal life to be impossible, but one may also refrain because one lacks a desire for eternal life or does not see it as a proper object of mental engagement. I then turned to four broad types of secular hopes at the end of life. Hopes about one’s life. There is a difference between hoping that one has lived up to certain ideals versus hoping that one has made a mark, which maps onto Aristotle’s distinction between atelic and telic activities. Small marks may be as worthwhile as grand marks and ephemeral marks may be as worthwhile as enduring marks. Having lived up to certain ideals and having made ephemeral marks do not require the existence of future generations to find value in one’s life. Hopes about one’s death. People hope to die well, that is, in a way that is expressive of the ideals that they stood for in their lifetimes, and they hope that their deaths will not be in vain. These hopes are relevant to the

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policy question of whether legislatures that permit euthanasia should also permit its combination with organ donation. Hopes about attitudes of others. I distinguished between the hope to be missed, the hope to be remembered, and the hope to be respected. There is something paradoxical about the hope to be missed—on the one hand, we hope to be missed, but on the other hand, we want loved ones to flourish and not to be marred by grief. The hope to be remembered connects to the hope to have made an enduring mark. In editorial decisions about publishing pictures of the dead in the media, there is a tension between meeting the hope that one be respected and the hope not to die in vain. Hopes about the future. The phrase “Après moi, le dé luge” and its predecessors in the ancient literature are open to multiple interpretations. First, one might interpret it to say that posthumous calamities do not affect us in that they do not make a difference to the goodness of our lives. Yet, following Aristotle, they may make a difference to the goodness of our lives. Second, one might interpret it to say that posthumous calamities do not affect us in the sense that an attitude of indifference toward them is warranted. Yet, in the same way that we may care for distant people, we may care for future people. And finally, posthumous calamities may affect us because we cherish shameful hopes that things will deteriorate after we are dead lest we miss out on something. 1 NOTE 1. My earliest inspiration for this article came from David Rönnegard’s pieces “An Atheist in a Foxhole” and “The Party without Me” and subsequent e-mail exchanges with him. Many thanks to David for getting me to think about these issues. I am also grateful for comments and discussion with Anna Bartsch, Susanne Burri, Christina Easton, Elinor Mason, Alex Voorhoeve, and Monique Wonderly. My research was supported by the Center for Human Values at Princeton University, and the Hope and Optimism Initiative at Cornell University and Notre Dame University which was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. For a blog-style discussion of the themes in this paper, see Bovens 2017a, 2017b and 2017c.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen, Woody, and Linda Sunshine, ed. The Illustrated Woody Allen Reader. New York: Knopf, 1993. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. W.D. Ross, trans., Internet Classics Archive. s.d. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html. Bible. Authorized King James Version. Ecclesiastes 3: 22. Accessed 5 May 2018. https:// www.biblegateway.com/. Bovens, Luc. “Moral Luck, Photojournalism and Pornography,” The Journal of Value Inquiry 32 (1998): 205–17. ———. “The Value of Hope,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (1999): 667–81.

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———. “The Last Hope. Part 1: A Worthwhile Life,” LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Blog. 2017a. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.lse.ac. uk/philosophy/blog/2017/04/10/the-last-hope-part-1/ ———. “The Last Hope. Part 2: Dying Well and a World Without Me,” LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Blog. 2017b. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/blog/2017/06/12/the-last-hope-part-2/ ———. “The Last Hope. Part 3: Attitudes,” LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Blog. 2017c. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.lse.ac.uk/philo sophy/blog/2017/10/03/the-last-hope-part-3/ Brundige, Ellen “Horace 3:30: On Immortality,” in the blog Hubpages, updated 15 January 2015. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://mythphile.hubpages.com/hub/horaceodes-3-30. Caldwell, Simon. “Organs of those killed by euthanasia being used,” The Telegraph, 14 June 2011. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/belgium/8572849/Organs-of-those-killed-by-euthanasia-being-used.html. Cicero. Tusculanae Disputationes 1.43.104. Quoted and translated in the blog Tradición Clásica by Gabriel Laguna, “The Expression ‘Après moi le déluge,’ and Its Classical Antecedents.” Last updated 13 January 2006. http://tradicionclasica.blogspot.com/ 2006/01/expression-aprs-moi-le-dluge-and-its.html. Accessed 5 May 2018. Dickinson, Emily. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/. Part One: Life XXXII. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/113/1032. html. ———. “My life closed twice before its close,” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/. Part One: Life. XCVI. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/113/1096.html. ———. “If I can stop one heart from breaking,” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/. Part One: Life. VI. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/113/1006.html. ———. “I’m nobody! Who are you?” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1924; Bartleby.com, 2000. www.bartleby.com/113/. Part One: Life. XXVII. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/113/1027.html. Frankfurt, Harry. “Why the Afterlife Matters,” in Samuel Scheffler and Niko Kolodny, Death and the Afterlife, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Gibran, Kahlil. Sand and Foam. New York: Knopf, 1926. Accessed 5 May 2018. http:// gutenberg.net.au/ebooks05/0500611h.html. Giddens, Sandra, and Owen Giddens. Chinese Mythology. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 2006. Accessed 5 May 2018. https://books.google.com/books?id= mW17LwByW-cC&pg=PA39. Graham, David. The Philosophy of Mark Twain: The Wit and Wisdom of a Literary Genius. Sine loco: CreateSpace, 2014. Gunter, Joel. “Alan Kurdi: Why one picture cut through,” BBC News. 4 September 2015. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34150419. Hancock, Tony. “Twelve Angry Men,” BBC-TV Series 5 of “Hancock's Half Hour.” First broadcast 16 October 1959. Accessed 21 October 2018. https://www.podomatic. com/podcasts/boxcars711/episodes/2017-06-27T07-_00_00-07_00. Horace. “Ode 3:30,” The Odes and Carmen Saeculare. John Conington, trans., London: George Bell and Sons. 1882. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/ hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:latinLit:phi0893.phi001.perseus-eng1:3.30. Iphigenia. Film by Michael Cacoyannis 1977. Accessed 5 May 2018.https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=Y0jBDCt-kD4. Isaacson, Walter. Einstein: His Life and Universe. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007. Jackson, H. J. Those Who Write for Immortality: Romantic Reputations and the Dream of Lasting Fame. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015. “Jeremy Bentham Auto-Icon.” Accessed 5 May 2018. https://www.lifestudy.ac.uk/ museums/jeremy-bentham/about/myth-legend.

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Keats, John. “To Fanny Brawne—February 1820 (?)” Accessed 5 May 2018. http:// www.john-keats.com/briefe/000220.htm. Laguna, Gabriel. “The Expression ‘Après moi le déluge,’ and Its Classical Antecedents.” Blog entry in Tradición Clásica. Last updated 13 January 2006. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://tradicionclasica.blogspot.com/2006/01/expression-aprs-moi-le-dlu ge-and-its.html. Landow, George P. “The Dead Woman Talks Back: Christina Rossetti's Ironic Intonation of the Dead Fair Maiden.” Last updated 23 October 2002. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/crossetti/gpl1.html. Mill, Harriet Taylor. The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill. Edited by Jo Ellen Jacobs and Paula Harms Payne, Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1998. Moller, Dan, “Love and Death,” The Journal of Philosophy 104 (2007): 301–16. Mueller, Carol Lea, ed., The Quotable John Wayne: The Grit and Wisdom of an American Icon. New York: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2007. Paine, Albert Bigelow, Mark Twain. A Biography 1835–1910, Complete. The Personal and Literary Life of Samuel Longhorne Clemens. New York: Harper and Bros, 1912. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2988/2988-h/2988-h.htm. Rönnegard, David. “The Party without Me,” Philosophy Now, June-July 2015. Accessed 5 May 2018. https://philosophynow.org/issues/108/The_Party_Without_Me. ——— “An Atheist in a Foxhole,” Philosophy Now, Oct/Nov 2015. Accessed 5 May 2018. https://philosophynow.org/issues/105/Atheist_In_A_Foxhole. Rossetti, Christina G., “Song,” in: English Poetry III: From Tennyson to Whitman. Vol. XLII. The Harvard Classics. New York: P.F. Collier & Son, 1909–14; Bartleby.com, 2001. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/42/723.html. Rossetti, Christina G., “XVI. Crossed Hands and Closed Eyes After Death,” in: The Book of Sorrow, ed. by Andrew Macphail. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1916; Bartleby.com, 2012. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.bartleby.com/ 361/215.html. Scheffler, Samuel. “Death and the Afterlife,” in Samuel Scheffler and Niko Kolodny, Death and the Afterlife, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Scheffler, Samuel, and Niko Kolodny. Death and the Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Setiya, Kieran. “The Midlife Crisis,” Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 14, no. 31 (2014). Taylor Mill, Harriet. The Complete Works of Harriet Taylor Mill, ed. by Jo Ellen Jacobs and Paula Harms Payne (Bloomington IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 322. Van Dijk, Gert, “Orgaandonatie na euthanasie: het kan—maar simpel is het niet,” Dutch Transplantation Foundation blog. 5 September 2014. Accessed 5 May 2018. http://www.transplantatiestichting.nl/columns/gert-van-dijk/orgaandonatie-naeuthanasie-het-kan-maar-simpel-het-niet. Velleman, J. David. “Dying,” Think, 11(32) (2012), 29–32. Viereck, George Sylvester. Glimpses of the Great. New York: Macauley, 1930. Wilkinson, Dominic and Julian Savalescu, “Should we allow organ donation euthanasia? Alternatives for maximizing the number and quality of organs for transplantation.” Bioethics 26 (2012): 32–48. Accessed 5 May 2018. Doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2010. 01811.x. Wilde, Oscar, The Picture of Dorian Gray. 1891 [1890]. Accessed 5 May 2018. http:// www.gutenberg.org/files/174/174-h/174-h.htm. Williams, Bernard. “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in: Bernard Williams, Problems of the Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973. Wolf, Susan. “The Significance of Doomsday,” in Samuel Scheffler and Niko Kolodny, Death and the Afterlife. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.

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Ysebaert, D. G. Van Beeumen, K. De Greef, J. P. Squifflet, O. Detry, A. De Roover, M.H. Delbouille, W. Van Donink, G. Roeyen, T. Chapelle, J.-L. Bosmans, D. Van Raemdonck, M. E. Faymonville, S. Laureys, M. Lamy, and P. Cras. “Organ Procurement After Euthanasia: Belgian Experience,” Transplantation Proceedings 41 (2009): 585–86. Accessed 5 May 2018. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.transproceed.2008.12.025.

Section Two Hope and Transgression

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THREE Shame, Hope, and the Courage to Transgress Patrick Shade

The following discussion is part of a larger project that seeks to understand the role hope plays in relation to transgressive goods, i.e., goods whose pursuit and realization challenges, violates, or undermines the dominant norms of a given community or social group. Pursuing a transgressive good—whether engagement in an activity or practice, development of a social structure or identity, or acquisition of an object—can inspire like-minded individuals to act similarly, thereby demonstrating the capacity of the personal to influence the communal. Calling these “transgressive goods” highlights their multiple locatedness. They are deemed “good” by those for whom they promise personal meaning significant enough to motivate action; by contrast, those who endorse the status quo that they challenge find them “transgressive” and seek to prevent their realization. For example, expressing and remaining resolute in one’s faith was a central good for early Christians even though it led them to disregard Roman norms requiring fealty to the emperor and to the pater familias; in publicly embracing death rather than renouncing their faith, they posed a danger in generating sympathy and converts that threatened the traditional order. Similarly, coming out as gay and pursuing a relationship with members of the same sex can lead to significant personal development and fulfillment, yet doing so violates sexual and religious norms that have dominated historical and contemporary cultures. Nevertheless, Christians stood firm in their unique identity even to the point of being martyred, and gay persons took the bold steps to

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develop their own forms of intimacy despite threats of isolation from the rest of society. Those who pursue transgressive goods, whether as articulated desires or purposive acts, face an array of negative responses ranging from puzzlement and anger to outright hostility. Especially given the possibility that they might inspire others to act comparably, those endorsing the status quo will likely seek to frustrate the efforts of transgressors, whether by limiting access to human or material resources needed to realize the putative good or by generating additional obstacles by shaming and threatening to punish or ostracize transgressors. Using shame to defend dominant norms is understandable, since it possesses considerable social power that operates quickly and effectively—often with minimal effort or discourse—to squash undesirable ideas and behavior. As a consequence, those who transgress often must resist or counteract shame, an act that requires considerable courage given their status as outsiders. Shame and courage interact in diverse ways, some positive and some negative. On the one hand, shame can complement and form an integral component of courage. It can help reinforce prominent values defined by a community, ensuring for instance that soldiers resist the temptation to flee the battlefield for fear of the shame associated with cowardly behavior. Shame can render us more willing to act in socially approved ways, affirming our connection to others with whom we can coordinate our actions. On the other hand, courage can be an instrument for counteracting shame. Those who pursue goods that lie beyond communal standards often must summon the wherewithal to face objections and deliberate acts of resistance in addition to the uncertainty that attends any endeavor to forge a new path. In this case, they deliberately employ courage to mute the threats of ostracism implicit in shame. Because of their contentious relation to accepted norms, most transgressive goods take the form of hopes. Each is a future good that, though desirable and possible, its agents believe to be difficult to realize or sustain, because it lies beyond their current agency. 1 In Habits of Hope, I argued that pursuing particular hopes requires complex habits of courage as well as those of persistence and resourcefulness. 2 Each of these habits performs a unique function in promoting and sustaining our efforts to realize specific hoped-for ends. Without persistence, for instance, we will be inclined to abandon hopes to pursue more immediate and readily accessible goods. The habit of persistence itself involves a complex array of subordinate habits that includes the self-control of patience and an astute attentiveness to changing conditions. Persistence needs to be accompanied by resourcefulness that supplements our attention with preparation to discover or create means needed to realize a hoped-for end. Habits of resourcefulness enable us to identify real conditions, to explore new means in an informed but imaginative manner attentive to alternate possibilities, and to formulate and adapt means and ends intelli-

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gently. Since indeterminacies concerning hope’s ends and means affect our ability or propensity to act in pursuit of a specific hope, courage also plays a crucial role. Intelligence functions in courage as it does in other contexts to assess means and ends in light of one another, though courage involves more than intelligent appraisal. It is also the willingness and ability to act on that appraisal. Those who are courageous summon the energies needed to overcome risks and play an active role in bringing about conditions necessary to realize desired ends. This is especially true for those who pursue transgressive goods, particularly when others employ shame to redirect their efforts in more socially accepted channels. Shame’s impact on courage can spread to hope’s other habits, derailing persistence and muting efforts to find new resources that might realize a hoped-for end. In the following, I examine the interplay of shame, courage, and hope in the case of the third-century Christian martyr, Vibia Perpetua. Perpetua’s embrace of Christian ideals and hopes enables her to resist denying her identity and to refuse to participate in Roman religious rituals. Imperial officers and her own father attempt to shame her into behaving properly. Though at odds with Roman norms, Perpetua draws on the resources of her new Christian community, a community animated by hope, to summon the courage to resist the force of shame and to embrace her eventual execution. Her story illuminates the complex interplay of shame and courage in a manner that underscores how community and identity render her hopes meaningful and efficacious. SHAME AND COURAGE Before examining Perpetua’s story, we first consider shame’s relation to courage in the broader context of the ancient world. Beginning with the Greeks, we see that Homer treats shame and courage as complementary. Steeped in a polytheistic world, his characters are routinely inspired by gods or goddesses to act bravely. In the Iliad, for instance, Athena repeatedly motivates Diomedes to act courageously. In addition to divine sources, though, social forces shape and support courage. Homer attributes to courageous soldiers an awareness of shame absent in cowards who flee the battlefield. For instance, the Greek general Agamemnon urges his men to fight with the following entreaty: “Be men, my friends. Fight with valor And with a sense of shame before your comrades. You’re less likely to be killed with a sense of shame. Running away never won glory or a fight.” (Homer 1997, 99, Book V.570–73)

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The sense of shame to which Agamemnon appeals is an abiding awareness that acting ignobly will be perceived negatively in the eyes of fellow soldiers. 3 The price of fleeing the battlefield is being identified as a coward. For soldiers, this damages their social status qua soldiers; cowards lose the trust of fellow soldiers and become liabilities on the battlefield. Such a loss may not be recoverable, especially since the stakes involved in fighting and defending the city are so high. Various threats of ostracism may arise from the army in which they serve and the city they are dedicated to protecting. Because these consequences are so grave, shame functions to reinforce military cohesion and the social goods at stake in war. This constructive function of shame is articulated and defended by Julien Deonna, Rafaele Rodogno and Fabrice Teroni in their recent book, In Defense of Shame. Their account focuses on shame’s connection to an agent’s identity, especially what they call “self-relevant values.” These are diverse and can vary from person to person (they can also change over the course of one’s life), but they have notable bearing on one’s commitment and actions. 4 Shame on this account is the realization that we exemplify “a specific disvalue that strikes us as an indication of our incapacity to exemplify a self-relevant value even to a minimal degree” (Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni 2012, 122). Shame is experienced as “the painful apprehension of one’s inadequacy with respect to upholding the demands of a specific value to which one is attached” (Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni 2012, 175). Qua members of the army, soldiers feel shame when they realize they cannot muster the wherewithal to join or remain on the battlefield. In failing to meet this core requirement, they feel impotent and diminished. They would not feel shame if they were not committed to the values embodied in and represented by the army. That they are committed to those values helps explain why their failure is experienced as painful. To sharpen our appreciation of shame’s productive capacity, Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni distinguish episodes of feeling shame from the sense of shame that develops in response to and from reflection on these experiences. They argue that focusing exclusively on episodes highlights shame’s negative dimension—especially with how unpleasant it feels— and obscures its capacity to prompt self-direction and correction. By contrast, we see shame’s positive dimension when we attend to the sense of shame, that is, the disposition that indicates our sensitivity to worthiness or unworthiness (Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni 2012, 11). Our sense of shame highlights our moral character and draws attention to our moral ideals, rather than merely to the feeling of pain. As such, it has the potential to motivate us to reform traits that tend to result in the painful experiences of shame. 5 Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni argue that shame is not necessarily tied to the eyes of another—it more properly focuses on an agent’s sense of self which may or may not be tied directly to the

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values of others—but they acknowledge that the social context of many of our ideals prompts an awareness of shame, giving weight to Homer’s invocation to soldiers to consider their comrades. Aristotle offers a more naturalized account of courage than Homer does, replacing divine inspiration with habituation as its chief formative element, but he too acknowledges the link between courage and shame. As a moral virtue, Aristotle argues that courage must be chosen for its own sake (2011, 31, II.4/1105a33). This requirement adds a consideration absent from Homer’s account, for Aristotle argues that virtuous courage requires one to recognize and choose bravery specifically because it is exemplary. Aristotle connects courage to shame by noting that the courageous person “chooses and endures what [she or he] does because it is noble to do so, or because it is shameful not to” (2011, 57, III.7/1116a12). This move is perhaps more subtle than it at first appears to be, as can be seen if we interpret the disjunct “or” separating “noble” from “shameful” in light of Aristotle’s concern with moral development. Choosing an act because it is noble is more praiseworthy than choosing one to avoid shame, for exemplary soldiers are motivated by the positive goodness of nobility. Nevertheless, an aversion to shame may be an appropriate early step for someone just developing courage, provided the shameful is eventually replaced by the noble as the proper motivation for our acts. This developmental interpretation coheres with Aristotle’s contention that the sense of shame is a passion and not a virtue. Since the young are prone to yield to the influence of passion, Aristotle suggests shame plays a role in properly orienting them to appropriate behavior. He explains that “we suppose that the young ought to be bashful [the mean of feeling shame properly] because the many errors they make, in living by passion, are checked by a sense of shame. And we praise those of the young who are bashful, but no one would praise an older man because he is given to shame: we suppose that he ought not to do anything that incurs shame” (2011, 88, IV.9/1128b17). Aristotle thereby acknowledges that while being motivated by the noble is the mark of the best, being motivated by an aversion to shame is good in that it is superior to fearing what is painful. A more nuanced analysis of Aristotle’s account of courage provides us greater insight into the roles shame can play in relation to courage and thus to hope. As a moral virtue, courage helps us deal with feelings of fear and confidence. While fear may be an instinctive reaction to dangerous situations, our response to it is optimal when it is informed by an assessment of the situation and the relevance of prized goods. Soldiers facing an enemy on the battlefield, for instance, need to attend to fear insofar as it signals life-threatening danger. Their acts are only courageous if the danger is worth risking and can be faced nobly. David Pears argues that Aristotelian courage requires reference to not one but a trio of goals. In addition to the internal goal of choosing a virtue for its own sake, courage

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must be understood in relation to an external goal and a countergoal. An external goal, e.g., defeating the enemy and saving the city, is external in the sense that it can be achieved by measures other than courageous action. Pears describes a countergoal as an “object of aversion involved in fear” (1980, 174), e.g., being wounded or killed; these are goals we generally seek to avoid on the battlefield (and beyond). The courageous response to a dangerous situation acknowledges fear and responds to it in just the right way. Even as soldiers attend to perilous environmental conditions to which fear alerts them, they resist the impulse to flee. Although fleeing may enable them to avoid wounds and death, doing so would frustrate their commitment to acting nobly to protect their city. Courageous soldiers must thus regulate their fear. The foregoing account explains fear’s role, but how is confidence relevant? To answer, we need to consider how our soldiers are able to regulate their fear. We might argue that courage simply is the proper regulation of fear, but such a position leaves indeterminate the means by which such regulation occurs. To more fully understand this, we must consider our soldiers’ confidence. Pears identifies confidence as one of the axes of courage, describing it as the process of weighing risks and benefits in light of probabilities that “incorporates a desire to take a risk” (1978, 280). How are we to understand this desire that enables soldiers to overcome fear and to act? The key is that they believe in their own agency. Let us reflect first on confidence by considering not its exemplary instances but rather its absence in the context of alcoholism. A dear friend of mine grapples most with alcoholism when she believes herself incapable of overcoming the temptation to drink. She characterizes herself as destructive to loved ones and believes that she is a worthless person. She still values her relationships, but she cannot see herself as capable of nurturing them; the desire to drink controls her and trumps all of her efforts to resist, regardless of the consequences. In this state of mind, she does not believe in her own agency, even when coordinated with her sponsor’s guidance and efforts. Although she is committed to what she believes is good, she lacks efficacy. As a consequence, she is filled with shame and loathes herself. In moments of confidence, by contrast, she views herself as committed to and capable of achieving sobriety as a means of protecting relationships and living in a healthy, fulfilled manner. She is efficacious and worthy of the causes she holds dear. Confidence functions similarly in our courageous soldiers: they view themselves as efficacious, worthy agents of ends they deem noble, even in the face of death. Confidence is perhaps best understood as an expression of the self—a mobilizing sense of self. As such, it involves recognition that we are temporal beings who are active and projective, that is, capable of possessing and acting out of complex beliefs, feelings, values, and habits as well as purposes and ideals yet to be achieved. Courageous soldiers and my

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friend in her courageous moments are able to properly register and overcome fear with efficacious action because of their resources as active agents. If we return to Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni’s account of shame, we see that the feeling of shame and the sense of shame have distinct effects on confidence and thus on courage. The feeling of shame exposes a kind of impotence, a fact that explains why those who are ashamed wish to hide and escape from view. Consequently, the feeling of shame has a debilitating effect on confidence and so on courage. By contrast, the sense of shame includes active awareness of the damaging effects of shame episodes and so can motivate us to engage in self-critique and selfdirection. Especially when reinforced by others who share our values and investments, the sense of shame can motivate self-reform and so the growth of confidence. 6 If we consider shame in Roman contexts, the sense of self becomes all the more relevant because it is a function of one’s position in a complex network of social relations. Robert A. Kaster explores the social self in the Roman world by considering pudor (shame) in connection with verecundia (respect). Verecundia reflects the social and hierarchical nature of Roman life. As Kaster explains, verecundia “animates the art of knowing your proper place in every social transaction and binds the free members of a civil community, exerting its force both vertically, across the different ranks of society, and horizontally, among members of comparable status” (2005, 27). Pudor, like verecundia, is tied to self-restraint and plays a vital role in expressing and reinforcing social structures. Kaster characterizes pudor as “a displeasure with oneself caused by vulnerability to just criticism of a socially diminishing sort” (1997, 3). Like Homeric shame, pudor concerns one’s standing in the eyes of valued observers. Kaster, however, stresses that pudor involves not only this external component— apparent in the implicit audience and the social goods at stake—but also an internal self-evaluative component. The internal component is one’s self-conception or “an internalized sense of right-doing that prompts spontaneous [rather than coerced or compelled] action” (1997, 5–6). By virtue of this sense, one is vulnerable, i.e., attentive to and ready for selfcritique pertaining to any gaps between ideal and real behavior, especially with respect to social consequences. Both the external and internal components operate in pudor, Kaster argues, for [w]ithout the feeling that wells up from within, there is simple coercion and constrained conformity; without reference to the norms of a significant audience, there is mere sincerity and self-regard, solipsism and fragmentation. The simultaneous working of internal and external also gives the emotion its reciprocal character: someone capable of feeling pudor is ipso facto a decent person, deserving from me a certain consideration and respect. (1997, 8–9)

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Roman pudor arose in relation to a variety of contexts in which discreditable action was possible, including the free man’s exercise of courage. Bravery in the Roman world was linked to honor and shame as it was in the Greek. Kaster uncovers the complementary relationship between shame and honor when he explains that “[t]hose who did not have what we would call . . . a ‘sense of shame’ could not expect to gain much honor; those who valued honor most highly could expect to experience shame most intensely” (2005, 29). Kaster identifies six scripts concerning the Roman experience of pudor, each of which delineates the way a Roman might fail to follow norms governing the boundaries of social roles and thereby discredit him or herself. The scripts concerning the expansion of the self (the fourth script) and its retraction (the fifth) are particularly relevant to our discussion. For instance, in contexts where courage is expected, Kaster explains that the pudor associated with the failure to exhibit courage is tied to a discreditable retraction of the self. If a Roman man acts cowardly, he “will be said to be ‘womanish,’ lacking the selfmastery and vigor of spirit that makes a man; . . . [he] will see [himself] being seen as ‘servile’ and ‘feminine’ at one and the same time” (2005, 47). Dispositional pudor presupposed and reinforced proper Roman gender roles, especially in contexts where bravery was most pertinent. Before discussing Perpetua, let us return to the topic of hope and consider more fully its links to courage and shame. Often, the external goal of a courageous act is itself a hoped-for end, something difficult and arduous but nevertheless possible to attain. This goal functions as one of the axes that motivates and activates courage. Moreover, some hopes are themselves tied up with the internal goal of courage. I argue elsewhere that choosing a virtue for its own sake does not mean choosing it by itself but rather for its qualities as a virtue. As such, virtue is acknowledged and pursued as an ingredient in one’s vision of flourishing. 7 Hopes that are fundamentally tied to our growth and fulfillment—to the full expression of our identity—carry special attractive force. As such, they can be reinforced by the sense of shame that directs us away from certain actions, especially when one’s own goals are consonant with those of the community. Hope itself, then, plays a role in summoning the courage needed for its own realization. In the next section, I consider ways in which shame can be not complemented by but at odds with hope and courage. Sometimes, especially when pursuing hopes that transgress the status quo, we must summon courage to overcome the forces of shame. It is here that we see the range of social dynamics that are operative in pursuing hoped-for goods.

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PERPETUA’S STORY Perpetua’s martyrdom comes to us in a brief but rich text, the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. The core narrative concerns Perpetua, a noble twenty-two-year-old wife and mother of an infant son, who is arrested along with four other Christian catechumens (including the slave, Felicitas) in Carthage in 203 C.E. 8 Persecutions of Christians were not at this time widespread, although some twenty years earlier in Carthage twelve had been beheaded for refusing to recant their faith. Although the text does not articulate the specific grounds for the arrest of Perpetua and her colleagues, there are a number of likely reasons. First, the emperor Septimius Severus had recently issued an edict outlawing conversion to Judaism and Christianity. Second, Christians refused to offer sacrifices to the emperor, deeming this to be idolatrous and a violation of their monotheism. In the Roman Empire, the refusal to participate in Roman religious ceremonies was considered a significant threat to their ultimate goal: winning the favor of the gods and ensuring the empire’s peace and prosperity. Finally, Christians were suspected of engaging in questionable practices, based on misunderstandings of their rites that suggested they engaged in incest and cannibalism. When citizens who were wont to stamp out such perversities violently attacked Christians, the Christians (rather than their persecutors) were charged with disturbing the peace. Regardless of the specific charge, Perpetua’s commitment to Christianity puts her at odds with the law. Her father—who is not a Christian—on various occasions employ shame in an attempt to convince her to make the proper sacrifices, but she refuses. After being tried and condemned to death in the arena, Perpetua has four visions, each of which foretells her fate and success as a martyr. She and her fellow martyrs eventually face the beasts in the arena, demonstrating noteworthy courage and remaining true to their faith throughout the process. Perpetua even assists a soldier in dispatching her after the beasts fail to do so. The Passio has multiple authors, as the text itself acknowledges. A redactor is responsible for both an introductory section that links the story to past heroic acts and the final chapters detailing the martyrs’ actions in the arena. The middle portion of the text is the prison diary written by Perpetua herself. 9 This authorship will prove to be significant later when we consider Perpetua’s complex hopes. Central to the diary are accounts of her encounters with her father as well as the divine visions that fuel her martyrdom. Also included in the Passio is the vision of Saturus, a church leader who joins the five catechumens in their martyrdom. As we shall see, these visions as well as the support of her Christian community shape Perpetua’s hopes and fuel her courage in facing trials of shame and physical suffering. The first vignette in Perpetua’s diary involves the assertion of her identity as a Christian, signaling that she operates according to values

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other than those espoused by her father and the Romans. As subsequent passages reveal, her relations to her fellow Christians strengthen her attachment to these values, even though they put her at odds with pervasive imperial norms and so exact a high price. Perpetua begins her account with an encounter with her father while she is still under surveillance by Roman authorities. She explains that “because of his love for me” (Farrell and Williams, 2012, 3.1) her attempts to weaken her resolve and encourages her to renounce her faith. Early Christians who refused to worship the emperor were given the opportunity to renounce their faith, so it is not difficult to understand her father’s pleas. While his efforts leave her shaken, Perpetua responds decisively with a lesson in identity. As a catechumen, she would have participated already in worship services and accepted the values and identity of a Christian (as she clearly does). Her journey toward full membership requires demonstrating the quality of her character and her worthiness for full membership in the family of Christ. Perpetua explains to her father that just as a pitcher can be called by no other name because it is a pitcher, “I can’t call myself anything other than what I am: a Christian” (3.2). Her father does not take this lesson well; he is so angered that Perpetua says that he “lunged at me, as if to pluck out my eyes.” He departs, however, “defeated” (3.3). Afterwards, Perpetua reports that “I thanked the Lord for Father’s absence” (3.4). In this proclamation, Perpetua firmly places herself within her Christian rather than Roman community. Shortly afterwards, she is baptized. Perpetua’s second encounter with her father occurs when she is being tried in the public forum before the Roman governor, Hilarianus. This vignette underscores the effect her refusal to reject or at least subordinate her Christian identity has on her biological family. Her father passionately entreats her as follows: My daughter, have pity on me—look at my grey hair! Have pity on me—I am your father! Or don’t I deserve the name any more? Didn’t I bring you up with these hands, so that now you are in the flower of youth? Didn’t I put you first, before all your brothers? Don’t disgrace me in front of everyone. Think of your brothers. Think of your mother and your aunt. Think of your own son—if you are no longer with us, he won’t be able to survive. Enough with your pride! You’ll be the ruin of us all. If something should happen to you, we will all have to constantly watch what we say. (5.2–4)

In focusing on her pride, Perpetua’s father indicates that Perpetua has extended herself beyond proper boundaries, acting in a shameful manner that discredits her (Kaster’s fourth pudor script). Perpetua recognizes that he is speaking “like a dutiful father,” acting responsibly as pater by alerting her to the effect her actions will have on the family’s welfare, but she remains unaffected. Though he is a figure of

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authority deserving her respect, her father surprisingly throws himself to her feet and calls her “my lady” in an attempt to change her mind. Perpetua is unmoved even by this unexpected move, but she assures her father that events are transpiring in accordance with God’s will. This response offers him little comfort, since he does not share her faith, and he departs “heartbroken” (5.5). Immediately prior to her sentencing, her father makes a final plea, this time arriving with her infant and exhorting her, “Offer the sacrifice! Take pity on the baby!” (6.2). Hilarianus also presses her to “perform the sacrifice for the emperor’s well-being,” urging her to spare her father and child from suffering any repercussions. When Perpetua refuses, he orders guards to beat her father. In so shaming him, publicly no less, Hilarianus attempts to pressure Perpetua into an act of at least external obedience. Though her resolve again remains unaffected, Perpetua does note that she feels sorry that her father was beaten and appears pathetic. While not without concern for loved ones, Perpetua nevertheless will not be shamed into renouncing her new identity. These encounters place Perpetua starkly outside the norms and practices of imperial Rome. The entreaties of her father and Hilarianus have no impact on her resolve; she rejects the biological and political relations, so central to Roman life, that prize the pater. 10 While today we might celebrate her commitment to religious integrity and freedom, from a Roman perspective Perpetua’s insistence on her Christian identity violates familial and civic priorities that should be regulated by pudor. Especially as a woman who is expected to play a predominantly subordinate role in a patriarchal society, Perpetua pursues self-interested goods at a cost to her social roles and obligations, extending herself in a manner that places her outside the matrix of Roman order. While her self-identification and refusal to defer to Roman norms expands Perpetua’s own power (Kaster’s fourth script), it also diminishes her father as pater, creating a discreditable retraction of him and his power (the fifth pudor script). Hilaranius’ threats and subsequent beating of her father reinforce this. Especially because they are so boldly transgressive, Perpetua’s acts expose her to significant risks. Candida Moss reminds us that the stadium was a space “about more than the execution of individual” persons; it was “the arena for displays of imperial power, for the subjugation of the empire’s enemies, and for the degradation of the person. [. . .] A criminal condemned to the arena was stripped of identity, publicly exposed, and reduced to a subhuman species” (2012, 138). While Perpetua clearly prioritizes her Christian identity over her status as a Roman daughter, mother and citizen, she is not oblivious to the impact of her actions. Indeed, if she were, she would be unsympathetic to both the Roman audience of her trial and the Christian audience of her diary. Part of the Passio’s power is that it depicts a journey in which Perpetua grapples with the challenges of being a transgressor; she is not a one-dimensional figure but someone who grows by confronting her challenges. She

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notes repeatedly that she feels “devastated” by (3.8) or “dreadful” about (6.5, 7.8, 9.3) the pain her acts cause her father and other family members, and she attempts on occasion to comfort them (3.8, 5.6). Moreover, relinquishing her maternal duties repeatedly proves difficult for Perpetua; her anxiety over her child recurs throughout her story as the child is volleyed from prison to her father and back again. Days before her death, she requests that her father return her son to her in prison, but he refuses. Though this act demonstrates her maternal concern for the child, she is soon relieved of it, as her son no longer desires her milk and the inflammation in her breasts subsides. Perpetua interprets this as evidence of God’s will (6.8). She is attentive to the consequences of her acts but able to frame them in a positive manner so as to avoid experiencing them as shame episodes. Importantly, though, Perpetua is not merely shameless; she does not lack a sense of shame. Even though she will not be shamed into rejecting her identity, she is impervious not to pudor per se but rather to specific manifestations of it. The redactor offers an illuminating example when detailing her contest in the arena. Perpetua and Felicitas (the sole female martyrs in the group) are stripped naked and brought into the arena in nets. The redactor explains that “the crowd was horrified” by their nakedness, and so the women are dressed in unbelted tunics. When Perpetua is later tossed to the ground by a heifer, her tunic is ripped and reveals her thigh. Yet, “thinking more of her modesty than her pain” (20.4), Perpetua takes a moment to cover herself. These scenes suggest that Perpetua remains susceptible to the dominant sexual norms concerning pudor for Roman women. According to Kaster, women suffer a form of pudor (Kaster’s second script) when others make them the inappropriate object of sexually appraising glances. 11 Perpetua (or the redactor) is incapable of wholly transcending Roman norms, especially when it comes to gender. A woman revealing herself in her nakedness is unacceptable even for such a bold transgressor. We see further evidence of Perpetua’s acceptance of Roman norms in her fourth vision. She explains that prior to entering the arena, “I was stripped down and became a man, and my assistants started rubbing me down with oil the way they do before an athletic contest” (10.7). Presenting or interpreting her courage as masculine is not a surprising move, given that ancient Greeks and Romans coded courage as a masculine value that contrasted with the paradigmatically feminine virtue of modesty. The Passio attributes both virtues to Perpetua, indicating that she cannot escape being multiply-located, both Roman and Christian. Her complex identity can only be articulated in conflicted terms. 12 This complexity proves to be positive, however, since it ensures that while she resists others’ efforts to shame her into complicity, she is not a shameless person. If she were, she would become an unsympathetic character and so not win the support of her broader audience.

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PERPETUA’S COMMUNITY Repeatedly resisting the effects of shaming and facing the physical dangers of the arena requires considerable resources, and here we see the relevance of Perpetua’s community and of her hopes. Importantly, she possesses a notably strong will, perhaps fueled by the favoritism her father once showed her (5.2). 13 The support of her Christian community and the special visions she receives from God both prove vital sources of encouragement and sustenance for her. While it is unsurprising that community would play a role in helping her endure, we should note that her membership in this community is rather recent. Her knowledge of and embeddedness in a Christian community are those of a neophyte. 14 The communal dimension of Perpetua’s story is nevertheless prominent in her diary, and she frequently acknowledges connectedness to her new family. Early in her diary, she highlights communal support by noting that two deacons bribe the guards to move the inmates to a more hospitable portion of the prison (3.7). Additionally, a communal theme appears in the sentence with which chapter 6 begins: “The next day we were eating lunch, when suddenly we were taken off to our hearing” (6.1). The following chapter commences comparably: “A few days later we were all at prayer when all of a sudden I shouted out the name Dinocrates” (7.1). Perpetua here identifies two communal acts—eating and praying together—that characterize the daily life of her Christian community. The martyrs’ imprisonment does not impede their continued practice of these communal activities; indeed, in the first example, the intrusion of the Roman process of a trial seems more a nuisance than a terrifying turn of events. A comparable example of communal solidarity arises in the story of Felicitas. She worries that her pregnancy may prevent her from dying with her comrades, for the Romans will not send a pregnant woman into the arena. The redactor writes that “her fellow martyrs, too, became sad at the prospect of abandoning so good an ally to be (so to speak) a solitary fellow-traveler along the same road of hope. And so with a single unified lament they poured out a prayer to the Lord . . .” (15.3). Immediately thereafter, Felicitas gives birth to her baby (she is in her eighth month) and so is able to join her fellow martyrs in the arena. Significantly, our transgressors do not stand alone. In addition to the support and connectedness the martyrs enjoy, Perpetua’s confidence is bolstered by specific assurances from her fellow Christians. For instance, after being imprisoned (but before her hearing), Perpetua’s brother asks her for a vision predicting her fate. In making his request, he respectfully calls her “my lady” and notes that Perpetua is “so worthy that you can ask for a vision and you will be shown what to expect: martyrdom or freedom” (4.1). Visions or dreams carried significant weight in the Roman world, and those who received divine visions in dreams were thought to be privileged. 15 Perpetua acknowledges this

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privilege, responding that “[s]ince I knew that I could talk with the Lord, who had done such great things for me, I was able to give my brother a confident promise in return” (4.2). Perpetua’s fellow martyrs also reassure her of their presence throughout her later trials. For instance, Saturus affirms “I am here for you” (4.6), and in her fourth vision the deacon Pomponius says to Perpetua, “We are waiting for you” as well as “Don’t be afraid. I am here with you and suffering along with you” (10.3–4). In his own vision (which he undoubtedly shared with her), Saturus twice confirms Perpetua’s hopes, saying “This is what the Lord promised us: Now we’ve got it!” (11.4) and “You have what you want” (12.7). Hence, while the shame her father and the imperial agent seek to elicit in Perpetua threaten isolation, her Christian community assures her that she is not alone, helping her overcome her fears and endure her trials. Immediately before her death, Perpetua confidently reaffirms their assurances by telling Christians in the audience, “Stand firm, all of you, in faith; and love one another, and do not falter because of our sufferings” (20.9). Turning to her visions, we find that they too bolster Perpetua’s confidence and indicate an expansion of her agency. 16 While Roman gods were associated with specific spaces, this was not true of the Christian God. Visions thus played an especially important role in making apparent his presence. 17 In Perpetua’s case, the visions prove to be rich resources both in warding off shame and in committing herself to her cause of martyrdom. In the first, delivered in response to her brother’s request to know her fate, Perpetua sees a ladder lined with treacherous weapons and guarded by a great serpent. Perpetua steps on the serpent’s head and climbs the ladder, coaxed on by Saturus who goes before her, eventually arriving at a heavenly pasture where she is welcomed by a shepherd. This vision offers divine confirmation of her success, even as it acknowledges the difficult nature of the journey before her. After recounting this vision, Perpetua calmly concludes that “[w]e realized that we were facing martyrdom, and at that point we gave up our hopes for this world” (4.10). (We will say more about these earthly hopes.) The other visions embolden Perpetua by reinforcing the fact that she is a powerful person. In the second, she sees Dinocrates, her brother who died in his youth, standing below the rim of a raised basin of water from which he cannot drink. Perpetua concludes that he is suffering in the afterlife and prays daily for his deliverance. Here again we see the vitality of viewing oneself as worthy of a cause, especially if one is to resist shame. Perpetua herself notes that “I suddenly realized that I had been found worthy” (7.2) in being given this vision, and so she intercedes with prayers on Dinocrates’s behalf. Her third vision indicates that her prayers have succeeded in alleviating his suffering, for the basin has lowered so that he is able to drink his fill. Perpetua’s belief in the privilege of her visions and the efficacity of her prayers strengthens her confidence by suggesting she has not only human but also supernatural support. The fourth and final vi-

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sion confirms Perpetua’s victory in the arena. She concludes from it that her true foe in the arena is not a Roman, a mere human being, but the devil himself. Her cause thus takes on cosmological significance, further bolstering her confidence. Drawing on these resources, Perpetua and her fellow martyrs exhibit confidence in repeatedly affirming their identity and overcoming fears associated with shaming, suffering, and death. They likewise show courage in their later interactions with Roman officials eager to persecute them and crowds anxious to witness their deaths. Once intended recipients of shame, the martyrs now contend that shame lies not on their part but on that of their persecutors. In doing so, they draw on and give expression to their collective power. In the Passio’s final section, we see four instances in which the martyrs reciprocate shame. The redactor introduces these as evidence of their constancy and exaltedness (16.1). On two occasions, Perpetua scolds Romans in a manner that elicits shame and persuades them to act differently. First, after being treated harshly by a tribune while in prison, Perpetua confronts him “face to face,” asking “Why do you not just let us refresh ourselves, since we are especially distinguished wrongdoers, against Caesar no less, and are to fight on his very birthday? Is it not to your credit if we look well-fed when we are led out that day?” Perpetua here appeals not to her own norms but to Roman norms, suggesting the tribune has fallen short of these. His response is telling: he “recoiled and reddened”—a classic shame response—and thereafter treats them more decently (16.3–4). Additionally, when the martyrs are forced to wear pagan costumes before entering the arena, Perpetua again stands up for herself and the group, arguing “The point of deliberately going this far was not to have our freedom taken away; the point of staking our lives was to avoid doing this kind of thing. That was our agreement with you.” This tribune also gives way, as “[i]njustice acknowledged justice” (16.5–6). In each instance, Perpetua shames a Roman into complicity by suggesting the baseness of his actions and affirming the nobility of her own cause. In the other two examples, Saturus and his fellows threaten their persecutors with divine judgment. When being gawked at by a crowd while they enjoy their last supper, the martyrs “taunted the common people with their usual determination, threatening them with God’s judgement, insisting that they themselves were happy in their passion, ridiculing the curiosity of those who looked about them” (17.1). Later, upon entering the arena, they threaten the crowd of spectators waiting to witness their death, saying “What you do to us [. . .] God will do to you” (17.7). The martyrs thus turn the tables by shaming their persecutors, engaging in what we might call a “contest of shame.” This move is not altogether surprising, especially if we consider how frequently the charge “Shame on you” calls forth an equally forceful, “No, shame on you!” Shaming is a compact and forceful action, and it can elicit readily an

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opposing reaction of equal force; sometimes the reaction is even greater, suggesting that a self under siege retorts in a violent recoiling. To shame one who has shamed you affirms a self that has been deemed unworthy, diminished, and drained of positive efficacy as a vital, valuable agent capable of protecting itself by speaking out and exacting justice (typically when no one else will). The fact that one harms others in the same way she or he was harmed is one of the costs of such a move, of course, and its danger is exacerbated to the extent it minimizes critical reflection and mutual understanding. But contests of shame are understandable and not without precedent. The contests we see in the Passio, for instance, mirror one found in the earlier Apocryphal text of 4 Maccabees. Here, the Greek king, Antiochus IV Epiphanes, attempts to persuade his Hebrew captives—the priest Eleazar and a mother with her seven sons—to demonstrate their submission to him by eating pork. The penalty for refusal is death. Antiochus notes the foolishness of resisting, arguing that “[i]t is senseless not to enjoy delicious things that are not shameful, and wrong to spurn the gifts of nature. It seems to me that you will do something even more senseless if, by holding a vain opinion concerning truth, you continue to despise me to your own hurt” (4 Maccabees 5:9–10). Eleazar refuses to submit, as do the seven brothers, each of whom makes a speech celebrating his own courage in the face of Antiochus’ treachery. The rhetoric of each successive speech grows more intense, until the seventh brother issues Antiochus the following reproach: “You profane tyrant, most impious of all the wicked, since you have received good things and also your kingdom from God, were you not ashamed to murder his servants and torture on the wheel those who practice religion? Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout all time will never let you go” (4 Maccabees 12:11). When Perpetua and her fellow martyrs engage in comparable contests of shame, they are able to do so because of the expanded agency they share as members of a distinctive community with its own norms. 18 Viewed from this perspective, their behavior is not shameful but dignified; it is expressive of their self-relevant values and protective of their identity, their practices, and their community. Perpetua’s appeal to her nobility when scolding the tribunes is further underscored by her death. Having survived her encounter with the heifer, it is up to the Romans to dispatch her. After a young gladiator fumbles his attempt to kill her, Perpetua takes his trembling hand and guides his sword to her throat. The redactor ends his account of her demise by concluding that “[p]erhaps such a great woman, who was feared even by an unclean spirit, could not have been killed unless she herself had wished it” (21.10).

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PERPETUA’S HOPES Part of the success of the martyrs can be attributed to the positive focus and emboldening confidence their community makes possible. This community is perhaps best characterized as two communities, one consisting of the Carthaginian Christians and the other the subcommunity of the six martyrs themselves. We gain further insight into the efficacy of these communities when we consider more fully the role hope plays in them. Throughout the text, Perpetua’s resistance can be interpreted and justified in relation to Jesus’s stipulation that his followers give up the things of this world. 19 These include the goods associated with political and biological ties. Perpetua’s story demonstrates that surrendering these, especially maternal ties, is not easy, but it is nevertheless possible. As she faces her challenges, she employs hope’s habits of persistence in affirming her identity, resourcefulness in drawing on her community for support, and courage in confronting opposition and the eventuality of death. These help prove her worthy of the salvific union with God promised in her visions. The Passio provides two explicit references to the martyrs’ hopes. In the first, which comes after her first vision, Perpetua notes the termination of their earthly hope for freedom or release from prison. That they would have this hope is understandable, especially in the context of young catechumens whose development is disturbed by the legal mechanisms of the empire. They are young, and their lives and contribution to the broader community are likely to be cut short. Nevertheless, Perpetua’s first vision prompts the martyrs to abandon this hope without deliberation or remorse. Importantly, this surrender has communal significance; recall that after sharing her vision with the brother who requested it, Perpetua says “We realized that we were facing martyrdom, and at that point we gave up our hopes for this world” (4.10, emphasis added). Surrendering these hopes is rendered more palatable by the fact that the martyrs are able to replace them with another, more meaningful hope. This is the “road to hope,” the Passio’s second reference to hope that arises in the context of Felicitas’s tale. This hope is a martyr’s distinctive good, a challenge that requires maintaining and demonstrating faith in the arena. Our martyrs are likely aware of the fact that some past Christians, such as Quintas in 155 C.E. and ten Christians in Lyons in 177, had recanted their faith during interrogation or when facing the beasts. Thus, they likely know that their own success is not easy or guaranteed. Again, though, social relations are apparent and operative in this hope: the martyrs clearly desire to face death and realize their common goal together. The martyrs’ hopes, then, are not private but communal, a fact underscoring the role community plays not only in fortifying its members against the effects of shame but also in articulating and realizing hopedfor goods.

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Perpetua and her fellows’ communities—both that of Christians and, embedded within it, that of the martyrs—are shaped by their distinct hopes and the various resources needed to realize them; indeed, we can characterize these as communities of hope. 20 Such communities are marked by shared hopes that provide focus and direction for their members’ coordinated activities. In characterizing their association as a “community,” we indicate more than the mere fact that they share an ideal, a state of affairs that could arise by coincidence. We also indicate that its members coordinate their activities in accord with this ideal by forming common habits and practices that promote both its articulation (more carefully defining their shared goal or end) and its realization (creating and modifying needed means). When the members of a community also share a common identity, as is the case with our Christians who are soon to be martyrs, the communication and coordination of their efforts becomes increasingly pervasive and dynamic. Insofar as an identity brings unity to and implicates the whole person, individuals in such a community should be able to express and make use of their diverse dimensions—their desires, their unique talents, their resources, etc. In this case, the community’s shared hope provides personal motivation for members and promotes intimate interpersonal relations in which members actively care not merely for their common cause but also for one another as unique concrete individuals. Commonality may appear to be the prominent feature of a community, but the community is vibrant to the extent that its members are capable of making—and having others appreciate, support, and respond to—individual contributions that express and develop their character. Each of these features—from the defining hope, to the shared practices and the individual contributions—is a point of meaningful contact between the community’s members. If any feature is in need of further clarification (concerning its direction, or its means), it can prompt further coordinated efforts that reveal and help further integrate the members’ communion with one another. As a result, individual agency is expanded, a fact that empowers and emboldens—encourages— members to act in ways they otherwise could not have acted. Any group bound together by a common hope can develop as a community of hope. The object hoped-for provides focus and direction that shape the members’ shared commitment and activities. The richest communities, though, will be marked by the members’ engrossment in shared practices that bind them together in a common identity and help them realize these hopes. 21 Many details of the Passio indicate that the martyrs belong to a vibrant community of hope. Their shared identity and hope for salvation in Christ—in emulating him and beseeching his aid in their trials—drives them toward their display of faith and fortitude in the arena. Eating and praying together are among the defining practices of their community, a fact that enables the martyrs to transform their last meal into a “banquet of divine love” celebrating communion with

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Christ (17.1). Moreover, Perpetua and Saturus’s visions enable them to make unique contributions, marking each out as a member with special privileges (and responsibilities) among the martyrs. Although the result of individual capacities, their visions reflect not private fates but the group’s ultimate success, as is apparent when Perpetua concludes from her first vision that “we” were to be martyred and “we” gave up our earthly hopes. As we noted above, the various visions offer evidence that the martyrs will support one another during their trials, showing the community’s constancy and capacity to persist. The final scenes of the Passio interweave individuality and community to display the richness of their association. The prisoners each face their respective beasts in the arena, though importantly none of them is killed. While survivors of the arena were usually dispatched by an executioner in private, the crowd requests that the martyrs be killed in the arena. The martyrs agree and come together to kiss one another “so as to consummate their martyrdom with the rites of peace” (12.7); they thereafter submit to the sword. The martyrs thus effectively transform their deaths from a spectacle into a witness to their shared faith. Facing death amidst friends, especially by affirming the hope that binds them together in their transgressive identity, is more likely to be successful than doing so alone. Each can be encouraged by the example of the other, fighting off the debilitating retraction of agency that occurs when one is isolated by shame or the fear of death. Communities generate an expansion of agency and resources that proves vital in overcoming adversity. Rather than being the abode of shame and terror, the arena becomes a place where the martyrs can prove themselves and exemplify the great power of their shared faith and collective action. 22 In facing their trials and death nobly, Perpetua and her fellow martyrs promote a further vital hope: serving as inspiring witnesses to others. Perpetua’s diary and death each render very public her identity and her values. 23 Glen W. Bowersock notes that “[f]rom the Christian point of view, martyrdom in a city [like Carthage] provided the greatest possible visibility for the cause of the nascent Church, and it simultaneously exposed the Roman administrative machinery to the greatest possible embarrassment” (42). 24 The fact that she wrote a diary while in prison, and presumably passed it along to a trusted guardian, strongly suggests the hope to leave an inspiring legacy. The redactor shares a similar mission, for he indicates on more than one occasion that the Passio is intended as an instructional text that Christian communities can “read aloud” (1.1, 1.6, 21.11). In fact, the text is preserved and read for many centuries in Christian communities. Though a transgressive good that ends in her death, Perpetua’s martyrdom reveals the power of a transformative hope. That power is, however, complicated. On the one hand, as our discussion has illuminated, pursuing a transgressive good can be productive in generating and con-

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solidating new communities. We should not overlook the fact that these early transgressive acts—which gained power from their situatedness in individual and communal habits of hope—contributed to the historical development of Christianity. 25 On the other hand, occupying the position of transgressor carries dangers that go beyond the threat to personal well-being. This is especially apparent when trangressors engage in reciprocal acts of shaming. Contests of shame express and elicit oppositional responses, exchanging shame for shame. Shaming others may prompt some individuals to engage in critical self-reflection; some of the Roman guards, for instance, appear to have recognized the nobility of the martyr’s cause and the injustice of the empire’s persecution. Yet an equally likely outcome, especially when the suggested effect is to demean adversaries and diminish their agency, is a hardening of divisions, further entrenching opposing perspectives and doing little to promote understanding or the creative exploration of more salubrious alternatives. This in fact occurred after Saturus and the martyrs threatened the crowd with divine retribution; the crowd became enraged and “demanded that [the martyrs] should be beaten with whips along the gamut of the hunters” (18.11). Contests of shame tend to infect all parties with hostility and diminution. That martyrdom stories tended to spread and generate what Moss calls the myth of persecution shows the dangerous tendencies of propagating shame. 26 Additionally, the history of Perpetua’s tale reveals an ongoing concern about how sympathetic she is or should be. While the Passio tends to show her struggling with the choices her impending martyrdom requires, the Acta Perpetua which is later appended to it presents her position more simplistically. This work consists of two texts, probably written some time later, that offer a supplementary account of the martyrs’ interrogation, presumably drawn from official Roman records. Perpetua comes across more assured of the rightness of her cause and less concerned with the effect of her actions on her family; she is thus presented in a less sympathetic manner. By the time Augustine offers several sermons on Perpetua and Felicitas two centuries later, the overriding message of Perpetua’s tale is that believers should admire her fortitude but not seek to imitate her behavior. Indeed, by this time, Christianity has become the dominant European religion, making martyrdom less politically viable and more religiously repugnant. While transgressive goods expressed as hopes can fortify individuals and consolidate communities, their pursuit requires ongoing critical reflection about its consequences, especially those concerning contests of shame. This, of course, opens a host of complex issues, from the challenge of preventing these contests to concerns about how to evaluate consequences from diverse perspectives. If transgressors generate a community with norms that differ from the dominant status quo, what renders a consequence unacceptable may be a matter of legitimate debate. Possible

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responses to these problems include seeking to find or forge common norms, focusing on our shared vulnerabilities that are exposed by shame experiences, or identifying and cultivating virtues of communities that render them both self-critical and sensitive to the experiences of those with different identities and different goods. There is no simple or single recipe for ensuring that the pursuit of transgressive goods is freed from the dangers of shame that threaten to diminish all parties involved. Shame is a likely tool for those who defend the status quo, and the propensity to counteract it by asserting one’s own values in a manner that discredits an opposing majority is understandable even if dangerous. For now, I end by suggesting that transgressors are in a special position to understand and expound upon the capacity that developing communities of hope have to draw individuals together in ways that liberate and expand agency. This insight, when coupled with critical awareness of the dangers of contests of shame, may help all parties strengthen or highlight continuities between communities that advance their goods without perpetuating the oppositions suggested by acts of transgression. NOTES 1. I here paraphrase Aquinas’s description of hope as a future good that is arduous and difficult, but nevertheless possible, to obtain (2017, I-II.40.1). My account of hope is pragmatic (as explained in the next note) and rejects the theological component of Aquinas’s account, but his general description is a helpful starting point for any discussion of hope. 2. My account of hope is pragmatic especially in that it focuses on the habits that ground hoped-for ends. Pragmatism gauges the value of beliefs and actions in light of their ability to secure desired goods. Hopes are among these goods, and a strength of a pragmatic account is that it places hopes on a continuum with other goods that we access, e.g., through planning; it thereby stresses hope’s continuities with our other activities. The chief difference between planning and hoping lies in the increased indeterminacies of the latter that affect our ability to envision, evaluate, and access resources needed for the realization of the chosen good. Lest it be thought that such an account of hope fails to capture its power to transcend limiting conditions, even when there seem to be no relevant goods or means for their realization, it should be noted that hopefulness is distinct from particular hopes. Hopefulness is an abiding characteristic that sustains us even when particular hopes fail or seem incapable of formulation or realization. It is a master habit consisting in the coordination of habits of persistence, resourcefulness, and courage. Hopefulness promotes the growth of our abilities and keeps us actively oriented toward a meaningful horizon of promising possibilities. For more, see chapter 3 of Habits of Hope. 3. In discussing shame in the Homeric context, Bernard Williams characterizes this awareness and the avoidance associated with it as an anticipation of how you would feel if someone saw you perform the act under consideration. He contends that shame internalizes an ethical other, whether actual or imagined, i.e., one “whose reactions I would respect” (1993, 84). 4. Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni consider whether these commitments must be central but find this excessively global criterion at odds with the fact that we can feel shame for a variety of reasons, some of which have little to do with self-defining commitments. This position also takes issue with the contention that shame requires

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the judgmental gaze of an audience. See Deonna, Rodogno, and Teroni 2012, especially pages 95–96, 104–7, 112. 5. Spinoza argues similarly that the positive value of shame lies in the fact that it acknowledges an ideal to which one aspires: I shall merely add that shame, like pity, although a virtue, can be good in so far as it is an indication that the man who feels ashamed has a desire to live honorably, just as is the case with anguish, which is said to be good in so far as it indicates that the injured part has not yet putrefied. Therefore, although a man who is ashamed of some deed is in fact pained, he is nearer perfection than the shameless man who has no desire to live honorably. (1992, 186–87) 6. Importantly, the sense of shame can itself give rise to the hope for self-reform. 7. See Shade, 2014, especially pages 215–17. 8. Just how frequently and fully the Romans persecuted the early Christians is a matter of debate. Candida Moss (2013) offers a careful study of early Christian martyrdom stories, arguing that they collectively exaggerate the number and frequency of persecutions. The Passio is among one of the few fairly authentic accounts, according to Moss, though she contends some of its details are more reflective of theology than historical fact. See especially pages 117–24. 9. Perpetua’s authorship is widely accepted as legitimate, and the Passio marks one of the first nonfiction accounts written by a woman. Her social status indicates that she had some education and was able to write. For more on her education, see Ameling. 10. Perpetua rejects earthly patres—her biological father and the emperor—but she does prove herself devoted to her heavenly father. This is in keeping with the fact that her fellow Christians, and particularly fellow prisoners, constitute for her a new family. She does not entirely reject Roman norms but realigns them along a different axis— a significantly different axis from the Roman perspective. 11. For a fuller treatment of the sexual dynamics involved in Perpetua’s contest in the arena, see Eastman, especially pages 55–57. 12. As Gail Streete argues, Perpetua’s “being thrust into a public situation is in a sense at her choosing, as it is for any martyr, but the choice for a woman is problematized in a narrative that never lets the readers forget that they are looking at a woman and that the sight is doubly unusual because she is acting like a man, particularly with regard to open and defiant speech” (31). 13. Note that Perpetua is the favorite of both her earthly and her heavenly fathers. The redactor describes her on the day of her death as “like a bride of Christ or the favorite of God” (18.2). 14. She has a Christian brother, but he too is a catechumen. 15. For a fuller discussion of dreams and visions in Roman religion, see Salisbury, pages 31 and 92–98. 16. Jonathan Lear also notes a role visions play in funding the hope of the Native American Crow chief, Plenty Coups; see especially pages 124–36. 17. More specifically, visions were taken to represent the work of the Holy Spirit as it worked to animate the community of the church. 18. In a similar vein, Sigrid Weigel argues that “[i]n the reassessment of the death penalty as a joyful longing for death, as proposed by Tertullian’s apologetics and in the acts of the martyrs, the phantasm of a sovereign subject emerges in the form of a kind of counter-sovereignty: a subject governed by its own laws, even in prison” (188). 19. For passages pertaining to worldly goods, see Matthew 6:19–20, 19:21 and Luke 12:33; for renouncing the biological family in order to inherit eternal life, consider Mathew 19:29, Mark 29:10, and Luke 18:29. See Mathew 16:24–26 on taking up the cross and following Jesus. 20. See also my “Educating Hopes” (2006) for a treatment of communities of hope in the context of schools.

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21. The richest communities of hope will be those focused on promoting not particular hopes but the abiding character-trait of hopefulness. A community predicated upon a particular hope will be contingent on its success or failure and so have a restricted life. But hopefulness is the more general orientation toward a horizon of multiple goods; it functions to sustain us even when particular hopes fail or cannot be articulated. This is the power of hoping beyond hope that can sustain a community even after its defining goal changes or passes away. 22. Indeed, a martyr’s great courage was often taken as evidence of the presence and efficacy of the Christian god, steeling his children against the fear of death in the frightening and gory arena. See Salisbury, page 143. 23. For more on the public face of the Passio, see Waldner, especially page 215. 24. See also Joyce Salisbury’s analysis of Perpetua’s legacy: “Perpetua’s experience was a microcosm of the kind of intellectual and emotional synthesis that would occur as the empire itself became Christian” (149). 25. Daniel Boyarin argues, for instance, that “the making of martyrdom was at least in part, part and parcel of the process of the making of Judaism and Christianity as distinct entities” (93). 26. Moss argues that “This, then, is the problem of defining oneself as part of a persecuted group. Persecution is not about disagreement and is not about dialogue. The response to being ‘under attack’ and ‘persecuted’ is to fight and resist. You cannot collaborate with someone who is persecuting you. You have to defend yourself. . . . there can be no compromise or common ground. This isn’t just because one’s persecutors act in the stead of evil. It is because persecution is, by definition, unjust” (2013, 254).

BIBLIOGRAPHY Ameling, Walter. 2012. “Femina Liberaliter Instituta—Some Thoughts on a Martyr’s Liberal Education.” In Bremmer. 2012. 78–102. Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. 2017. Translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Second and Revised Edition, 1920. Online Edition Copyright © by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent.org/summa/. Aristotle. 2011. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Robert C. Bartlett and Susan D. Collins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Bowersock, Glen W. 2002. Martyrdom and Rome. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press. Boyarin, Daniel. 1999. Dying for God: Martyrdom and the Making of Christianity and Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bremmer, Jan N. and Marco Formisano, eds. 2012. Perpetua’s Passions: Multidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et Felicitatis. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Coogan, Michael D., Marc Z. Brettler, Carol Newsom, and Pheme Perkins, eds. 2010. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: With the Apocrypha. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Deonna, Julien, Rafaele Rodogno, and Fabrice Teroni. 2012. In Defense of Shame: The Faces of an Emotion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eastman, Daniel. 2013. Honorable Shame, Shameful Honor: Conceptualizing Shame among Early Christian Martyrs and Ascetics. Unpublished Master’s Thesis for the University of Helsinki School of Theology. https://www.academia.edu/4801376/Honorable_ Shame_Shameful_Honor_conceptualizing_shame_among_early_Christian_ martyrs_and_ascetics. Farrell, Joseph and Craig Williams, trans. 2012. “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity.” In Bremmer. 2012. 14–23. Homer. 1997. The Iliad. Translated by Stanley Lombardo. Indianapolis: Hackett. Kaster, Robert A. 1997. “The Shame of the Romans.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 127: 1–19.

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———. 2005. Emotion, Restraint, and Community in Ancient Rome. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lear, Jonathan. 2006. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Moss, Candida R. 2012. Ancient Christian Martyrdom: Diverse Practices, Theologies, and Traditions. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 2013. The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom. New York: HarperCollins Publishers. Pears, David. 1978. “Aristotle’s Analysis of Courage.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy 3: 273–85. ———. 1980. “Courage as a Mean.” In Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, edited by Amelie Rorty. Berkeley: University of California Press. 171–87. Salisbury, Joyce E. 1997. Perpetua’s Passion: The Death and Memory of a Young Roman Woman. New York: Routledge. Shade, Patrick. 2001. Habits of Hope: A Pragmatic Theory. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. ———. 2006. “Educating Hopes.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 25: 191–225. ———. 2014. “The Ends of Courage.” In The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, edited by Stan van Hooft. Durham: Acumen Publishing. 210–19. Spinoza, Baruch. 1992. Ethics. Translated by Samuel Shirley. Indianapolis: Hackett. Streete, Gail P.C. 2009. Redeemed Bodies: Women Martyrs in Early Christianity. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Waldner, Katharina. 2012. “Visions, Prophecy, and Authority in the Passio Perpetuae.” In Bremmer. 2012. 201–19. Weigel, Sigrid. 2012. “Exemplum and Sacrifice, Blood Testimony and Written Testimony: Lucretia and Perpetua as Transitional Figures in the Cultural History of Martyrdom.” Translated by Joel Golb. In Bremmer. 2012. 180–200. Williams, Bernard. 1993. Shame and Necessity. Berkeley: University of California Press.

FOUR Redemptive Transgressions The Dialectical Evolution of Hope and Freedom in the West Akiba Lerner

In the beginning freedom penetrated into the realm of necessity, and from this impulse toward greater freedom all hope flows, or so some mystics would have us believe. The notion that the cosmos came into being for a purpose defines the first narratives of hope within the Biblical tradition. Jewish and Christian redemptive narratives share the assumption that God’s ability to freely create order in the midst of primordial chaos [Tohu wa-bohu] establishes the foundational source of divine power and grace that allows fallible humans to have the audacity to hope. Just as God represents infinite freedom in the universe—a freedom that is not circumscribed by the laws governing the natural world—so too we can hope to imitate and exercise some form of this absolute freedom in our own lives. Having been created in the image of God, we can hope that by accessing some part of this divine freedom through our thoughts and actions within the world we too have the capacity to not be limited by the realm of necessity. In this chapter I begin by briefly tracing out the evolution of various theological strategies for grounding human hopes in God’s radical transcendence and freedom. I then turn to the transformation of a transcendental foundationalism toward the transgressive contingency and immanency of horizontal human relationships as a modern alternative grounding for secular utopian hopes for greater individual and social emancipation in the modern era. 1 I conclude with the GermanJewish intellectual Ernst Bloch whose writings on the principle of hope 71

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helped to usher in our current post-modernist moment in which the negation of hope signifies the condition for its very possibility, thus bringing together transcendental, mystical and immanent notions of ultimate hope. 2 RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL HOPES The story of the evolution of human hope in Western culture is also a story about the evolution of human consciousness in relationship to the intersection of freedom and politics. Starting with the various redemptive narratives found within the Hebrew Bible, Western theological traditions have always grounded the possibility of human hopes on the power of God who is both radically transcendent and yet immanently involved within human history. 3 Connected to the idea that God is involved in the historical process of redeeming humanity from evil came the eschatological promise that all the pain and suffering of existence would be resolved at the “end of days” (Acharit-Hayamim). Part of the redemptive narratives later developed by the Hebrew prophets provided images of triumph over evil in the form of divine judgment, leading to the establishment of a what Moses Hess latter identified as the “historical Sabbath” in which, according to the prophet Isaiah, “the whole earth is at rest” (Isaiah 14:7). This vision of a final period of rest also implied that, in Hegelian terms, all the dialectical antagonisms of discord and disunity created by the forces of individual desire and freedoms fueling the “slaughter bench” of history will finally become synthesized into a unified totality. 4 Narratives promising the end of human struggles also offered the hope of overcoming the alienation between the human and the divine, culminating with the establishment of a whole “new earth” in the “world-to-come” (Olam Ha-Ba). Gershom Scholem famously identified competing impulses within redemptive narratives stemming from the Biblical tradition. The first is based on a “restorative” goal of promising that humanity can one day return to a womb of harmony and innocence. 5 The second is a more forward oriented “utopian” impulse that promises the establishment of a future kingdom of cosmopolitan unity in which Jerusalem will one day become a “house of prayer for all peoples” (Isaiah 56:7). Both restorative and utopian formulations of messianic hope identified by Scholem provide a template for giving human hopes a larger context of meaning that allows individuals to link personal longings for peace, rest, and harmony within a larger historical process. With the increasing encroachment of Hellenistic culture and philosophy, subsequent Jewish and early Christian thinkers were attracted to the idea of God as the metaphysical foundation for grounding human hopes, especially with regard to messianic expectations for achieving liberation from empires of evil within this world. Just as God had liberated the

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Jewish people from slavery and subjugation in the past, so too God will hopefully liberate his people in the future. For early Christians, Jewish messianic narratives developed around hopes for future redemption and resurrection were later concentrated in the figure of Jesus as an alternative grounding for collective redemptive hopes. Part of the challenges these thinkers faced was how to reconcile a more philosophical emphasis on God as an ultimate source of impersonal power and perfection (as articulated by Plato and Aristotle) with the Biblical emphasis on God as a teleological redemptive force for overcoming evil, oppression, and source of soteriological love within the world. 6 Part of what distinguishes humanity within the realm of creation is having been created in the image of God, therefore, our very freedom from the natural world of determinism—or blind fate (moiria)—is itself a reflection of this divine impulse toward freedom within the cosmos. In essence, our thoughts and actions are an extension of how divine freedom finds expression throughout creation. Our freedom individuates us by presenting us with the choice to affirm the bad or the good, but our hope to affirm the good brings us back on the path toward the divine, thereby creating the basis for a broader redemptive hope for worldwide transformation. Consequently, the negation represented by the force of desire leading to the rupturing of the original harmony between the divine and human also contains the seeds of hope for an eventual reconciliation and restoration. 7 Yet, paradoxically, because we are individuated through our acts of freedom, this impulse that makes us closer to God is the very same impulse that estranges us from the divine order. Theologically, our free will to turn away from the divine is also the source from which evil launches into the world. The very presence of this evil, however, also undermines our ability to believe in God’s providential power. Without the negation of a providential order created by evil, we could not know our freedom as distinct from natural law. Our doubts, therefore, are both an expression of our free will, but also the moment in which we face the choice of either embracing the negation of providence or embracing the hope for future redemption. When we hope we are also expressing our freedom to overcome the nihilism of thinking that evil will have the final say. Hope therefore emerges from the desire to repair the fissure between the finite and infinite created by the force of evil. This paradoxical interplay between evil, freedom, and hope raises a number of interesting questions. For example, what is the role of furthering human freedom in the divine process leading toward redemption? Is redemption about increasing human freedoms, or about overcoming the transgressive nature of individual freedoms for a grand moment of wholeness in which the individual and divine become one? 8 If we are individualized by an ability to express our freedom, then why would the sacrifice of individual freedoms be necessary for restoring harmony with

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the divine at the moment of redemption? 9 Is redemption at the end of history really redemption from our own freedom? Later mystical traditions tried to reconcile this paradox regarding the intersection of human freedom, alienation, and the divine by proposing that transgressions (averot) are part of a larger cosmological process of achieving “redemption through sin.” 10 The concept of Zimzum within Luranic Kabbalah provided a template in which the dissolution of cosmic unity contains the seeds of its own redemptive hope. 11 In the beginning there is a fissure and shattering of cosmic wholeness leading to an exiling of divine light throughout the cosmos, yet by delving into the depths of the very brokenness of creation by illuminating divine light through daily acts of loving kindness (Gemilut Chassadim) and repentance (Teshuvah) we can help participate in the redemptive process of hopefully restoring this lost unity. Transgressive negation creates an opening and opportunity to turn (teshuvah) our intentions (Kavanot) toward repairing (Tikkun) the damage through righteous deeds. 12 The mystical dialectics involved with cosmic transgression and restoration also bestows the gift of meaning by giving humans a role to play in the cosmic recovery and restoration of divine illumination within the world. The messianic hope that emerges from these mystical traditions placed a greater emphasis on human praxis in contributing to the process of restoring the lost harmony between the divine and the finite realm of creation. The redemptive hope of achieving a healing (Tikkun) at a cosmic level also applies to individual soteriological concerns. Having been created in the image of God means that the very same freedom that allows us to desire the bad is the same source of possibilities that allow for the ultimate hope of one day attaining the good. 13 The fact that we sin is paradoxically an affirmation of our individual freedom. Encountering the profane is also an opportunity to experience hope and freedom to transform such encounters into moments of divine hallowing. Thus, the rupture from the divine order created by sin also contains a redemptive component by providing an opportunity for reaffirming sacred unity by returning (teshuvah) to the path of righteousness. 14 For the more philosophically minded, however, the greater challenge was to link our ultimate hopes for achieving happiness with the goal of epistemological certainty. 15 What genuine hope can we have for knowing how to achieve ultimate happiness? How can we know that our ultimate happiness is also linked to an ultimate good? For most theologians, the answer was found in the claim that knowledge of God ultimately provides the only true understanding leading to eternal happiness. Theologians like Augustine and Aquinas, for example, developed new redemptive narratives combining a focus on individual hopes for salvation with providence. In philosophical terms God became the causal vertical force from which all tributaries of divine grace, mercy, and justice flow. This vertical and transcendental vision of the divine—as opposed to some

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passages in the Hebrew Bible that ascribed anthropomorphic attributes to God—allowed theologians within all three Abrahamic traditions to reconcile Greek metaphysical concerns with identifying primary causes in contrast with Biblical hopes for a world based on justice. Attempts to reconcile the images of hope and redemption from these Hebraic narratives with the Greek philosophical inquiry into the laws governing the natural order, however, also created intellectual challenges. For example, how does one reconcile prophetic promises for the creation of a “new earth” (Isaiah 65:17) and the resurrection of the dead with a philosophical and scientific emphasis on the empirical discovery of physical laws? If the laws of nature are part of God’s providence, does that mean a religious reliance on the idea of miracles suggest that a belief in providence necessitates an illogical violation of natural law? Does the proof for divine freedom necessitate a rupture within natural law? Thus, is the idea of freedom itself at odds with the idea of a fixed eternal order governing nature? If so, why would God place himself outside his own laws governing the physical world? And perhaps most importantly, to retain a sense of divine harmony between the natural and the human, do we have to circumscribe our redemptive hopes for ultimate transformation only to the political and not the natural world? Do our hopes for redemption entail the moral triumph over humanity’s “crooked nature,” but not necessarily of the entire natural order? If so, what do we do with prophetic utopian hopes for an unprecedented universal peace envisioned by Isaiah’s prophecy of lambs one day chilling out with wolves? And if we separate the human from the natural world with regard to our redemptive hopes, are we not implicitly conceding that perhaps there is a limit to God’s redemptive power and freedom? Where these tensions and possible contradictions where felt strongest the role of faith and hope as an alternative to an analytical assessment of probabilities became all the more important for all religious thinkers seeking to reconcile reason and revelation. Faith in the power of God’s infinite freedom serves as a point of negation, transcendence, and overcoming of the determinism that defines the realm of nature. For Jews and early Christians living under the oppression of empires, faith in this force of freedom was particularly important for countering the empirically verifiable might of Rome. In the words of Paul, “hope that is seen is not a true hope” (Romans 8:18), because to rely on that which is empirically verifiable is to lack faith in a God that can transcend the limits of nature, the might of empires, and redeem the downtrodden from slavery. 16 In the middle ages both Christian and Jewish philosophers continued to wrestle with the challenge of reconciling hopes placed on religious redemptive narratives with an equal commitment to rational observation of the natural world. Part of the challenge revolved around trying to

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figure out the role of humans in actualizing or thwarting hopes for redemption. Later nineteenth- and twentieth-century thinkers noted that these earlier pre-modern redemptive narratives, although conducted as theological and philosophical exercises for a small intellectual elite, were also laden with concrete political implications. According to Gershom Scholem part of the appeal of messianic narratives lies in their inspirational value in helping individuals overcome their sense of powerlessness. The more conservative function of these very same narratives, however, is in their deferment of the actualization of these very same hopes within a distant future. 17 The deferment component within most redemptive narratives are essential, according to Scholem, for the protection of society from the anarchic and antinomian forces that can get released when individuals believe they are living in moment when the social conventions distinguishing the sacred from the profane have become obsolete. Trying to actualize hopes for overcoming negation through promising a restoration of a once lost cosmic unity can produce its own negation in the form of anarchic revolutions as evidenced by the history of false messiahs and messianic cults (such as those associated with Sabbateanism). Redemptive narratives, therefore, had to perform the twin tasks of promising a redemptive future in which the alienation between the sacred and profane would be overcome while at the same time protecting the status quo by warning against directly acting upon these antinomian impulses. Both Christian and Jewish thinkers faced the challenge of linking human hopes for individual happiness and worldly redemption to providence while at the same time guarding against any heightened messianic enthusiasm that might threaten existing political arrangements. Consequently, for both religious communities, the messianic hopes that once inflamed Jews and early Christians to confront worldly empires became increasingly spiritualized into rituals and prayer that could give practitioners the experience of keeping hope alive while simultaneously subverting any hopes at actualizing these redemptive narratives through concrete praxis. 18 The redemptive narratives developed in both communities were essentially for helping individuals to project their longings for wholeness into the future and thus reconcile themselves to the distance between the ideals of divine justice and the reality of existing political structures in the present. SECULAR REDEMPTIVE HOPES: MODERN OPTIMISM, PROGRESS, AND MATERIALISM With the increased veneration of science and Enlightenment values within Western culture, theological narratives that placed greater emphasis on the need to wait on the divine for redemptive justice at the end of days

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became less and less appealing. The triumph of a new ideal that celebrated autonomous individuals capable of knowing the world for themselves led to the creation of new redemptive narratives placing human beings at the center of the redemptive process. 19 For many philosophers during this period—like the Jewish heretic Spinoza—the concept of God lingered as a metaphysical placeholder for grounding ideals of Truth and Justice. Real hope, however, should be placed on the predictive powers of rationality and science. Only truth derived through empirical observation could provide the real method for liberating humanity from the shackles of superstition and ignorance. In fact, Spinoza went as far to argue that hope and fear were themselves two sides of the same coin of emotions that could be easily manipulated by religious authorities for the purpose of providing comfort to the uneducated and irrational masses. 20 For Spinoza, organized religion manipulates our hopes and fears by focusing on the idea of a divine providence that can miraculously violate the laws of nature. From a philosophical perspective, however, it is irrational to think that God would violate his own laws; therefore redemptive hopes based on faith in miracles simply reflected ignorance of a divine rational order. For Enlightenment thinkers like Spinoza, the power of God was simply synonymous with an understanding of the physical laws governing causal relations, nothing more. The redemptive promise of science is that it helps us replicate God’s supreme self-sufficiency and self-determination (Conatus) by giving us perfect knowledge of causal relations. The more we know through science, the greater power we have to be actors in the world, and thus the more we reflect the divine force for self-determination and freedom. Religion’s emphasis on hope will simply evaporate the more certainty we gain through the march of science and rationality. Therefore, to affirm God in the world was simply to affirm our intellectual comprehension of physical laws, all the rest were expressions of sentimentality stimulated and manipulated by political elites for the sake of ensuring social stability and hierarchy. 21 Although the concept of God still appealed to most Enlightenment philosophers as a logical point for grounding their metaphysical speculations, the modern world was defined by an intellectual shift away from an emphasis on God as a vertical transcendental force toward a new emphasis on horizontal relations and the prowess of the human intellect to know and measure all things. Social solidarity combined with the protection of individual rights became the new sources of optimism for believing that a “New Jerusalem” could emerge out of the chaos created by emancipating the human intellect, appetites, and social relations. 22 In this process of transition from pre-modern onto-theological narratives of hope toward alternative, scientifically grounded ideals of optimism, the transcendental grounding of human freedom in the divine was gradually jettisoned for new narratives that grounded freedom solely within the emancipatory goal of unleashing all human capacities. 23 For

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Enlightenment thinkers like Kant, for example, human autonomy was itself the new foundation for hope. 24 Although Kant retained traditional theological language for grounding his metaphysics, his philosophical reflections on hope are most noted for relocating the source of agency for achieving a “Kingdom of Ends” within the intellects of autonomous individuals. As individuals we imitate God’s freedom internally by overcoming the “crookedness” of our own evil inclination by freely choosing to affirm the good within civil society. In his famous answer to the question “what may I hope,” Kant proposed that an ideal of providence, although empirically unverifiable, provided a necessary metaphysical foundation to our redemptive hopes. 25 Therefore, we are “rational” to hope for a providential guarantee for the sacrifices required in order to strive after the general good. 26 The hope for achieving this “Kingdom of Ends,” however, does not rely on divine intervention, only on our intellectual ability to recognize our own rational interests in striving after perpetual peace. The autonomy of the ethical individual venerated by Kant took on a more world-historical significance in the works of Hegel and his later disciples. In both his early theological and later philosophical writings Hegel affirmed “spirit” (Geist) as seeking greater material affirmation within the world. Evidence for this “rational” process of mind or spirit becoming actualized within the world is found through the world historical advancement of freedom within Western civilization. Incidentally, the world-historical march of freedom, as evidence for the restoration of spirit/mind on earth, nicely complemented European projects of imperialism and territorial expansion. Nevertheless, the combined influence of both Kant’s and Hegel’s philosophies were significant for translating premodern theological discussions over the relationship between divine freedom and natural law into secularized utopian terms that shaped and reflected the Enlightenment’s turn to the ideal of autonomous individuals as the new foundation for redemptive hope. The Enlightenment inspired revolutions in politics (the American and French revolutions having the most transformative impact) and intellectual revolutions in culture gave birth to new narratives of redemptive hope rooted in secular utopian ideals that sought a new standard of redemption based on the ingenuity and prowess generated by the unleashing of human desires and freedoms. 27 Human emancipation—not greater correspondence to God’s divine power—became the new basis for modern utopian hopes. In order for these new secular utopias to emerge, however, Western intellectuals increasingly argued that older hopes placed on the divine as the only foundational source for achieving the supreme good (summum bonum) had to be torn down. 28 Religious redemptive narratives that placed an emphasis on hope for another world as a way to compensate for suffering in the present were increasingly dismissed as speaking to a need for escapism that kept individuals

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from struggling to achieve self-actualization within their own lifetimes. Following on the philosophical skepticism championed by Spinoza and others, later nineteenth-century figures like Marx and Nietzsche proposed that all transcendental hopes were merely a mechanism for those with power to convince the powerless that humanity was incapable of achieving genuine emancipation in the here and now. Although the “hermeneutics of suspicion” developed by Marx and Nietzsche came to represent opposing worldviews, both shared the conviction that the combined religious emphasis on humanity’s inherent sinfulness and promises for salvation in the afterlife was part of a broader social matrix designed to maintain social acquiesce and economic exploitation. The transition from pre-modern theologically grounded notions of hope toward post-metaphysical and scientifically oriented ideals of optimism and progress, however, were not without their discontents. Nietzsche prophetically pointed out that the disenchantment created by the modern celebration of the power unleashed by science and technology meant that the West’s metaphysical foundations—and most importantly the ethical norms grounded in those metaphysical ideals—no longer provided the center for defining culture. For Nietzsche, the factual statement that for most of Western culture “God is dead . . . and we have killed him,” was both a springboard for renewal and a warning. The religiously grounded redemptive narratives of the past may have lost their allure, but it was unclear whether new secular redemptive narratives could really provide the same type level of moral authority once, in Marx’s formulation, “all that is solid melts into air.” As the Enlightenment’s promises of emancipation and tolerance through assimilation were increasingly eclipsed by nationalist identities rooted in racial divisions, secular ideals of perpetual optimism based on instrumental rationality and technological progress increasingly rang hollow. The crisis resulting from the decentering of traditional religious redemptive narratives throughout the nineteenth century contributed to the unraveling of Western intellectual confidence particularly during the First World War. 29 The faith placed in advances in science as the avenue for furthering human liberation was increasingly undermined as millions were slaughtered across Europe with unprecedented ease due to advances in technology. In addition to the realization that the new gods of science were fundamentally neutral when it came to advancing the human good, secular utopian hopes placed on venerating “the human” were also undermined by the willingness of those raised and educated within the most scientific and secular societies in history to kill one another by the millions. Science could explain what biological components made up humanity, but not which hopes we should have for expressing and developing our humanity. Secular humanist ideals of unleashing human desire, autonomy, and knowledge were also viewed as deficient for addressing the more mercurial, transgressive and irrational instincts

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that intellectuals from Nietzsche to Freud were increasingly identifying as central for understanding the complexity of human motivations. This combined breakdown of secular utopian hopes led Jewish and Christian intellectuals to rethink how pre-modern messianic narratives could be refashioned in order to address the crisis sparked by the unprecedented slaughter and destruction unleashed during WWI. If Enlightenment ideals of equal rights and tolerance were to triumph, more robust narratives that could inspire sentiments of hope and solidarity were needed to counter the equally powerful Romantic and nationalist winds sweeping across Europe. 30 For Jewish intellectuals in particular, the cultural and political crisis unleashed by WWI represented challenges and opportunities for continuing Jewish enlightenment (Haskalah) concerns to demonstrate to both Jewish and non-Jewish audiences the value of Judaism’s messianic tradition. 31 For many Jewish intellectuals Judaism’s redemptive hope narratives provided much needed traditional resources that could be reinterpreted for grounding secular Enlightenment and socialist utopian hopes for creating a more egalitarian and tolerant world. In the next section I turn to the works of Ernst Bloch as one of the best examples of Jewish intellectual efforts during this period to fuse Biblical redemptive hope narratives with secular Marxism. ERNST BLOCH AND THE METAPHYSICS OF NEGATION AS A SOURCE OF HOPE Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of hope evolved out of his lifelong interest in translating the phenomenology of personal encounters of illumination (artistic or spiritual) into broader narratives of political transformation. For Bloch the key was to bridge the gap between messianic, mystical, and socialist redemptive hope narratives in order to demonstrate how the transgressive sensibilities expressed in art, literature, and religion were essential for understanding the political evolution of human culture from various forms of authoritarianism to greater expressions of freedom in the modern age. In his seminal multiple volume work entitled The Principle of Hope Bloch boldly synthesized literary, religious, and political history in order to create a kaleidoscopic narrative that weaves together disjointed images and insights from a wide variety of Jewish and non-Jewish thinkers. 32 The purpose behind Bloch’s dialectical method was to demonstrate how hope emerges within the contradictions and chaos of those impulses within human consciousness that propels us toward the open horizon of what he referred to as the “not-yet” (noch-nicht). Daydreaming about the “not-yet” is the basis from which we gain the courage to eventually strive after achieving the possible, even if all available evidence shows that it might not yet be probable. Drawing on Kabbalah and his

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youthful exploration into psychedelic consciousness with his friend Walter Benjamin, Bloch’s writings were part of a performance of Ungleichzeitigkeit (non-contemporaneity), designed to unsettle linear conceptions of art, literature, and philosophy by presenting a montage of incongruous image. 33 Rather than seeing aesthetic or religious experience as a quest for perfection, Bloch followed Benjamin’s Kabbalistic sensibilities that led him to affirm the importance of dialectical entanglements—rather than sublation and resolution—as the sight for messianic illumination. Bloch similarly proposed that hope emerges within the context of its very negation. For Benjamin, hope is something that might not be possible in the present, yet, for the sake of others we are obligated to hold onto messianic hopes for future redemption. Jonathan Lear’s discussion of “radical hope” I believe captures Benjamin’s earlier insight that moments of extreme adversity create the realm of negation from which the phoenix of hope can rise in new and unpredicted ways. Therefore, the solidarity created by those who are sacrificed on civilizations’ “slaughter bench” as it marches forward provides the foundations to hope that each moment may in fact be “the gateway through which the messiah might come.” 34 Bloch and Benjamin also shared the same project of extending Marx’s theory of dialectical materialism into the realms of culture and aesthetics. Politically, Bloch’s “manic Hegelianism” led him to hold onto a more traditional reading of dialectical materialism where the struggles within history generate the conditions from which new forms of liberation would emerge. 35 Bloch broke with traditional interpretations of dialectical materialism, however, by placing a greater emphasis on the importance of aesthetic and mystical experiences as a catalyst for unsettling the idolatrous acceptance of the “is” rather than continuing to strive after the “ought.” To counter what he saw was the pernicious history of all forms of religious and ideological orthodoxies, Bloch presented a “metaphysics of becoming” based on the idea that our consciousness is defined by a constant hoping for new horizons. On an everyday level, our desire to come into the next stage of existence finds expression in simple acts of daydreaming and the most radical experiences of spiritual amazement and encounters with the sublime. These encounters, both big and small, provide the experiential sources from which new hopes spring. The “promethean spirit” within the human psyche that compels us to innovate and rebel has also been the dialectical engine within the history of religious and mythological narratives. Contrary to Marxism and other virulent forms of secularism, Bloch proposed that religion itself, particularly traditions inspired by the Hebrew Bible, presents us with narratives that both reinforce the status quo while also introducing conceptions of God and humanity that ultimately subvert these very same conventions. Within religion there has always been “tyrannical” conceptions of God and “opium priests” that offer stability and harmony through establish-

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ing social hierarchies, reinforced through traditions and various social conventions predicated on vertical submission resulting in widespread docility. “Idolatry,” “Pharaohs” and “opium priests” are all derived from a slavish desire to imagine the possibility of establishing a correspondence with some type of foundationalism that can offer the consolation of permanence in the midst of chaos. Nevertheless, despite the prevalence of these “idolatrous” impulses, there has also been a countervailing desire within religious traditions for freedom expressed as the revolutionary force of negation to all “towers of Babel,” “Pharaohs,” and oppressive social conventions. Accordingly, esoteric religious traditions have always contained competing voices that have contributed to fostering narratives of transgression and transformation as an alternative to “idols” of metaphysical power. In sum, religion gives us the “idols” of stability, conventionality, and mystification of social hierarchies, but it also provides narratives that stimulate the voice of hope for greater freedoms, leading to rise of both mystical and political forces that challenge the status quo. Historically, Bloch proposed that the Hebrew Bible, when read dialectically, presents us with the same psychological tensions found within each individual. According to Bloch the ancient Israelites shared the same impulse to affirm a notion of God based on images of a divine father-like tyrant who could protect them and provide a sense of foundational certainty so long as they were willing to engage in ceremonial displays of heteronomous submission to the commandments. In opposition to this image of a tyrannical God who demands ceremonial displays of submission, there also emerged a more “prophetic” image of the divine. Bloch credits the prophet Moses with “discovering” a new “God of Exodus” that came to embody a divine force of freedom, and therefore a force of negation to all authoritarian structures. Additionally, the “God of Exodus” is not only an expression of negation to all social hierarchies and empires of oppression, but also stood in contrast to Greek philosophical ideals based on a static realm of Being and natural law. As an expression of the force for becoming in the world, according to Bloch the Biblical God of Exodus liberates through freedom. The ancient Israelite merger of the political principle of freedom (as represented by the “God of Exodus” discovered at Mt. Sinai) with a metaphysics of becoming (as signified by a God that cannot be represented in the form of an idol) gave new expression to human hopes for liberation. In contrast to the old “priestly” focus (i.e., all traditional forms of religious practice) on vertically connecting individuals to a metaphysical power outside of themselves, in the modern period the power of hope once ascribed to a transcendental God has become located in our ability to stimulate within ourselves and others hope for a better future. Therefore, according to Bloch, “hope is able to inherit those features of religion which do not perish with the death of God” because by embracing hope

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in ourselves and others we become capable of harnessing the force for freedom in the world that our ancestors previously ascribed to a purely transcendental force. Just as narratives and traditions (like the Passover Seder) that affirmed the God of Exodus served to negate the empires of old by giving a voice of hope for a redemptive horizon, so too this same force of negation allows us to jettison tyrannical notions of God demanding human subservience. Bloch provides an alternative reading in which freedom and rebellion are themselves the meaning at the heart of having been created with free will. Redemption at the end of days is not about the subsumption of individual desire into the greater “All,” but rather the recognition that the inability for desire to ever be truly satisfied is its own redemptive freedom. Thus, politically instead of viewing individual freedom as the transgressive force severing us from the divine, rather, our transgressive impulses to overthrow all social hierarchies becomes part of the dialectical affirmation of the divine within history. Paradoxically, we affirm the “God of Exodus” precisely through our hope in overcoming our dependency on outdated patriarchal images that once provided consolation for our ancestors. Our freedom from God is itself a marker for fulfilling the divine plan in creating humans with free will in the first place. In his later controversial book Atheism in Christianity (1968), Bloch went on to state that “the best thing about religion is that it makes for heretics.” Religion is challenged by heresies, but also reinvigorated by these very same forces of negation unleashed by those bold enough to take on the prophetic mantle of challenging the status quo. As witnessed with the history of heretics in every tradition, religion always reflects competing human impulses to overthrow orthodoxies, while also fleeing from the abyss of our own freedom by providing a sense of stability. In the book of Genesis, Adam and Eve’s desire to gain knowledge of good and evil, according to Bloch, reflects our internal struggle to reach out toward the freedom unleashed by our own critical self-awareness versus our fears of a super-ego father figure who threatens to punish us unless we obey his divine commands. According to Bloch “without atheism there is no room for Messianism” because the very negation of teleological notions of hope through secularism (as represented by the force of atheism) furthers the dialectical process toward its own fulfillment. Just as Martin Buber pointed out that without the yetzer ha’rah (evil inclination) there is no chance for a teshuvah (an inner spiritual turning) returning the individual to the yetzer ha tov (inclination toward the good) so too the negation represented by atheism helps to unleash the potency of messianic hope. Bloch’s dialectics of negation also follows the model of Luranic Kabbalah where the shattering and exile of divine shards into the void of multiplicity creates the conditions of freedom from which a return to the illumination of divine unity becomes possible.

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In more metaphysical terms, religion has always made ontological claims about establishing a privileged correspondence to eternal Being here on earth. But the certainty and arrogance of claiming to have grasped some aspect of that which is forever free, eternal, and infinite is itself a form of “idolatry” that will set in motion what Adorno was to later term “negative dialectics.” For Bloch the same prophetic impulse that led ancient Israelites to confront religious structures of idolatry unleashed a religious imperative of challenging all religious pretenses toward overcoming the force of freedom. Historically, every religion is moved by a revelation that promises hope in the ability for something new to emerge but ends up creating temples, priesthoods, idols, and other systems of power that in turn lead to new heresies that challenge the status quo. The real hope that is revealed through this process, however, is the unsettling truth that, in the end, “nothing is complete; nothing is conclusive; nothing has a solid core” and therefore no human project, both individually and collectively, will ever find final completion and a sense of real satisfaction at end of days. Because we tend to hate uncertainty and fear chaos, we create sacred spaces and traditions that provide a sense of continuity and certainty based on promising a privileged access to eternal Being. Yet, at the same time we need the principle of the “serpent” unleashed in the garden because it, like every “heresy,” illuminates the contingency of our condition and norms. As the force of individual desire and freedom, the “serpent” represents the negation of wholeness and cosmic harmony represented by Eden. The force of contingency embodied by the “serpent” also represents our fundamental freedom in the face of dogmas and other cultural “opiates” intended to sooth our fears by reconciling us to the status quo. 36 The unleashing of transgressive forces represented by the serpent paradoxically creates the fissure within creation from which humans derive their ultimate freedom and capacity to reflect the divine by participating in the redemptive process. Within this history of struggle over the meaning of individual freedom, modern atheism ironically represents the next dialectical stage in the evolution of affirming the “God of Exodus.” Bloch thus comes to the controversial conclusion that, “only an atheist can be a good Christian; only a Christian can be a good atheist.” The antinomian and anti-authoritarian impulses embodied by early Christianity were the next stage of affirming the “God of Exodus” in history. Thus, to affirm the true spirit of Christianity entails embracing the overthrow of all tyrannical systems, both human and divine. Accordingly, to affirm “a God who is himself not yet what he is: who is only in the future of his promise-to-be” entails the “overthrowing all things from their beginning to their end: the Exodus into God as man.” Paradoxically, the “God of Exodus” who liberates humanity from slavery by killing off the ancient gods creates a precedent of deicide that reinforces a never-ending dialectic between “idolatrous”

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needs for stability and certainty versus a prophetic embrace of the radical contingency that comes from the freedom of a “not-yet” consciousness. Therefore, atheism’s negation of God as a “tyrannical-Caesar” figure is itself an affirmation of the divine force of freedom that continues to create hope for new utopian possibilities. Following Feuerbach’s thesis, Bloch’s radical atheistic theology also has psychological resonance by turning the voice of consciousness that was once externalized as divine as really reflecting that inner voice of negation resulting from the discontent within our psyche. The hope for the “not-yet” also functions as a voice of dissatisfaction, telling us that something is still missing, and from this sense of lack we are faced with the decision to either despair or to find the hope in imagining that something else might be possible. Part of what drives this inner sense of discontent is the realization that we are creatures that might always be incomplete, in metaphysical terms we are forever “not-yet-being.” And from this realization also comes the fear and despair that we will likely end our lives with a sense of having never found this sense of completion and wholeness. To counter these fundamental existential feelings that something is still missing from existence comes the hope, according to Bloch, that there might yet be a better future just over the horizon. Historically, the teleological narratives expressed within religious traditions have done an effective job of transforming these existential fears into narratives of hope that allow us to imagine that the force of individual desire that can never find full satisfaction in this lifetime will at last find peace in the ultimate Sabbath at the end of history. The “idolatry” within all religious traditions, however, stems from the hope that this dialectical process will be definitively overcome through the quenching of desire as a force for negation at the end of days. The greatness of atheism (as the modern embodiment of the “serpent” and prophetic spirit) is precisely in that it comes to undermine our reliance on those elements within religion created to help distract us from the ontology of becoming. Affirming the “God of Exodus” means learning to live within the space of the “not-yet” that forever borders the promised land but is never allowed to experience full actualization. Each promise of return to a lost garden or the establishment of a sacred institution only creates an illusion of completion that future generations will necessarily rebel from as they seek to give expression and meaning to their own hopes and struggles for freedom. Martin Buber famously summed up this tension as one between the impulse of “the fathers” to create legacies that convey a sense of metaphysical permanence in the face of finitude versus the “religiosity” of their sons who individuate through the freedom of negation as the precondition for fulfilling their own hopes of one day replacing the legacies of their fathers. In Freudian terms, the greater the pretense of sublimation, the greater the

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temptations for de-sublimation. In Blochian terms, the greater the claims to have established a correspondence to eternal Being, the greater the serpent/prophetic push back against false idols in the name of the Eternal that is forever “not-yet.” Paradoxically, redemptive narratives that promote ideals of unity and wholeness based on the hope of overcoming the tensions created by the force of freedom end up resetting the force of desire by giving the next generation something to rebel against. Ironically, these principles of negation still found within religious texts is why, according to Bloch, the history of religion is still relevant for understanding the evolution of liberatory movements within the modern West. New ideologies based on capitalism and other forms of exploitation have taken the place of Pharaohs, Caesars, and the empires of old. These new forms of “idolatry” demand new prophets of hope to remind us that we are always capable of harnessing the courage to embrace the freedom of consciousness that allows us to reach out toward the “notyet.” CONCLUSION Bloch’s work on synthesizing religious and secular redemptive hope narratives helped change the conversation amongst both theologians and secular critical theorists over the need for new redemptive narratives to help the West rise from the cultural ashes after World War II. It remains debatable, however, if Bloch’s account of the principle of hope translates into the type of convictions and motivations needed to confront the rise of religious fundamentalism and ecological catastrophe. In sum, it is very hard to know how Bloch’s celebration of the “not-yet” and “becoming” translates into transforming despair into hope for everyday real-life challenges. Terry Eagleton rightly accused Bloch of being a “Romantic libertarianist” who failed to provide any guideposts for evaluating the goals of emancipation beyond affirming freedom as an absolute good in its own right. 37 Bloch’s mystification of hope as elan vital does little to answer hard questions like which hopes are worth having? For example, on the intersubjective level it is unclear how Bloch’s emphasis on “becoming” and the “not-yet” helps strengthen commitment and responsibility. Why should we value responsibility, according to Bloch, if it gets in the way of becoming free? Bloch’s veneration of our “anticipatory consciousness” might contribute to thwarting the status quo, but it can undermine venerating a sense of continuity required for maintaining meaningful relationships. Also, what about the great existentialist and Buddhist hope of just being able to experience the present? The redemptive hopes Bloch located within our transgressive impulses that keep dialectical tensions alive should not negate our equally valuable hope for experiencing a sense of

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presence in the here and now. Additionally, although Bloch spent much of life as an apologist for Communism, economically the materialist basis for his utopianism might easily map onto the pseudo-utopian discourses coming from the digital revolutions and fanatical devotion to free markets. It is possible to imagine the abstractness of Bloch’s metaphysics complementing the faith placed on Moore’s law and transhumanism in places like Silicon Valley and Wall Street. In conclusion, if nineteenth-century critics like Marx and Nietzsche forever undermined hopes dependent on a vertical connection to the divine, it is unclear if the secular utopian hopes placed on horizontal solidarity ever recovered from the totalitarian horrors of the twentieth century. There continues to be little evidence to support the view that the hopes placed on solidarity and self-fashioning can substitute for the foundationalism promised in redemptive hope narratives that offered a sense of transcendence. Yet, religious appeals to transcendental hopes for divine redemption often take on a destructive apocalyptic flavor that is even more problematic. So, to return to Kant’s famous question, if our redemptive narratives are so compromised, what can we hope for? With the proliferation of political and environmental challenges ahead, we continue to be faced with the same challenges as our ancestors with reconciling an ideal of freedom with hopes for the establishment of a moral order. We continue to need narratives that can help us counter the sense of hopelessness that creeps up as economic, political and environmental challenges increase. The cult of the market and consumerist mentality may in fact lead to our collective undoing unless we can figure out a way to curtail our freedoms and desires in the face of an ever increasing need to establish a more sustainable existence. At the same time, if it is our freedom and desire to explore and know the world that has partially gotten us into this mess, perhaps it is not unreasonable to hope that these very same impulses that let loose the “serpent” in history can help us avoid an end to human history. After all, no one else can do our hoping for us, and as Rabbi Hillel famously put it, if not now, when? NOTES 1. For further see Isaiah Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideals in the West,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); and John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (New York: Macmillan, 2008) 2. For further on the dialectical nature of hope see Gabriel Marcel, “Sketch of a Phenomenology and a Metaphysic of Hope,” in Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope (London: Gollancz, 1951), 29. Also see Regina Schwartz, Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond (New York: Routledge, 2004); James E. Faulconer, Transcendence in Philosophy and Religion (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003); and Alan M. Olson, Transcendence and the Sacred (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994).

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3. For a fuller historical account of hope see Akiba Lerner, Redemptive Hope: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Obama (Fordham University Press, 2015) 4. For further see Norman Cohn, Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993); Alan Mittleman, Hope in a Democratic Age (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 7; David Novak, “Jewish Eschatology,” in The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. Jerry Walls (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 114; and Jacob Taubes, Occidental Eschatology, trans. David Ratmoko (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). Michael Walzer, In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012). 5. See Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1980), 3. Also see David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982). 6. For further see Hermann Cohen, Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1995) 7. For further on theological and metaphysical notions of desire here see Levinas, Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, translated by Alphonso Lingis, Duquesne Press, 1969. 8. From a philosophical perspective the idea of the cosmos being created with a moral purpose raised several additional problems. How could creation be declared good (Kee-tov as stated in Genesis 1:31) but also separate and alienated from divine grace? If God is a perfect Being, shouldn’t everything coming from God be good? In theological terms, the paradoxically interconnection between hope and theodicy stems from the idea that God is all powerful (and therefore could eradicate all evil), yet has somehow chosen to give us the freedom to do evil and the freedom to simultaneously hold onto the hope that we will eventually be redeemed from this very same evil through divine deliverance at the end of days or in the world to come. 9. The Rabbinic statements, such as “Everything is in the hands of heaven except the fear of heaven” and “Everything is foreseen, but freedom of choice is given” (Avot 3:15) capture the inner tensions and paradoxes between affirming divine omniscience and omnipotence, yet also wanting to affirm the importance of human freedom. From a legal perspective, without a notion of free will it is almost impossible to hold up the moral imperative of following the commandments and importance of individual responsibility. This raises additional problems of theological fatalism, namely; if God is omniscient, does his foreknowledge of all events undermine the idea that humans are really free to make fundamental choices? 10. See Scholem’s essay “Redemption through Sin,” located in The Messianic Idea. Also see David Biale, Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982); Benjamin Lazier, God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination between the World Wars (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); and Steven Wasserstrom, Religion after Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999) 11. For further see Shaul Magid, Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism (The University of Wisconsin Press, 2003); Peter Schafer, The Origins of Jewish Mysticism (Princeton University Press, 2009) 12. Elliot Wolfson, Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination (Fordham University Press, 2005) 13. See Martin Buber, “The Foundation Stone” and “Spinoza, Sabbatai Zvi, and the Baal-Shem,” in The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1988). Also Asher D. Biemann, Inventing New Beginnings: On the Idea of Renaissance in Modern Judaism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009). 14. Martin Buber, The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, 1988) p.31, 80 15. J. P. Day, “Hope,” American Philosophical Quarterly 6, no. 2 (1969). Also see Joseph Godfrey, A Philosophy of Human Hope: Studies in Philosophy and Religion (Boston,

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MA: Academic Publishers, 1987). Also see Adrienne Martin, How We Hope: A Moral Psychology (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014). 16. In his seminal work, The City of God, Augustine invoked Paul’s emphasis on the transcendental nature of hope as an alternative to philosophers who grounded their sense of happiness only in the certainty that comes from empirical observation. For Augustine, only creating a correspondence to God creates the conditions from which eternal happiness can be achieved. “The hope of the future world—Paul: ‘For we are saved by hope: now hope which is seen is not hope; for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, we are made happy by hope’ (Romans 8:24). As, therefore, we are saved so we are made happy by hope. And as we do not as yet possess a present, but look for a future salvation, so is it with our happiness. . . . Salvation, such as shall be in the world to come, shall itself be our final happiness. And this happiness these philosophers refuse to believe in, because they do not see it, and attempt to fabricate for themselves a happiness in this life, based upon a virtue which is as deceitful as it is proud.” Saint Augustine, The City of God, trans. by Marcus Dods (New York: Modern Library, 1993), 698–99. 17. For further see Scholem’s chapter “The Neutralization of the Messianic Element in Early Hasidism,” located in Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality (New York: Schocken Books, 1980) 18. For further discussion see Heinrich Graetz’s chapter “The Stages in the Evolution of Messianic Belief,” in The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays (Jersey City, NJ: Ktav Publishing House, 1975), 72–73; and Hermann Cohen, “The Social Idea as Seen by Plato and by the Prophets,” in Reason and Hope: Sections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College, 1993), 66–77. 19. For further see Jonathan I. Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); Terry Eagleton, Culture and the Death of God (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014); David Sorkin, The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008); Jeffrey Stout, Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1987) 20. Spinoza, Ethics: part 4, Proposition 47. For further also see Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011). 21. Leo Strauss, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (New York: Schocken Books, 1965); Richard Mason, The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999); Rebecca Goldstein, Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity (New York: Schocken, 2006); Steven B. Smith, Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998); Étienne Balibar and Warren Montag, Spinoza and Politics, trans. Peter Snowdon (Brooklyn, NY: Verso, 2008); Susan James, Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The TheologicoPolitical Treatise (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012). 22. For further see Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism, ed. Alexander Altmann (Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press, 1983), 43. Also see Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Enlightenment (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002); Amir Eshel, “Cosmopolitanism and Searching for the Sacred Space in Jewish Literature,” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2003), 121–38. 23. See Jonathan Lear, “Radical Hope versus Mere Optimism,” in Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009), 113. Also see Patrick Shade, Habits of Hope: A Pragmatic Theory (Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2001). 24. See Martin Beck Matustik, Radical Evil and the Scarcity of Hope (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2008); Curtis H. Peters, Kant’s Philosophy of Hope (New York: Peter Lang, 1993).

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25. Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 805/B 833, in The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). 26. Critique of Pure Reason, A 813/B 841 27. See Isaiah Berlin, “The Decline of Utopian Ideals in the West,” in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 20–48. 28. For further discussion of the rise of secular utopianism, see Edward Rothstein, Herbert Muschamp, and Martin Marty, Visions of Utopia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (New York: Macmillan, 2008); Susan Buck-Morss, Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002); Marcel Gauchet, The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997); James L. Muyskens, Sufficiency of Hope: Conceptual Foundations of Religion (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1979). 29. See J. W. Burrow, The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002); Ariel Roshwald, The Endurance of Nationalism: Ancient Roots and Modern Dilemmas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 30. Walter H. Capps, The Future of Hope: Essays by Bloch, Fackenheim, Moltmann, Metz, Capps (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1970). 31. For further discussion, see Paul Mendes-Flohr, “The Stronger and the Better Jews: Jewish Theological Responses to Political Messianism in the Weimar Republic,” in Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Kavka, Martin. Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); David G. Roskies, Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999); Michael Löwy, Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity (London: Athlone Press, 1992); Richard Wolin, “Reflections on Jewish Secular Messianism,” in Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning, ed. Jonathan Frankel (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 193; and Martin Kavka, Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 32. See Mendes-Flohr, “To Brush History Against the Grain: The Eschatology of the Frankfurt School and Ernst Bloch,” in Paul Mendes-Flohr, Divided Passions: Jewish Intellectuals and the Experience of Modernity (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1991), 370–71. Thompson, Peter, and Slavoj Žižek, eds. The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013); Thomas H. West, Ultimate Hope without God: The Atheistic Eschatology of Ernst Bloch (New York: Peter Lang, 1991); Ivan Boldyrev, Ernst Bloch and His Contemporaries: Locating Utopian Messianism (Bloomsbury Academic, 2015) 33. For more on the mixture of Kabbalistic mysticism and the psychedelic within Benjamin and Bloch’s work see Gershom Scholem, Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981), 177. Also see David Kaufmann, “Thanks for the Memory: Bloch, Benjamin, and the Philosophy of History,” in Not Yet! Reconsidering Ernst Bloch, ed. Jamie Owen Daniel and Tom Moylan (New York: Verso, 1997); Anson Rabinbach, “Between Enlightenment and Apocalypse: Benjamin, Bloch and Modern German Jewish Messianism,” in New German Critique no. 34 (Winter 1985), 78–124. Pierre Bouretz, Witnesses for the Future: Philosophy and Messianism (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2010). 34. Walter Benjamin, Illuminations: Essays and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1969). 35. Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optimism. (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2015), 109. 36. Eric Fromm was to later build on Bloch’s insights by pointing out that, when confronted with the metaphysical uncertainty unleashed by existential loneliness, authoritarian characters are more likely to flee from their freedom.

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37. Terry Eagleton, Hope Without Optimism, 101.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Augustine, 1993. City of God, Translated by Marcus Dods. New York: Modern Library. Balibar, Étienne and Warren Montag. 2008. Spinoza and Politics. Translated by Peter Snowdon. New York: Verso. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. New York: Schocken Books. Berlin, Isaiah. 1992. The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas. New York: Vantage Books. Biale, David. 1982. Gershom Scholem: Kabbalah and Counter-History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Biemann, Asher D. 2009. Inventing New Beginnings: On the Idea of Renaissance in Modern Judaism. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Boldyrev, Ivan. 2015. Ernst Bloch and His Contemporaries: Locating Utopian Messianism. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Bouretz, Pierre. 2010. Witnesses for the Future: Philosophy and Messianism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Buber, Martin. 1988. The Origin and Meaning of Hasidism. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press International. Buck-Morris, Susan. 2002. Dreamworld and Catastrophe: The Passing of Mass Utopia In East and West. Cambridge: MIT Press. Burrow, See J. 2002. The Crisis of Reason: European Thought, 1848–1914. New Haven: Yale University Press. Capps, Walter H. 1970. The Future of Hope: Essays by Bloch, Fackenheim, Moltmann, Metz, Capps. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Cohen, Hermann, 1993. Reason and Hope: Sections from the Jewish Writings of Hermann Cohen. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College. ———. 1995. Religion of Reason: Out of the Sources of Judaism. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Cohn, Norman. 1993. Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come: The Ancient Roots of Apocalyptic Faith. New Haven: Yale University Press. Day, J.P. 1969. “Hope.” In American Philosophical Quarterly 6, no. 2. Eagleton, Terry. 2014. Culture and the Death of God. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 2015. Hope Without Optimism. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Eshel, Amir. 2003. “Cosmopolitanism and Searching for the Sacred Space in Jewish Literature.” Jewish Social Studies 9, no. 3 (Spring/Summer 2003), 121–38. Faulconer, James E. 2003. Transcendence in Philosophy and Religion. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Feiner, Shmuel. 2002. The Jewish Enlightenment. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Gauchet, Marcel. 1997. The Disenchantment of the World: A Political History of Religion. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Godfrey, Joseph. 1987. A Philosophy of Human Hope: Studies in Philosophy and Religion. Boston: Academic Publishers. Goldstein, Rebecca. 2006. Betraying Spinoza: The Renegade Jew Who Gave Us Modernity. New York: Schocken. Graetz, Heinrich. The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays. Jersey City: Ktav Publishing House. Gray, John. 2008. Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. New York: Macmillan. Israel, Jonathan I. 2006. Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752. New York: Oxford University Press. James, Susan. 2012. Spinoza on Philosophy, Religion, and Politics: The Theologico-Political Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. In The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Edited by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kaufmann, David. 1997. “Thanks for the Memory: Bloch, Benjamin, and the Philosophy of History.” In Not Yet! Reconsidering Ernst Bloch. Edited by Jaime Owen Daniel and Tom Moylan. New York: Verso. Kavka, Martin. 2004. Jewish Messianism and the History of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lazier, Benjamin. 2012. God Interrupted: Heresy and the European Imagination Between the World Wars. Princeton, Princeton University Press. Lear, Jonathan. 2009. Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lerner, Akiba. 2015. Redemptive Hope: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Obama. New York: Fordham University Press. Löwy, Michael. 1992. Redemption and Utopia: Jewish Libertarian Thought in Central Europe: A Study in Elective Affinity. London: Athlone Press. Magid, Shaul. 2003. Hasidism on the Margin: Reconciliation, Antinomianism, and Messianism in Izbica/Radzin Hasidism. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. Marcel, Gabriel. 1951. “Sketch of a Phenomenology of Hope.” In Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope. London: Gollancz. Martin, Adrienne. 2014. How We Hope: A Moral Psychology. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Mason, Richard. 1999. The God of Spinoza: A Philosophical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Matustik, Martin Beck. 2008. Radical Evil and the Scarcity of Hope. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mendelssohn, Moses. 1983. Jerusalem: Or on Religious Power and Judaism, Edited By Alexander Altmann. Lebanon, NH: Brandeis University Press. Mendes-Flor, Paul. 1991. “The Stronger and the Better Jews: Jewish Theological Responses to Political Messianism in the Weimar Republic.” In Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning. Edited by Jonathan Frankel. New York: Oxford University Press. Mittleman, Alan. 2009. Hope in a Democratic Age. New York: Oxford University Press. Muyskens, James L. 1979. Sufficiency of Hope: Conceptual Foundations of Religion Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Nadler, Steven. 2011. A Book Forged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Novak, David. 2008. “Jewish Eschatology.” In The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology, ed. Jerry Walls. New York: Oxford University Press. Olson, Alan M. 1994. Transcendence and the Sacred. Notre Dame, IN: University Press of Notre Dame. Peters, Curtis H. 1993. Kant’s Philosophy of Hope. New York: Peter Lang. Rabinbach, Anson. “Between Enlightenment and Apocalypse: Benjamin, Bloch, and Modern German Jewish Messianism.” In New German Critique, no. 34 (Winter 1985), 78–124. Rorty, Richard. 1989. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roshwald, Ariel. 2006. The Endurance of Nationalism: Ancient Roots and Modern Dilemmas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Roskies, David G. 1999. Against the Apocalypse: Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Rothstein, Edward, Herbert Muschamp, and Martin Marty. 2003. Visions of Utopia. New York: Oxford University Press. Schafer, Peter. 2009. The Origins of Jewish Mysticism. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Scholem, Gershom. 1980. The Messianic Idea in Judaism and Other Essays on Jewish Spirituality. New York: Schocken Books. ———. 1981. Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America. Schwartz, Regina. 2004. Transcendence: Philosophy, Literature, and Theology Approach the Beyond. New York: Routledge. Shade, Patrick. 2001. Habits of Hope: A Pragmatic Theory. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Smith, Stephen B. 1998. Spinoza, Liberalism, and the Question of Jewish Identity. New Haven: Yale University Press. Sorkin, David. 2008. The Religious Enlightenment: Protestants, Jews, and Catholics from London to Vienna. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Spinoza, Baruch. 1992. Ethics. New York: Hackett. Stout, Jeffrey. 1987. Flight from Authority: Religion, Morality, and the Quest for Autonomy. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press. Strauss, Leo. 1965. Spinoza’s Critique of Religion. New York: Schocken Books. Taubes, Jacob. 2009. Occidental Escatology. Translated by David Ratmoko. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Thompson, Peter and Slavoj Žižek, eds. 2013. The Privitization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia. Durham: Duke University Press. Walzer, Michael. 2012. In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible. New Haven: Yale University Press. Wasserstrom, Steven. 1999. Religion After Religion: Gershom Scholem, Mircea Eliade, and Henry Corbin at Eranos. Princeton: Princeton University Press. West, Thomas H. 1991. Ultimate Hope Without God: The Atheistic Eschatology of Ernst Bloch. New York: Peter Lang. Wolfson, Elliot. 2005. Language, Eros, Being: Kabbalistic Hermeneutics and Poetic Imagination. New York: Fordham University Press. Wolin, Richard. 1991. “Reflections on Jewish Secular Messianism.” In Jews and Messianism in the Modern Era: Metaphor and Meaning. Edited by Jonathan Frankel. New York: Oxford University Press.

Part II

Application

Section Three Hopes and Histories

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FIVE Historia Abscondita Or, on Nietzsche, Hope, and History Allison Merrick

Historia abscondita—Every great human being exerts a retroactive force: for his sake all of history is placed in the balance again, and a thousand secrets of the past crawl out of their hiding places—into his sunshine. There is no way of telling what may yet become part of history. Perhaps the past is still essentially undiscovered! So many retroactive forces are still needed! —Nietzsche, The Gay Science 1

It seems to be something of a truism to state that hope is aspirational in nature. Assuming, at least for now, that something along these lines is right, then it follows that, inter alia, hope is both “future-directed” (e.g., Lazarus 1999; Lear 2006, 103) and, at least, has some aura of positivity around it (e.g., Andre 2013, 89–90; van Hooft 2014, 37). Whereas history, at least in the hands of Walter Benjamin and Theodor Adorno, is arguably rather different in character: the former has famously put it as “one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage,” (Benjamin 2007, 258) while the latter notably quipped if progress is discernable, it is something of a “mockery” as we have seemingly moved from the “slingshot to the megaton bomb” (Adorno 2006, 159). 2 Hence, history, so understood, is coupling together of pogroms, massacres, sharp regrets, and secret melancholies. It is, in short, and on such a reading, not hopeful in kind. Or, to put it another way, history appears then to be neither future-directed nor surrounded by a ring of positivity. Indeed, and again taking our lead from Adorno, “the mere assertion” that may link hope, in the mode of progress, to history reveals “a mind that is incapable of 99

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looking horror in the face and that thereby perpetuates it” (Adorno 2006, 7). Arguably, then, it may seem peculiar to try to link together the concepts of hope and history. The seemingly complicated task of forming such a connection is, perhaps, made easier if we bring Nietzsche’s thought to bear on the issue. His idea, plainly enough, is that if Hesiod’s myth is interpreted in a particular way, then hope appears to be the “truly insidious evil: it was [we might recall] left behind in the box of evils” (AC 23). 3 Here is how Nietzsche puts it in Human, All Too Human: Hope.—Pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it. It was the gift of the gods to mankind, outwardly a fair, seductive gift and named the “box of good fortune.” Then all the evils, living winged creatures, flew out: since they have been hovering about doing harm to men by day and night. A single evil had not yet slipped out of the box: then, by the will of Zeus, Pandora shut the lid, and thus it remained within. Now man has the box of good fortune forever in the house and is amazed at the treasure he possesses in it; it stands at his service, he reaches for it when he desires to do so; for he does not know that the box Pandora brought was the box of evil and regards the evil that has remained behind as the greatest piece of good fortune—it is hope.—For what Zeus wanted was that man, though never so tormented by the other evils, should nonetheless not throw life away but continue to let himself be tormented. To that end he gives men hope: it is in truth the worst of all evils, because it protracts the torment of men. (HH 71)

Hence, history, understood as an ecology of miseries, and hope, understood as the protracted “torment of men,” appear more intimately connected than was assumed at the outset (HH 71, cf. WS 44). Let me emphasize at the start, however, that my aim here is neither to offer a definitive account of the nature of hope—though I will, of course, attempt to make clearer Nietzsche’s nuanced understanding of the concept—nor to offer a decisive account of the make-up of the historical— though I will attempt to show how it is best described as neither naively progressive nor by simple romantic mythmaking. Rather, my aim is merely to add a necessary nuance to our understanding of hope, of history, and, perhaps, of their relation. With this end in mind, I begin in section one by reconstructing Nietzsche’s views on hope. Though scholars, painting with rather broad strokes, have characterized Nietzsche as something of a critic of hope, I want to begin to sketch his more nuanced views. That is, instead of retracing arguments that run along these lines: “Traditional anti-Christians confined their attacks to heaven. Nietzsche’s target was much bigger. Hope itself must be combated, since hope for something better condemns whatever there is. So Nietzsche reread Pandora’s box; hope is not redemption. Rather, it’s the evil that should remain enclosed in the box because the Greeks considered it the only evil that was truly malignant”

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(Neiman 2015, 307). The view that I will be advancing runs like this: it is not hope qua hope Nietzsche rejects. Rather he is critical of a certain mode of hope, namely, that which serves the ascetic ideal. Next, and in taking our cue from such conceptual analysis, I will argue that Nietzsche similarly opposes a certain mode of writing history. Despite its initial appeal, I shall maintain that such an account fails because it serves to reinforce the conceptual scaffolding erected by the ascetic ideal and, as such, protract “the torment of men” (HH 71). In an attempt to lend credence to such a claim, I draw on Nietzsche’s most sustained discussion of history to make clearer the problems with these two forms of historiography and for some conceptual scaffolding that will support the view that historiography can be legitimately seen as a source of hope, albeit in the nonpejorative sense. A PRESUMPTION AND AN OVERVALUATION (HH 443): NIETZSCHE ON HOPE Nietzsche’s views on hope are largely left unaccounted for in contemporary philosophy. If his observations are addressed at all, it is as an opponent of hope. One such interpretation, which expresses this quite neatly, is the following: “In Nietzsche’s rejection of all inherited morality, he also shows himself to be an enemy of hope” (Mittleman 2009, 107). It is worth remarking that scholars are not incorrect to note Nietzsche’s worries regarding the value of hope. Nietzsche does, for example, in something of an aside, remind us that because of hope’s “capacity to string unhappy people along, the Greeks considered hope to be the evil of evils, the truly insidious evil” (AC 23, c.f. HH 41). Or, in the same vein, Nietzsche remarks: “The Greeks likewise differed from us in their evaluation of hope: they felt it to be blind and deceitful; Hesiod gave us the strongest expression to this attitude in a fable whose sense is so strange no more recent commentator has understood it—for it runs counter to the modern spirit, which has learned from Christianity to believe in hope as a virtue” (D 38). From passages such as these, commentators have concluded that, in following the Greeks, Nietzsche is, at best, simply an unabashed critic of hope (e.g., Neiman 2015) or, at worst, his views on hope are irreparably paradoxical (e.g., Mittleman 2009). Given that the latter view takes its fuel from the former, the argument, in defense of such claims, runs something like this: “to hope for something better is [according to Nietzsche] to live in opposition to life itself” (Neiman 2015, 296). Hence, if Nietzsche is for “life” he must be against “hope” and, as such, “hope itself must be combated, since hope for something better condemns whatever there is” (Neiman 2015, 307). Yet, and in pushing the argument one step further, the worry with such a conclusion is that it appears to be paradoxical. That is, Nietzsche “wants to reduce or

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diminish hope by assimilating it to a new, über-emotion, which will be felt by the new, heroic breed of Übermenschen. This would effectively nullify hope as a force of its own. . . . At the same time, however . . . he hopes that his preferred prescription for the human future can be brought about” (Mittleman 2009, 113). Accordingly, if his considerations are treated at all, Nietzsche is either cast as a naïve critic of hope (e.g., Neiman 2015) or as advancing one of the least compelling accounts of hope available (Mittleman 2009). Neither of these views, however, is quite right. For reasons that I will make clearer in what follows such reconstructions respectively represent “a presumption and an overvaluation” (HH 443). Nietzsche is not opposed to hope, per se. Rather, he opposes the mode of hope that has been put to work in the service of the ascetic ideal (c.f. Strong 1988, 99). Such an ideal maintains that “life counts as a bridge to that other mode of existence” (GM III 11) and that the meaning of human existence is to be found in “all those aspirations to the beyond” (GM II 24). According to Nietzsche, the ascetic ideal derives its tremendous power by providing a solution to the problem of the meaninglessness of human suffering. The explanation of suffering it offers, Nietzsche contends, is “so universal that all the other interests of human existence seem, when compared with it, petty and narrow” (GM III 23). Life is juxtaposed “(along with what pertains to it: ‘nature,’ ‘world,’ the whole sphere of becoming and transitoriness) with a quite different mode of existence which it opposes” (GM III 11). And, through such a comparison “life,” as well as the corollary concepts, “nature,” and “world,” are treated as “a wrong road” or “as a mistake” (GM III 11). Indeed, it is through the ascetic ideal, Nietzsche argues, “suffering was interpreted; the tremendous void seemed to have been filled; the door was closed to any kind of suicidal nihilism” (GM III 28). So, what is the role “hope” plays in such a worldview? One answer that suggests itself is taken from The Anti-Christ where Nietzsche writes: “Strong hope is a much greater stimulus to life than any piece of individual happiness that actually falls our way. Suffering people need to be sustained by a hope that cannot be refuted by any reality,—that is not removed by any fulfillment: hope for a beyond” (AC 23). To tease out Nietzsche’s worry about this mode of hope we would do well to note that the “goal of the ascetic ideal is the denial of the tragic character of human existence, the refusal of chance and necessity—and this hatred of fate, Nietzsche contends, is a denial of life itself” (Owen 1999, 170). So hope, when used in the service of the ascetic ideal, put to use as an “antidote to . . . weariness bordering on despair” (D 71). That is, “hope for a beyond” sets up a transcendent goal “not removed by an fulfillment,” which rules out the possibility of tragedy (AC 23). At least part of Nietzsche’s critique of the ascetic ideal is that it denies its own perspectival nature

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and in so doing maintains that there is only one possible goal of human existence, which rests on “all those aspirations to the beyond” (GM II 24). I said a moment ago, however, that interpretations which views Nietzsche as simply a critic of hope rest on “a presumption” (HH 443) and I want to now explain why this is the case. Such interpretations, it is worth recalling, maintain that for Nietzsche: “Hope itself must be combated, since hope for something better condemns whatever there is”(Neiman 2015, 307). At a trivial level, like the concept of good, which Nietzsche maintains can be viewed as changeable over time as it serves different systems of purposes (cf. BGE 186; GM I 2–7), the concept of hope has arguably been made to serve certain interests, notably in this case the ascetic ideal. But that our concepts are malleable over time does not fully explain Nietzsche’s objection to a certain form of hope. Rather Nietzsche’s central worry appears to be this certain mode of hope denies the tragic nature of existence. Hence Nietzsche is not an opponent of hope simpliciter as this would presume, that our concepts are immutable and that they do not serve certain interests. Rather, if the argument I have been advancing is plausible, Nietzsche opposes a certain form of hope, namely that which serves the ascetic ideal. As I noted at the start of this section, it is possible to read Nietzsche’s views on hope as paradoxical. Indeed Alan Mittleman has said as much: “Nietzsche’s teaching on hope is paradoxical” (Mittleman 2009, 113). On this construction, Nietzsche appears to be enemy of hope, par excellence, as hope is, in a passage already cited “blind and deceitful,” and, yet, at the same time, Nietzsche seems to harbor hopes for the future (D 38). Hence, it has been maintained, Nietzsche’s views on hope appear to be “threated by self-contradiction” (Mittleman 2009, 113). But if we read Nietzsche another way, indeed, perhaps, a more plausible way, we would see both the paradox and a more interesting account of hope. The paradox dissolves if we maintain that Nietzsche is opposed to a certain mode of hope, and not hope qua hope. Hence, if we think that Nietzsche’s critique of hope is limited to the form that serves the ascetic ideal, then the paradox is dissolved, as it only arises if Nietzsche is opposed to all hoping. This seems plausible. But what does it show? It may show us that a certain interpretation of Nietzsche’s view on hope is, at best, misguided. It may also open up a space to inquire into Nietzsche’s positive conception of hope, as it were—what Nietzsche envisages in those moments he appears to be hopeful about the future. If what I have said so far is reasonable, then we know that Nietzsche’s favored conception of hope will take, as something of a prerequisite, the tragic dimensions of human existence. And those dimensions are key. So, by comparison, for the kind of hope that serves the ascetic ideal, one of the key features is an identifiable end—the goal set up which is “so universal that all the other interests of human existence seem, when compared with it, petty and narrow” (GM III 23). Hope, here, therefore fore-

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closes the tragic and chance elements of human existence. By contrast, hope that does not serve the ascetic ideal will open up space for the tragic and involve a mode of striving without a specific end. Though Nietzsche does not offer a great deal of guidance in this regard, he does gesture toward such a view in The Gay Science when he tells us of “the hope for health” (GS 382; cf. GS Preface). What does such a hope entail? It is hope for a health “that one does not merely have but also acquires continually, and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up” (GS 382). This mode of hope then is not hedged by “a horizon of desirability” but rather open to the contingency of, in this case, human health (GS 373). But to leave our reconstruction here would be insufficient for there is another feature of Nietzsche’s account that is worth discussing. To shape this attribute, let us consider another remark from The Gay Science: “What makes one heroic?—Going out to meet at the same time one’s highest suffering and one’s highest hope” (GS 268). The heroic links hope with suffering and not with its abolition. Or, to put it differently, to the extent that the “enhancement of men” is possible, “the discipline of suffering, of great suffering” appears to be present (BGE 225, cf. GS 338). Taken together Nietzsche’s account of hope has the following contours: first, it is grounded in the tragic dimensions of human existence, which in turn brings us to the second point, namely that hope is linked with the human suffering and not its abolishment. From such an analysis we might conclude that neither of the interpretations discussed in this section get Nietzsche quite right: Nietzsche is neither a simple enemy of hope, nor does he offer an account of hope that is irreparably self-contradictory. Indeed, to claim the latter is something of an overvaluation. Here is why: it is imbued with an inadequate accounting of the nuance of Nietzsche’s views on hope and, as such, misconstrues Nietzsche’s views as one of least plausible in the literature. Let us suppose for a moment that the picture of hope, at least as it manifests in the work of Nietzsche, I have been advancing is the right one. Indeed, let us suppose that Nietzsche’s views on hope are at once nuanced and free from self-contradiction, what might we make use of them? How might hope serve life and not the ascetic ideal? My answer may be surprising. But here it is plainly: it gets us clearer about historiography—particularly how not to write it. OF HOPE AND A PROVIDENTIAL ORDER When thinking of the relation between hope and history, it may be tempting to ground hope in progressive redemption, in something like a providential order, in history taken as a totality. Put another way, the specific end of history—be it the rational necessity of “the logical or the ‘idea’”

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(HL 105) or “by worshiping in every force the force itself” (HL 105)—is taken as the “necessary result of [some] world-process” (HL 104). So understood the seeming “wreckage” of history is rendered instrumentally valuable, as those moments serve to constitute the movement of history and drive it toward its end (Benjamin 2007, 258). Without such an interpretive framework, one might be “troubled by the presentiment that their life is an injustice, since there will be no future life to justify it” (HL 104). Hope, on this account, is arguably found at the culmination of this historical process and, provided that end has not yet been realized, may be reliably said to justify our hoping. One way that this brand of historicism, arguably the Hegelian view of universal history that aroused Nietzsche’s ire in second of his Untimely Meditations, has been undermined is by noting that the formulation of hope that it proffers is mistaken: “One doesn’t hope for something one knows will happen anyway. To be hopeful is to have a more modest, and we are all inclined to say more realistic, relation to a desired future than historicism allows. Hope is attuned to the ineradicable contingency of human affairs” (Smith 2005, 53). But why is this an objection to a kind of historical determinism? The point, I take it, is that it presents a wrongheaded view of hope, of history, and of their relation: history is not, as it were, on an “unalterable, if zigzag course to human perfection”; hope is only present when the hoper does not know if their “ideal will come to pass” (Smith 2005, 53); hence one cannot cogently hope for that which is pre-determined—the great “terminus of the world-process” (HL 104). This seems right. But, in addition to this worry, Nietzsche has a subtler, and I think more interesting set of worries about this understanding of history. The problem with this account isn’t just that it presents a wrongheaded view of hope, though it, of course, does. Rather—and this is Nietzsche’s point—this form of historicism lacks a certain explanatory power when it comes to our, well, grimmer moments: I believe there has been no dangerous vacillation or crisis of German culture this century that has not been rendered more dangerous by the enormous and still continuing influence of this philosophy, the Hegelian. The belief that one is a latecomer of the age is, in any case, paralyzing and depressing: but it must appear dreadful and devastating when such a belief one day by a bold inversion raises this latecomer to godhead as the true meaning and goal of all events, when his miserable condition is equated with a completion of world-history. (HL 104)

We may well wonder whether universal history may lead “from savagery to humanitarianism,” but let us suppose that it does (Adorno 2006, 320). And let us suppose, again that one is alive during the completion of world history—an assumption, incidentally that Nietzsche indeed attributes to Hegel: “the climax and terminus of the world-process coincided

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with his time in Berlin” (HL 104). Of what use then is the progressive account of history to us as we attempt to find hope in history? Nietzsche’s answer, evidently enough, is that to the extent that it offers an explanation that rationalization is at once “paralyzing and depressing”— our “miserable condition is equated with a completion of world history” (HL 104)—as the meaning of future action is foreclosed, for the “true meaning and goal of all events” has been realized (HL 104). But I take it that, in Nietzsche’s view, this mode of historicism is also mistaken in its attempts to discern a providential order because this serves to at once falsify the “stupid” reality of the past (HL 106) and, as such, support the ascetic ideal. To tease out the ramifications of such an objection we might do well to highlight the following: Morality is offended, for example, by the fact that a Raphael had to die at thirty-six: such a being ought not die. If, in the face of this, you wanted to come to the aid of history as apologist of the factual, you would say: he had expressed everything that was in him, had he lived longer he would have produced only repetition of the beauty he had created already, and so forth. In that way you become Devil’s advocates: you make success, the factual, into your idol, while in reality the factual is always stupid and has at all times resembled a calf rather than a god. (HL 106)

The providential formulation of history requires a varnished-on rationalization of an event that runs counter to received morality—in this case, notably, that Raphael had to die young because he had “expressed everything that was in him” (HL 106). This serves to falsify the accidental, or if you like “stupid,” reality of the past (HL 106). It also serves to elevate the end of history into something of a god: “If every success is a rational necessity, if every action a victory of the logical or the ‘idea’—then down on your knees quickly and do reverence to the whole stepladder of ‘success’!” (HL 105). Even if the notion that there is a “power in history” which drives historical movement is rendered problematic we might be tempted to nevertheless read into our own lives an attenuated version of this progressive story. That is, even if history qua history is not rendered meaningful in terms of some overarching progressive narrative perhaps our own lives enjoy a neat structure that may serve to justify and render meaningful the less desirable moments we have experienced. Indeed, such a justification is tempting. But, it is here, that Nietzsche maintains, we must pass our hardest test: Personal providence.—There is a certain high point in life: once we have reached that, we are, for all our freedom, once more in the greatest danger of spiritual unfreedom, and no matter how much we have faced up to the beautiful chaos of existence and denied it all providential reason and goodness, we still have to pass our hardest test. For it is

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only now that the idea of a personal providence confronts us with the most penetrating force, and the best advocate, the evidence of our eyes, speaks for it—now that we can see how palpably always everything that happens to us turns out for the best. Every day and every hour, life seems to have no other wish than to prove this proposition again and again. Whatever it is, bad weather or food, the loss of a friend, sickness, slander, the failure of some letter to arrive, the spraining of an ankle, a glance into a shop, a counter-argument, the opening of a book, a dream, a fraud—either immediately or very soon after it proves to be something that “must not be missing”; it has a profound significance precisely for us. (GS 277)

From this passage some have been tempted to conclude that Nietzsche is advocating a mode of personal providence (c.f. Young 2004). Rather, Nietzsche is concerned to show: “that the accidental reality of the past is falsified by this kind of providential interpretation” (Loeb 2008, 178). This point is brought into sharp relief if we note the way in which Nietzsche concludes the passage: Nor should we conceive too high an opinion of this dexterity of our wisdom when at times we are excessively surprised by the wonderful harmony created by the playing of our instrument—a harmony that sounds too good for us to dare to give the credit to ourselves. Indeed, now and then someone plays with us—good old chance; now and then chance guides our hand, and the wisest providence could not think up a more beautiful music than that which our foolish hand produces then. (GS 277)

We may be tempted to construct a redemptive script by which a particularly undesirable event is rendered meaningful, or perhaps justified, in terms of one’s present state. Rather, and this is Nietzsche’s point, in importing our own practical and theoretical skills we must not sideline accidents, of both the happy and dreadful kind: “the beautiful chaos of existence” (GS 277). Nietzsche is concerned to show in this passage that our lives do not enjoy a personal providence and as such our interpretation should make more of “good old chance” (GS 277). OF HOPE AND HISTORY: CONCLUSION By way of conclusion three points are worth highlighting: first, hope, on the account charted in this chapter, is open-ended, creative, and linked with suffering and not its abolition (e.g., GS 268; GS 373; GS 382). So too, and this is the second point, is history. Put another way, if history does not have a monolithic goal, an end it will necessarily meet, then the progressive account of the historical undervalues the role of “good old chance” and cannot see “the beautiful chaos of existence”(GS 277). Hence, if the arguments of this chapter have been compelling then teleo-

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logical versions fail to properly take into account the nature of history. And, this brings us to our third point: a proper understanding of hope and of history makes evident our need for an alternative mode of historiography, a form in which our “hidden histories” may be brought to light (GS 34). And here, perhaps, the epigraph with which we started may be instructive: we are in need of a mode of historiography that allows the space for “a thousand secrets of the past to crawl out of their hiding places—into [our] sunshine!” (GS 34). The contours of this mode of historiography will have to be the subject of other work, but I have been able to show that Nietzsche has a plausible account of hope, and has weakened the grip that the progressive account of history has upon us, then perhaps we are already well on our way to shaping that alternative mode of historiography. NOTES 1. “Historia abscondita” from THE GAY SCIENCE by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Walter Kaufmann, copyright © 1974 Penguin Random House LLC. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. 2. Arguably the viewpoint that is advanced by Adorno and Benjamin are minority positions and much of current historical practice is still Whiggish and concerned with notions of liberal progress. If that is the case, then the arguments of this chapter, if compelling, may also extend to include these narratives of progress too, as say, exemplified in the work of Hayden White’s ironic form of history. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for bringing this to my attention. 3. All of Nietzsche’s works are referred to by section number and, where applicable, essay number, or title, as well. So, for example, The Gay Science section 125 will be cited as (GS 125), while On the Genealogy of Morals, Essay III, section 27 will be cited as (GM III 27) and part 9 of the section of Twilight of the Idols entitled “Expeditions of an Untimely Man” will be cited as (TI “Expeditions” 9). I follow the standardized textual abbreviations for citations, which are as follows: BGE Beyond Good and Evil; D Daybreak; GM On the Genealogy of Morality; GS The Gay Science; HH Human, All Too Human; TI Twilight of the Idols.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adorno, Theodor (2006) History and Freedom: Lectures 1964–65. Edited by Rolf Tiedemann, trans. Rodney Livingston. Cambridge: Polity Press. Andre, Judith (2013) “Open Hope as a Civic Virtue: Ernst Bloch and Lord Buddha.” Social Philosophy Today 29: 89–100. Benjamin, Walter (2007) Illuminations: Essays and Reflections. Translated by Harry Zohn. New York: Schocken Books. Bovens, Luc (1999) “The Value of Hope.” Philosophical Phenomenology Research 59(3) 667–83. Lazarus, Richard (1999) “Hope: an Emotion and a Vital Coping Resource Against Despair.” Social Research 66:2, 653–78. Lear, Jonathan (2006) Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Loeb, Paul (2008) “Suicide, Meaning, and Redemption.” In Nietzsche on Time and History, edited by Manuel Dries, 161–88. Berlin: de Gruyter. Mittleman, Alan (2009) Hope in a Democratic Age: Philosophy, Religion, and Political Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1974) The Gay Science. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. ——— (1986) Human, All Too Human. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (1989) Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. ——— (1989) On the Genealogy of Morals and Ecce Homo. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books. ——— (1990) Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. London: Penguin Books. ——— (1997) Daybreak. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ——— (1997) Untimely Meditations. Translated by R.J. Hollingdale. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Neiman, Susan (2015) Evil in Modern Thought: An Alternative History of Philosophy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Owen, David (1999), “Science, Value, and the Acetic Ideal.” In Nietzsche, Epistemology, and Philosophy of Science: Nietzsche and the Sciences II, edited by Babette Babich Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 169–78. van Hooft, Stan (2014) Hope. New York: Routledge. Smith, Nicholas H. (2005) “Hope and Critical Theory.” Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy and Social Theory (6): 45–61. Strong, Tracy (1988) Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. White, Hayden (2014) Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in 19th Century Europe. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Young, Julian (2004) The Death of God and the Meaning of Life. New York: Routledge.

SIX Cultivating Hope in Feminist Praxis Rochelle M. Green

Imagine a young woman, B., struggling to make ends meet working a factory job in a small town in the United States. She wakes up before dawn every morning to a full day of demands, stresses, and obligations. B. is a single mother to a two-year-old daughter. The burdens she shoulders pale in comparison to the trauma and abuse inflicted upon her week after week. B. is the target of frequent and repeated acts of sexual assault and harassment by several of her co-workers. She worries that reporting the abuse will result in losing her job, or more severe assaults. One evening, after putting her child to sleep, finishing up the washing, and preparing for the next day, she drifts to sleep on the couch in front of the TV. With a sudden jolt, she is jarred awake by the news. She sits straight up and her thoughts begin to race. Harvey Weinstein was arrested and charged with sexual assault. B. stares blankly at the screen. She thinks to herself: “Maybe now things will begin to change.” Alternating feelings of hope, relief, and shock fill her. B.’s experience was not particularly unusual. We have been witnessing the slow churn of a sea change with regard to feminist politics, and progressive politics more generally. This sea change, it seems, has the potential to continue to empower as more time passes and more people facing oppression speak out. Arguably, these empowering and hopeful changes can be traced back prior to the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Nonetheless, that particular event seemed a poignant rallying point for many concerned with a whole host of concerns including misogyny and racism. The question remains, however, what were the factors that helped facilitate this change of political consciousness in the United States? Looking specifically at feminist political concerns, responses like 111

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B.’s were not uncommon at the news that Harvey Weinstein was going to be made to account for his behavior. Many people found much relief in the courage and the tenacity of women to continue to speak truth to the powerful privilege and silencing techniques leveled by Weinstein against them. Even so, it is curious that this type of outcry occurred when it did and it may be instructive to consider that question as a means of inquiring into the nature and process of political hoping. Still more, after the 2016 election, the United States saw the biggest peaceful protest in its history: The Women’s March. The day after the inauguration of the 45th President of the United States, people took to the streets in multiple large cities across the United States and across the globe. These protests, which were held and organized under the banner of ostensibly feminist and intersectional political agendas, provided a ray of hope within an otherwise grey and dull political backdrop. While there can be no doubt that there are multiple factors contributing to this change, this chapter seeks to address one in particular: the role of previous public political outcries and discourses in promoting hope for specifically feminist and intersectional concerns. From within the experiences of public political dialog, often through the platform of social media, we can begin to glimpse the constellation of political hope that engenders continuing political action and efficacy. This chapter is an attempt to think through this process in order to glean a sense of how hope is constructed in practice as a motor of resistance and of overcoming. Undoubtedly, one of the problems in contemporary political landscapes can be described as a general apathy, or a hopeless feeling that actions will not yield gains. Even with the successes of the Women’s March, one can still hear the faint murmur of a very real concern: can this level of political vigilance and engagement be maintained? Will people begin to become wary of the rapidity and constancy of the assaults on basic human rights? Cornel West, ever concerned with hope, suggested that, “we must delve into the depths where neither liberals nor conservatives dare to tread, namely, into the murky waters of despair and dread that now flood the streets of black America” (West 1993, 12). West’s claim has resonance with any number of political movements concerned with intersectional modes of oppression, not just racism. What his work helps to make clearer is that in order to really understand hope, it is necessary to examine despair. In our present context, this requires of us to think through the ways in which despair can and often does seep into the political fabric. And this requires of us both courage and sensitivity to the nuanced ways hopelessness and apathy can be expressed. Indeed, there are profound reasons to despair: poverty in the United States is a considerable problem despite the overall wealth of the nation, student debt is wrecking havoc on new college graduates, gun violence and mass shootings are epidemic, etc. The list can feel inexhaustible.

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Focusing specifically on political concerns regarding sexual assault, sexual harassment, and rape, the hard, cold statistics confronting people are dizzying. 1 How can we begin to theorize the seemingly inevitable feelings of hopelessness in the face of the daunting data indicating the scope, prevalence, and dire effects of sexual violence? Furthermore, how can we begin to create and sustain more hope in light of this information? How can we begin to understand the ways in which hope was mobilized in late 2016 and early 2017? And finally, how can we empower people to act in spite of these perceptions that nothing can or will fix such overwhelming systematic problems? 2 As a contribution to an emerging discussion regarding philosophical hope in social and political contexts, this chapter is an attempt to address such questions by appealing to the philosophies of hope developed by Gabriel Marcel and Ernst Bloch. 3 Looking at the Isla Vista massacre that took place in 2014, prior to the shift in political activism in the United States, I seek to begin to consider mechanisms that may have directly contributed to the steady accumulation of hopefulness. I describe two trajectories of hope that are essential if we are to realize the possibility of effective political action. First, a theory of hope must overcome tendencies to obfuscate differences by appealing to singular identity claims in an attempt to create solidarity. Solidarity, rather, must be built around a common, living, dynamic center of meaning and creativity. Secondly, a feminist politics of hope must also overcome alienation across and between generations. Creating bridges of continuity between and among struggles of differing historical locations and differing generational matrices provides a context of belonging and heritage that can ground the precariousness of hopeful politics. Though both Bloch and Marcel share concerns about the instrumentalizing tendencies of contemporary society, aspects of Marcel’s work on experiences of “availability” and intersubjectivity lend themselves particularly well to this effort. Furthermore, Bloch’s temporal metaphysics provides a sustained exploration of the role of history in the formation of a hopeful future. Thus, Marcel’s work on hope helps to establish a philosophical basis for answering the first concern above. Looking at his treatment of availability and of intersubjectivity helps to generate a theoretical basis for hope from which differences can be celebrated rather than denigrated, explored and honored rather than obfuscated and denied. Bloch’s work enables us to consider the ways in which history can be drafted in the service of creating a hopeful future. It helps us to appreciate the ways in which we can theoretically establish a basis for understanding the importance of inter-generational activism, the meaning and potential of historical sensitivity, and the role of struggle passed down through successive periods of oppression. Incorporating these aspects of Marcel’s and of Bloch’s respective work leads to a hybrid theory of political hope, which, I shall argue, can be responsive to the concerns of feminist, inter-

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sectional political struggles. Using the case of the public outcry at the attack in Isla Vista, California, in 2014 as a case study I further examine the ways in which solidarity and hope began to expand in what may be considered one of the stepping stones leading to some of the mass demonstrations and sensitivity to sexual assault and harassment in 2017. A CONTEXT FOR HOPE On May 23, 2014, Isla Vista, California, was the scene of a mass-shooting spree. The shooter, Elliot Rodger, opened fire on students in the small town just outside Santa Barbara known for being the location of many of the sororities and fraternaties associated with the University of California, Santa Barbara. Elliot Rodger, himself a student at Santa Barbara City College specifically identified women as the target of his mass killing. In a number of social media outlets, Rodger articulated his hatred of women, his violent impulses, and his ever-present, self-described entitlement. In response to the shooting, #YesAllMen began to trend on Twitter and with it scores of people insisting that not all men were like Rodger. 4 These claims of exception and distancing from Rodger’s misogynistic behavior were intermittently punctuated by other tweets of thinly veiled sexist comments, seemingly contesting the idea that there was anything wrong with Rodger’s feelings of entitlement to the women upon whom he sought to impose himself. After seeing those tweets trending, @gildedspine began to tweet #YesAllWomen, insisting that though all men may not be perpetrators, nearly all women could relate to stories of being abused, harassed, and oppressed. As a result, #YesAllWomen quickly began to trend with well over 700,000 tweets of support in just a single day. 5 Within four days, the hash-tag was tweeted 1.2 million times. 6 People, some explicitly feminists, others not, shared stories and experiences of sexual violence, of sexual harassment, and of misogyny. People from a number of different political backgrounds and inclinations joined the discussion, identifying themselves and discussing their differences. Women voiced fears of speaking out about the constant barrage of insults and degradations they experienced simply by being identified as women. Men spoke out in support of those women, admonishing other men for tweeting sexist insults, sexual innuendos, and other similar forms of disparaging messages. People pleaded with others to stop continuing the sexism and to listen. Even more so, many participated in the discussion, irrespective of gender identity, indicated the dire necessity for an outlet like #YesAllWomen. They decried the lack of meaningful public and political dialog on issues of misogyny and violence. The deluge of outrage articulated on #YesAllWomen demonstrated a movement out of despair and into hope (Weiss 2014).

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The fear and despair expressed on Twitter was not that of an altogether disempowered group, which is important to recognize in this context. This example does not give us insight into the process of generating hope from complete disillusionment. It does, however, indicate a process by and through which people who are struggling to raise an issue, to bring it to light, and to help generate increased interest and engagement move into a more hopeful practice. Those that spoke out on Twitter in 2014 were largely people who felt weary and exhausted by constant vigilance against oppression. It seemed many were tired of having to regularly defend themselves against daily catcalls, unfair working environments, and blatant sexual violence. Perhaps one of the more mystifying aspects involved in theorizing moments or potential sites of hope like #YesAllWomen is that the public discourse exemplified speaks of resistance to an oppression, while at the same time indicating a frustration and a despair at the need for a discursive space to express that resistance. Without some type of forum for this communication, it seems hope and mobilization, feelings of solidarity and community wither. Without overstating the centrality of social media as the motor of this political expression, such a profound moment demonstrates the intimate connection between hope and despair. Hope requires that the tendency to despair be present lest hope be an empty and meaningless expression. The tendency to despair adds gravitas to hope. 7 In what follows, I will examine two key trajectories of hope within political contexts. These features help to elucidate not only some of what may have occurred leading up to the progressive shifts in public condemnation of sexual harassment in 2017 and 2018, but may also help to formulate an understanding of hope that can continue to elucidate strategies for overcoming apathy in regard to emancipatory and grass-roots movements. Further, this view of hope is capable of sustaining action and political commitment in the absence of such extreme, and unfortunately, rallying events like those that took place in Isla Vista. RELATING TO THE OTHER: EXISTENTIALLY MEANINGFUL HOPE I now turn to several elements of Gabriel Marcel’s work on the phenomenology of hope in order to establish key dimensions necessary for political hoping. Though I am not aiming to reproduce a strictly Marcelian conception of hope here, it is my goal to borrow from Marcel’s philosophy elements that can be used to build a feminist theory of political hope. Marcel’s disavowal of philosophizing from abstraction and his insistence on concrete situations, in addition to his concepts of intersubjectivity, relationality, and availability render his work uniquely ripe for feminist projects. Further, Marcel’s conception of the mystery of being as a con-

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cept closely associated with the mystery of hope is used to predicate a possibility for a self-understanding that defies the imperial, patriarchal attempts to sediment and root identity in fixed, functionalizing terms. In the example of the Isla Vista shooting discussed above, Rodger’s actions, as well as his statements about women, indicate he held very instrumental and functional ideas about women. Rodger seemed as if he believed women should be there merely to service him, to provide for him, and to accommodate him. His views of women were fundamentally based on relationships of exploitation. Further, Rodger had an air of self-righteousness or entitlement with regard to women clearly on display in his YouTube tirades and his recorded manifesto/confession. Marcel’s “Sketch of a Phenomenology of Hope” is a concretely formulated, existential, and relational theory of hope (Marcel 1978) and consequently, much of his work on hope is well suited for feminist and pluralistic ends. 8 Accordingly, I will sketch several of Marcel’s insights with regard to hope in an effort to begin constructing the first dimension of a specifically feminist conception of political hope. As such, I begin by elaborating differences Marcel draws between problem and mystery. This will enable us to see one of the ways in which Marcel neatly works to overcome social tendencies that degrade persons into mere functions or instruments. Next, I will discuss the ways in which Marcel uses the notion of disponsibilité or openness to the other as a means of grappling with a full expression of hope. Finally, I will discuss his notion of relationality and fidelity in order to gain an understanding of the idea of commitment and how that is necessary for sustaining hope. Once these initial contours of the Marcelian concepts are sketched, I will turn, in the following section, to the need for politically oriented hope to be situated in relation to past generations by considering Ernst Bloch’s theory of hope. Marcel’s concern with the functionalization of the contemporary person is a relevant and useful means by which to begin exploring his related and central thesis that one ought to distinguish between mysteries and problems. 9 Marcel notes that human beings reduced to instrumentalized or functionalized positions, for example a subway token operator, tend to experience the world in purely immanent terms (1956, 11). As the subway operator is treated more and more as a mere function, his humanity is denied. At first, the operator may find something lacking in this world and as a consequence he may become concerned about the state of affairs in the world around him. With enough time, however, he will start to sink into the identification imposed upon him as a mere function. Marcel describes the situation this way: “Life in a world centered on function is liable to despair because in reality this world is empty, it rings hollow” (1956, 12). That is, people who are identified in functionalized ways begin to lose their respective abilities to wonder and marvel at that which

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defies clear articulation and furthermore lose their sense of mystery and fall into a state of despair. The person who is characterized functionally and lacks this striving is someone for whom mystery no longer holds meaning. Rather, the functionalized person is plagued by what Marcel terms “problems” or the “problematical.” What he means by this is that the kinds of questions and experiences this functionalized person has can be explained away with recourse to abstract and impersonal information. A problem is something for which a resolution is salient: that which can be epistemologically objectified. We may consider the example of B. at the beginning of this essay. As we imagined her, she was a single mother, ostensibly living paycheck to paycheck, trying to make ends meet in a factory job. B., on Marcel’s account, experiences functionalization in multiple spheres: she is in the realm of the problematical economically: she has to continually strive to work out abstract equations in order to balance her finances and get by on what little she earns. She is also in the realm of the problematical with regard to her work. At a factory job, B. cannot identify with or find a sense of meaning through identification with the product of her labor. Instead, she must strive to overcome the mundane, repetitive nature of menial work. Finally, B. is also functionalized with regard to the sexual harassment she endures. Though she may not explicitly align herself with instrumentalist interpretations of what it means to be a woman, those that mistreat, assault, and harass her nonetheless repeatedly identify her in that way. Contrary to this, however, Marcel suggests human life and vitality are mysteries. Life and being are enigmatic and defy conceptual sedimentation or resolution. Mystery is exactly that which evades such epistemic consideration qua potential object of knowledge. Human life understood as an existential mystery cannot be explained away with recourse to scientific maxims, postulates, experiments, nor to explanations. In short, problems are present when the person posing the question is not obviously implicated in the answer; when the identity of the person asking the question is not relevant. When we look specifically at the sorts of political issues confronting women on a large scale, we can immediately identify a constellation of social norms undeniably imposing functional identities onto women, much like that discussed with regard to B. Here, it is not difficult to think of examples from some of the most common and pernicious stereotypes: women are naturally disposed to the sexual possession of men; women are inherently better at nurturing than men; women are reducible to their reproductive functions, and so on. Such conflations of women with that which is other than being is not a new feminist insight. Philosophers from Beauvoir to Irigaray have made plain the existential plight of women in contemporary society by making clearer its origins in the patriarchal move embedded within the history of ideas. 10 Bound up within that

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intellectual history is also the practical history of such a conflation: the practical situation faced by women like B. 11 Because this is so, Marcel’s critique of the functionalized person, along with his distinction between mystery and problem begin to shed light on an emerging feminist philosophy of political hope. Such a conception of hope must be able to maintain ways of breaking down functionalization and depersonalization in order to maintain the striving necessary for political action. If Marcel is right that such striving occurs primarily when the temptation to give in and give up is present, then a feminist conception of hope must remain vigilant against the sorts of problematizing of identities and persons that would degrade their respective strivings. As an individual is continually relegated to the appearance of an “agglomeration of functions,” the person will more and more come to understand herself as “a mere assemblage of functions” (Marcel 1956, 10). The result of this self-understanding is a denial of hope and a tendency to despair because, as Marcel demonstrates, the necessary conditions upon which hope is maintained, the mysterious and open-ended quality of being, is repressed and rendered unimportant by the subject. Being is what cannot be taken away from a person, at least not without taking the person’s life. Being is synonymous with vitality and is, as such, the basis of hope. The instrumentalization of a human being and the reduction of vitality to function is a social process that degrades the potential for hope. It may be useful to note that for Marcel human being is fundamentally relational. As he points out in Homo Viator, the most fundamental expression of hope is “I hope in thee for us” (Marcel 1978, 60). Consequently, Marcel believes hope must be fundamentally relational as well. Hope, on this account, is a way of approaching being and living that invites continued community rather than mere isolation and functionalization. Hope is a practice of living that is founded in relationships among and between people (Marcel 1978). Marcel’s term, disponibilité, often translated as availability, is central to his understanding of both intersubejctivity and hope. Disponibilité is contrasted with indisponibilité and refers to a person’s ability to remain open and available to those around her (Marcel 2002). Indisponibilité occurs within the context of alienation and refers to a person’s inability to be fully open and available to another. This inability can become manifest through the same process of functionalization described above. Thus, the person who is wholly identified with function and purpose, and is further within the realm of only the problematic, will be less likely to be open or disposed toward another. Rather, the functionalized person will likely shortcut this aspect of intersubjective relating, and will try to maintain individualized and atomized social experiences. As such, the functionalized person will really only experience other people in “fragments” and will not necessarily be able to admit the interdependence she has with others in her social environment. Thus, disponsibilité is not only

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openness and availability to others, it is also recognition of the clear interdependence we all have with one another (Marcel 2002). In Marcel’s words: It will perhaps be made clearer if I say the person who is at my disposal is the one who is capable of being with me with the whole of himself when I am in need; while the one who is not at my disposal seems merely to offer me a temporary loan raised on his resources. For the one I am a presence; for the other I am an object. (1995, 40)

While the conception of disponsibilité is merely a theoretical articulation of what is experienced when love, hope, and trust are genuinely present, it is clear to see how it is a concept at the heart of intersubjectivity and as such is central to a viable conception of political hope. In order for a political movement to maintain its solidarity across differences and to maintain its cohesion without utter assimilation of group members, something like disponsibilité is necessary. The final aspect of Marcel’s work necessary for a viable conception of political hope concerns his notion of creative fidelity. Marcel recognized a difficulty in remaining disponibilité over a period of time. How can someone remain open and vulnerable in the way required by disponsibilté? Marcel’s response is largely indebted to his study of the philosophy of Josiah Royce and concerns a conception of loyalty or fidelity. 12 Marcel uses the idea of creativity to respond to this question. In short, he suggests that when we render ourselves open and available to an other, we do so in a spirit of commitment and in a spirit of faith or belief in the other. And though when I initially put myself in the service of another, “I grant in principle that the commitment will not again be put into question,” I can similarly always cast doubt on my action (Marcel 2002). I can call into question whether or not this commitment ought to be maintained. For Marcel, fidelity in the truest sense of the term creates or works with the self in an effort to continually affirm the commitment made in disponsibilité. So, despite the trials and tribulations we may face remaining steadfast in our loyalties to a person or to a cause, the more creative my fidelity is, the more I am capable of refashioning my sense of self so as to continue to maintain that loyalty. Fidelity cannot be something static and fixed, but must continually construct itself in order to remain constant and thus creative. Finally, in order for this fidelity to have strength to continually restore itself and re-affirm itself, the person must exist within a context of hope. That is, hope here becomes the wellspring from which the ability to be flexible and maintain one’s commitments in the face of oppression or adversity comes. A commitment to a cause, particularly one that may be degraded by functionalizing tendencies or what Marcel elsewhere referred to as “techniques of degradation,” is enabled through hope (Marcel 1967).

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Hope then is a striving toward something without a specific end. Hoping to win the lottery, for example, then, would not qualify as a genuine hope on this account. Thus, to hope on these grounds is quite similar to a striving toward that which I cannot readily see or make out. It is not reliant upon the satisfactory completion of a task, nor is it conditioned upon a simplistically characterized final end. Both these points are important for the cultivation of a feminist theory of political hope. In particular, the idea that hope does not have to be aimed at something specific, like a target, means that feminist political praxis can be geared toward the alleviation of oppression without necessarily knowing what society looks like post-oppression. It further allows the space for multiple visions and strategies of overcoming to emerge within feminist discourse and practice. These Marcelian concepts allow hope to emerge without having to be tethered to specific means-ends formulations, that again, on Marcel’s own grounds, would likely result in greater alienation and fragmentation, and less disponsibilité. The consequence of this is that a theory of hope amenable to feminist praxis must include a conception of mystery to allow for striving without specific teleological conceptions of progress, a conception of intersubjectivity and relationality, and finally, must also include an articulation of fidelity over time. Having established these concepts in light of Marcel’s thought, I will now turn to a discussion of Bloch’s formulation of utopian consciousness and ways in which a viable formulation of political hope must include a consideration of the hopeful insights of past generations. IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS’ UTOPIAS: A POLITICALLY EFFICACIOUS USE OF HISTORY The second theoretical perspective necessary to ground a hopeful feminist political praxis concerns the ability for feminist activists and theorists to forge meaningful connections with previous generations through history. This insight is derived from Ernst Bloch’s discussion of history and utopian consciousness in his magnum opus, The Principle of Hope. Bloch’s insight can be seen as responsive to the needs of feminist political praxis, particularly in terms of maintaining generational connections despite differences. Thus, the Blochian insight relevant for feminist practice involves how we relate to history and how we strategize means of overcoming alienation between generations. To make this clearer, I will first elaborate Bloch’s conception of the “hermeneutic of longing” which makes plain our contemporary need to look toward the past for political insight. Next I will explore how two differing types of memory, anamnesis and anagnorisis, facilitate the hermeneutic of longing. This prepares the way for a discussion of concrete and abstract utopias, two of the key

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concepts Bloch uses to serve as regulative principles on the range of realizable possibilities located within the past. Like Marcel, Bloch maintains a philosophical picture of hope that involves an ability to remain open to others, while avoiding tendencies to instrumentalize and exploit, which in Bloch’s analysis are endemic to the logic of capitalism (Bloch 1996). In Bloch’s formulation, however, our receptivity is rooted in our fundamental relationship to the past as well as to an unalienated social experience of the present. Bloch identifies hope as a response to learned experiences of fear and anxiety. These experiences are not a priori existential dispositions, but rather are conditioned by social contexts, which are constructed, in part, through historical processes. Thus, investigating and extrapolating the traces of hopeful yearnings within the cultural artifacts of previous generations can help us to understand possibilities in our present context. As such, hope in political struggle, relies on consciousness raising in the present as well as an ability to perceive in the cultural productions, texts, narratives, and artifacts of the past, elements of future-wishes projected onto what was at the time of their respective creations, the future. Additionally, we are able to pick up on these insights because, as Bloch stipulates, the world is in a continual process of becoming and reality is bound up with not only what is, but also with what is becoming and, importantly, what may possibly become. The emancipatory potential of what has not yet been realized to come to “The Front,” or the foreground of social consciousness, requires a specific way of relating to and willingness to creatively confront historical attempts to achieve a better future (Bloch 1996, 7). Bloch remains sensitive to the potential for a multiplicity of such creative readings as well as to a multiplicity of the utopian dimensions held within past cultural artifacts and histories. Thus, Bloch allows for a bridge between the individual and her social and historical situation by relegating to her this hermeneutical responsibility. Nonetheless, Bloch’s insight that cultural productions contain within them the hopes and dreams for a better future of the people that created those productions is worth noting. As such, we can see in the projects of generations past a kind of openness to a future potential that may not have, as yet, come to fruition. In this sense, the aspirations of the past remain present now, provided we are able to find their traces. Knowledge, and specifically knowledge of the past, is expressed by what Bloch describes as “the hermeneutic of longing.” This is an interpretative disposition concerning expressions of striving for what is better: a life without violence and subjugation; a life full of being rather than mere having; a life of freedom, and so on. It recognizes our potential to move toward a positive future possibility. Despite Bloch’s invitation for individual subjects to engage in this hermeneutic of longing directed toward the past, he is explicit that this is not an invitation to allow careless desires, whims, or fancy to assert pri-

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macy over critical political engagement with the present. One cannot simply make up aspects of history, nor can one merely assert fantastical whims on lived concrete experiences. Within the context of feminist political praxis, women’s history, post-colonial and ethnic studies, ability studies, and gay histories begin to have relevance not simply as competitors vying for representation within academic curricula or canonical status, but as ways of allowing a constructive confrontation with the emancipatory hopes and dreams of past generations. 13 Further, despite the various contemporary critiques available of past political strategies, however valid, a hopeful engagement with feminist history enables current political agents to find in the activities of generations past real dreams for a better future. With the content of those aspirations, current activists can orient their own political actions to maintain continuity and connection with the past. Thus, the Blochian invitation to connect with the utopian aspirations of previous generations acts as a palliative measure against the instrumentalizing tendencies of current patriarchal modes of relating which often relegate the legacies of feminist activists to footnotes or margins at best. As Bloch works to clarify the relationship between the present and the identification of hope content in the past, he discusses two different types of memory. These forms of memory work in addition to and alongside the hermeneutic of longing. One type, anamnesis, is the traditional conception of memory associated with reconstitution. The second, anagnorisis, is a type of memory intimately bound up with a process of recognition. Bloch criticizes the first type of memory as not only dominating the history of philosophy, but also of generating a relationship between the present and the past that is largely stagnating. Anagnorisis, on the other hand, is a form of remembering that Bloch sees as leaving open future possibilities because it is more than a reconstituting of what came before, it is a recollecting such that the utopian content is preserved and the possibility of exploring the content remains open to the future. Importantly, this ability to recollect such content is based in a sense of recognition, where those in the present are capable of finding affinities, similarities, and even identities between the hopeful aspirations of the past and the contemporary. As Vincent Geoghegan has pointed out: Bloch’s value lies in his attempt to reconcile the claims of the past and the future. He recognizes the importance of memory as a repository of experience and value in an inauthentic, capitalist world. His fear is, however, that it will act as a drag on progress. There has to be room for novelty if the world is to progress, and history is not to be cyclical. However, it is not a desire to have novelty for novelty’s sake, for novelty can take many disagreeable forms. The function of recognition in memory is a means of achieving this—a historicized memory guides but does not control. (1997, 22)

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Geoghegan rightly points out that the ability for recollection to involve a kind re-cognitive dimension allows people to find in the contents of the past elements still relevant and thus still operative in moving toward the future. It allows, in other words, Bloch to delineate the past dreams and hopes of previous generations as guides for future political hopes, without rendering the past determinant of the future. Bloch describes these aspects of past cultural productions as elements of utopian consciousness. This utopian element leaves traces in these products, regardless of their specific form, and as such, a perceptive mind can find these traces and see in them the potential to guide present cultural practices and productions toward a more utopian future. The problem, however, is that there are different ways of realizing the utopian. It should further be understood that in this context, Bloch utilizes the term utopia to signify a conception of the future which is in fact possible; he does not use the term to refer to the more negative concept of an unattainable ideal future state unless he qualifies his subject as “abstract utopia” (Bloch 1996; cf. Levitas 1997). Just as processes of memory were able to account for the multiple ways in which the future may or may not be foreclosed to us, abstract and concrete utopias similarly delimit potentialities for the future. Abstract utopia involves a detrimental aspect of fantasy that makes it far more amenable to wishful thinking than to sustained hope (Levitas 1997). Abstract utopia involves allowing someone an escape from their present circumstances with wishes for what can never actually become. In that way, because it does not involve the real potential for becoming, abstract utopia forecloses the future despite expressing a utopian dimension. Concrete utopia, on the other hand, is less fantastic and more realistic. In fact concrete utopia involves not only the conception of what may be possible in the future, it also involves the propensity for such becoming as well as the means to affect it (Levitas 1997, 67). Concrete utopia is closely related to hope because it has this ability. Thus, hope on Bloch’s account involves a relationship to the past signified by recollection, but also a relationship to concrete utopia in which future possibility is not only anticipated, but also created. Applied to a feminist context, a Blochian theory of hope would maintain a necessary relation between generations of feminists which further facilitate a remembering of the hopeful intentions of past political efforts, productions, and actions in an effort not only to better appreciate the construction of political struggle, but also to maintain solidarity across generations. FINDING HOPE Both Marcel and Bloch raise our awareness of two necessary dimensions of political life if we are to have hope. On the one hand, Marcelian con-

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ceptions of hope invite us to consider the ways in which hope is necessarily related to a concept of being and personhood that transcends the mere predication of functions or characteristics. When applied to political circumstances, Marcel’s consideration of hope suggests political agents will be far less inclined to experience existential hope if they experience dehumanizing oppression. Nevertheless, it is only from within these types of contexts where the tendency to despair is present that the ability to hope comes into sharp relief. Furthermore, Marcel’s conceptions of disponsibilité and creative fidelity allow for agents within oppressive structures to maintain a sense of allegiance to a cause as well as solidarity with other similarly situated people. On the other hand, Bloch’s formulations of the hermeneutic of longing, of the different forms of memory, and of the differing forms of utopia enable subjects to find themselves within a historical tradition. In so doing, agents can overcome alienation and isolation from people, even people of differing historical periods. Coupled with the Blochian insight that historical sense is integral to political hope, the Marcelian invitation to reconsider social “techniques of degradation” facilitates insights for feminist politics. Bloch’s approach to political hope requires agents to see themselves as standing in relation to previous generations of political actors and their respective hopeful dreams for the future. Accordingly, Bloch suggests concrete utopias be culled and separated from abstract utopias. Through both a hermeneutic of longing as well as through anagnorisis, a methodology capable of sustaining this charge is realized. Identifying the hopes of previous generations, along with the specific articulations, productions, and efforts embodying those hopes is an act of consciousness-raising that simultaneously erodes alienation and ideological dismissals of emancipatory political efforts. Once standing in relation to a history of struggle, it is increasingly difficult to disregard the need for struggle and also to feel utterly isolated. Bloch’s conception of hope requires political agents to find themselves rooted in a tradition of overcoming ideology and alienation. In light of the Isla Vista shooting, for example, people were mobilized to speak out, denouncing the relegation of women to the status of an object, to the pervasive stereotype of women as sexual conquests for men, and denouncing the substitution of all women for one another evidenced in Rodger’s misogynist missives. Given Marcel’s articulation of the necessary relationship between the openness of being and the ability to hope, feminist politics can remain rooted in the conviction that praxis must involve creating communities which actively transcend the given social limitations imposed on women through gender stereotyping and attempts to reduce women to basic social, reproductive, sexual, or domestic functions. Despite these reductions receiving appropriately harsh criticism from feminists for years, it is important to recognize that we must continue to return to these criticisms and invest political energies in creating social contexts in which women have the ability to overcome their

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often-internalized conceptions of themselves as essentially (and sometimes exclusively) functionally relevant. This is a political act that cuts to heart of claims women make about themselves and is a frightening enterprise in the face of widespread and mass acceptance of pernicious gender norms. One look at Twitter’s #YesAllWomen confirms the point. Entry upon entry bemoans the difficulty of simply speaking up and asserting full personhood. 14 Backlash tweets intersperse these brave declarations with attempt after attempt to continue to denigrate women as a group and feminists most particularly, for their gall in asserting that women are more than mere functions. 15 Such expressions as those courageous declarations by women articulating relief at being able to finally voice outrage at everyday experiences of dehumanization is an example of Marcel’s notion that one’s relation to the fullness of being allows hope. Each woman speaking out exercises her being, that which remains, that which withstands, despite culturally normative attempts to confine woman to a mere function, a mere instrumentalization, a mere complacent, despairing pathology alienated from others who might affirm her personhood. In order to make feminist politics efficacious, we must contend with the nihilism people confront on a daily basis. We must concern ourselves, in political praxis, with the seemingly small, yet incredibly meaningful efforts to affirm the personhood and being of each individual in everyday situations. To do so overcomes the lovelessness, the meaninglessness, and the hopelessness inspired by the functionalizing tendencies of contemporary mass culture (West 1994, 2008; Marcel 1967). As I noted at the start of this chapter, Cornel West addressed this same line of argument in Race Matters, but it is equally important to think of such a point working within the contexts of feminist politics. Perhaps incorporating a more intersectional approach to identity goes quite a long way in mitigating this concern and despair, for it is the sedimentation of identity as such that can so often lead to the kind of static conception of being Marcel warned against. Further, feminist political activists and theorists can look to Bloch’s use of history in their efforts to inspire hopeful praxis. By concerning ourselves with the additionally humanizing task of taking the struggles of the oppressed throughout history seriously, we are able to learn from their utopian aspirations, from their hopeful longings, and can use those insights to fortify and build constructive political movements leading us to the future. One may ask “What’s wrong with politics today?” One may ask, more specifically, “What’s wrong with feminist politics today?” In both cases, we can find a similar problem: hope is not thematized, nor is it a cultivated aspect of praxis. Despair is easily manipulated by social structures of oppression due to its inherent alienation and thus synergy with functionalization and instrumentalization. To overcome such despair, those interested in feminist praxis might do well to consider techniques for enabling people to see in themselves more than just a mere function or list of

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interesting predicates. Embracing techniques that instill hope across generations strengthens a movement’s persistence into the future. We may do well to remember that in light of the epidemic proportions of violence against women occurring around the world today, it is not unreasonable to claim that #YesAllWomen need hope, and yes, with it a recognition of their despair. NOTES 1. https://www.rainn.org 2. Shannon Winnubst presents this quandary in Queering Freedom: What is the only mode of hope open to us in advanced capitalism and phallicized whiteness is a strange disavowal of hope, particularly as it is tethered to discrete ends and useful goals? (Winnubst 2006, 185) While a full reply deserves much greater detail, Winnubst raises an incredibly important and timely aspect of the relationship between instrumentality and the conception of futurity. In short, her use of Bataille’s critique of utility shores up a specific way in which the projection of ourselves into the future can be co-opted and complicit with a number of regimes of oppression. Here I argue to retain a conception of hope, but include within it a critique of instrumentality as another, alternative means to answer a very similar problem. 3. Some philosophers already taking up this cause are Cornel West, Caitriona Ni Dhuill, Slavoj Zizek, and Peter Thompson, among others. Of particular interest to this project is Ni Dhuill’s excellent point made in her essay, “Engendering the Future: Bloch’s Utopian Philosophy in Dialogue with Gender Theory” that feminist projects tend to incorporate a utopian dimension, in the Blochian sense of this term. As such, most, if not all feminist discourse would incorporate a tendency toward hope. See The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia, edited by Slovoj Zizek and Peter Thompson. 4. The #YesAllWomen twitter discussion and movement becomes even more relevant in relation to the more current #MeToo movement, which has garnered international attention and notoriety. Though a comparison between the two is beyond the scope of this chapter, it seems within the purview of my arguments here that we may relate the prior event to the more lasting and effective nature of the latter. 5. May 23, 2014, 7:00pm,http://twitter.com 6. Though these are an extraordinarily small sampling, this is representative of what some people wrote using the #YesAllWomen hashtag. Examples from people in support of the public dialog include the following: @katiemccarty (Katie McCarty), “#YesAllWomen because every time a girl comes forward about harassment/abuse/rape etc. At [sic] LEAST one person accuses them of lying.” May 30, 2014. Tweet. @michellegracem (Michelle Martin), “#YesAllWomen because at least three of my friends lost their virginity to rape by men they knew.” May 30, 2014. Tweet. @Erfan (Erfan), “Because I once had to stab a guy in the thigh with a dart to get him to leave me alone and stop trying to grope me in a bar #YesAllWomen” May 30, 2014, Tweet. 7. This is a point made in a number of different contexts and in numerous considerations of hope. For example, see: West 1994, 2008; Mittleman 2009; Shade 2001; Marcel 1978.

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8. Marcel’s conceptions of “the broken world” as well as his understanding of experience are some of the more religious and phenomenological dimensions of his thought. Though a complete recapitulation of these religious dimensions is beyond my scope here, it is important to recognize the centrality of this approach to his work. Further, due to the deeply phenomenological nature of his existentialism, Marcel remains a reliable source for bridging traditions and metaphysical belief systems that may not be easily identifiable with his professed Catholicism. Thus, using Marcel’s critique of the tendencies to instrumentalize and functionalize people and relationships is particularly apt. Though not an avowed feminist himself, some aspects of Marcel’s work lend themselves to feminist aims. Despite the, perhaps, minority of people like Rodger maintaining views of such extreme and explicit misogyny, the point remains that these perspectives are the subtle roots of not so extreme sexist behaviors—behaviors many of the #YesAllWomen tweets brought to light. 9. Marcel discusses differing modes of relation between family members in Homo Viator, but also differing modes of instrumentalized or debased relation in Man Against Mass Society. See Marcel 1978 and 1967. 10. See Irigaray 1985a and 1985b as well as Beauvoir 1974. 11. Geneveve Lloyd’s 1993, The Man of Reason does an excellent job of tracing out the implications of the philosophical bifurcation of women and men along axis related to reason and body. 12. See David Rodick 2013 and 2014. 13. There are many examples of scholars working within history and related disciplines to recover the past in light of a number of marginalized voices. Of particular interest is Jcqui Alexander’s suggestion that we “become fluent in each other’s histories” as well as Chandra Talpanade Mohanty’s point regarding the need for multiple genealogies within feminist discourses. See Alexander and Mohanty 1997 and Mohanty 2004. Angela Davis, while speaking at a graduation ceremony, indicated to her audience that their dreams were shared by her generation. In her own words, Davis stated: “Now, it is your turn to imagine a more humane future—a future of justice, equality, and peace. And if you wish to fulfill your dreams, which remain the dreams of my generation as well, you must also stand up and speak out against war, against joblessness, and against racism” (Davis 1990, 172). 14. An example from a woman voicing the sheer difficulty in voicing her concerns with everyday sexism follows: @HipsterMama (Hipster Homemaker), “Because I’ve been told how brave I am for sharing my story, when my story never should have happened in the first place. #YesAllWomen” May 30, 2014. Tweet. 15. Many people tweeting in support of the #YesAllWomen project have noted, like UniteWomen.Org, quoted below, that the public forum has attracted more than its share of people protesting the association of misogyny and violence. Further, many are protesting the existence of misogyny at all. @UniteWomenOrg (UniteWomen.Org), “Who says NO 2 Y*sAllWomen? Hashtag intended 2 promote #women’s issues has also brought out those in opposition.” May 31, 2014, Tweet. People ridiculing or otherwise criticizing the dialog and the hashtag include the following: @wolve (Dare Wolves), “#YesAllWomen if women want equality can’t wait to see a stupid bitch take a punch to the face” May 30, 2014. Tweet. @sevenwithcheese (sevenwithcheese), “I don’t troll much anymore, but when I do, #YesAllWomen fall for it.” May 30, 2014, Tweet.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Alexander, Jacqui and Chandra Talpade Mohanty. 1997. Feminist Genealogies, Colonial Legacies, Democratic Futures. London: Routledge. Beauvoir, Simone de. 1974. Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books. Bloch, Ernst. 1996. The Principle of Hope, Volume I. Translated by Stephen Plaice, Neville Plaice, and Paul Knight. Cambridge: The MIT Press. Butler, Judith. 2005. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York: Fordham University Press. Davis, Angela Y. 1990. Women, Culture, and Politics. New York: Vintage Books. Geoghegan, Vincent. 1996. Ernst Bloch. London: Routledge. ———. 1997. “Remembering the Future.” In Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch. Edited by Jamie Owen Daniel and Tom Moylan. London: Verso. Keen, Sam. 1984. “The Development of the Idea of Being in Marcel’s Thought.” In The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, ed. Paul Arthur Schlipp and Lewis Edwin Hahn. La Salle: Open Court. Irigaray, Luce. 1985a. This Sex Which is Not One. Catherine Porter and Carolyn Burke, trans. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ———. 1985b. Speculum of the Other Woman. Gillian C. Gill, trans. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Levitas, Ruth. 1997. “Educated Hope: Ernst Bloch on Abstract and Concrete Utopia.” In Not Yet: Reconsidering Ernst Bloch. Edited by Jamie Owen Daniel and Tom Moylan. London: Verso. Lloyd, Genevieve. 1993. The Man of Reason. London: Routledge. Marcel, Gabriel. 1956. The Philosophy of Existentialism. Secaucus: The Citadel Press. ———. 1967. Man Against Mass Society. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. ———. 1978. Homo Viator: Introduction to a Metaphysic of Hope. Translated by Emma Craufurd. Gloucester: Peter Smith. ———. 2001. The Mystery of Being, Volume I: Reflection and Mystery. Translated by G. S. Fraser. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press. ———. 2002. Creative Fidelity. Translated by Robert Rosthal. New York: Fordham Press. Mittleman, Alan. 2009. Hope in a Democratic Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. 2004. Feminism without Borders: Decolonializing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press. Reeves, Gene. 1984. “The Idea of Mystery in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel.” In The Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel, ed. Paul Arthur Schlipp and Lewis Edwin Hahn. La Salle: Open Court. Roberts, Richard H. 1990. Hope and Its Hieroglyph. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Rodick, David W. 2013. “Gabriel Marcel and American Philosophy.” In International Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 53, No. 2, Issue 201. ———. 2014. “Radical Empiricism, Intersubjectivity and the Importance of Praxis in the Philosophy of Gabriel Marcel.” In Philosophy and Social Criticism, 40: 289. Shade, Patrick. 2001. Habits of Hope. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Silberstein, Laurence J. 1989. Martin Buber’s Social and Religious Thought: Alienation and the Quest for Meaning. New York: New York University Press. Weiss, Sasha. May 26, 2014. “The Power of #YesAllWomen” in The New Yorker. Weltsch, Robert.1991. “Buber’s Political Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schlipp and Maurice Friedman. La Salle: Open Court. West, Cornel. 1994. Race Matters. Boston: Beacon Press. ———. 2008. Hope on a Tightrope. Carlsbad: SmileyBooks. Winnubst, Shannon. 2006. Queering Freedom. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Žižek, Slavoj and Peter Thompson. 2013. The Privatization of Hope: Ernst Bloch and the Future of Utopia. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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SEVEN Education and the Construction of Hope Darren Webb

In the field of education the significance of hope is widely recognized (e.g., Cammarota 2011; Carlson 2005; Duncan-Andrade 2009; Halpin 2001, 2003; Harden et al. 2012; Male 2011; Thrupp and Tomlinson 2005; Veck 2014). Academic studies suggest that educational experiences and outcomes are more likely to be positive if students, parents, teachers and policy-makers possess hope. An editorial in the Cambridge Journal of Education declared that hope is “a core underpinning of education and all its processes” (Andrews 2010, 323). Hope has also become a key element within contemporary policy discourse. “Giving hope” is the mission statement of numerous educational charities while successive Education Ministers in the UK have stressed the need to “give children hope.” Countless “hope resources” exist for parents and teachers—with titles such as The Great Big Book of Hope (McDermott and Snyder 2000) and Making Hope Happen (Lopez 2013a). Jaklin Eliot is quite right to refer to the emergence of a “hope industry” (Eliot 2005, 27). This chapter seeks to problemetize simplistic and self-evident notions of hope. A framework is outlined which sees hope not as a singular undifferentiated experience that is “good,” but rather as a socially mediated human capacity that can be experienced in different modes. Educational policy discourse in the UK is then used as a lens through which to examine hope as a construct with complex effects. Education is a key channel through which we are taught to orient ourselves toward an uncertain future; a key channel through which hope is constructed. The chapter explores the role of education in constructing shared objectives of 131

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hope—affectively aligning us with objectives that circulate as social goods—and in framing appropriate cognitive, affective and behavioral responses. Rather than operating as an unmitigated good, the chapter points to the complex, tense and potentially unstable operation of hope. HOPE IN EDUCATIONAL POLICY DISCOURSE In her first speech to the Conservative Party Conference as the UK’s Secretary of State for Education, Nicky Morgan declared: Conference, if there’s one thing I ask of you today it’s that we show every school that we’re on their side. That everything we’ve done has been driven by the desire to raise standards for all pupils in all schools. And that we care more about what a young person sees as they walk out of the gate than we do about the name they see on the way in. We care that they see hope. (Morgan 2014)

This echoed Michael Gove’s (Morgan’s predecessor) speech to the Party Conference the year before, when he proclaimed that “We’re making sure that the best teachers and the best heads go to the toughest areas to give those children hope” (Gove 2013c). Gove spoke repeatedly of giving children “new hope” and “high hopes” through a series of reforms that challenged what he saw as “the culture of low expectations.” (Gove 2013a; 2013b). Those who challenge the culture of low expectations were “fighting with passion” for “our children’s future” (Gove 2013a). More evocatively still, Morgan declared it her mission to “slay the soft bigotry of low expectations” in order to “give new hope for the future” to children from poor and marginalized communities (Morgan 2015). It seems to be a requirement almost that each new government minister declares their commitment to “hope” upon taking office. In his first written piece as the current Secretary of State for Education (in post for a month at the time of writing), Damian Hinds emphasized the need for teachers to have “high hopes” of their students and for schools and government to help create an environment in which children have “high hopes” of themselves (Hinds 2018). The imperative to “give hope” is not confined to politicians, however. One need only browse through the list of educational charities working with young people from disadvantaged backgrounds—organizations with names such as Giving Children Hope, Giving Hope, Giving Hope Inc., the Giving Hope Network, and Artists Giving Hope. The discourse of “giving hope” has created a market in which organizations promote hope-giving resources or present themselves as fitting providers of England’s Academies and free schools. The Oasis group, for example, one of the largest sponsors of Academy schools in England, presents its mission as one of “raising aspirations” and “bringing hope” (OasisUK 2007). Bringing hope—that phrase, that imperative—is everywhere, such that to be without hope is interpreted as

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moral failure (Morgan 2014) and giving it becomes a mission pursued, as Morgan tells us, with the passion of a zealot (Morgan 2015). There is a considerable body of research exploring the relationship between hope and education. In his highly influential book on Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman claimed that hope “plays a surprisingly potent role in life” and is a significant factor in explaining differences in educational attainment (1996, 87). Subsequent research, heavily influenced—as was Goleman—by positive psychology, has sought to support Goleman’s claims. To give some specific examples of work in this area: • It is claimed that children with high levels of hope have better school attendance, make greater use of student support resources, and achieve higher grades (Acosta 2017; Ciarrochi et al. 2007; Davidson, Feldman and Margalit 2012; Feldman and Kubota 2015; Levi et al. 2013; Lopez 2013b; Marques et al. 2015; Rand 2009; Rand, Martin and Shea 2011; Snyder et al. 2002). The link between hope and attainment is the source of considerable research, and some studies suggest that hope is a stronger predictor of academic achievement than measures of intelligence, personality, self-esteem, previous academic achievement, or entrance exam results (Day et al. 2010; Gallagher, Marques and Lopez 2017; Lopez 2010). • There are plenty of studies pointing to the importance of hope for teachers and schools (Bullough and Hall-Kenyon 2011; Collinson, Killeavy and Stephenson 2000; Edgoose 2010; Lopez 2013b; Shade 2006; Sezgin and Erdogan 2015; te Riele 2008, 2010). Teachers animated by hope are said to be able to create excitement about the future, teach children how to confront obstacles and overcome problems, model a hopeful lifestyle and promote strengths-based development (Lopez 2010; Snyder 2005). There are case-studies of inspirational hope-driven teachers (Freedom Writer Teachers 2009; Schmidt and Whitmore 2010) and headteachers (Halpin 2003) who are said to offer models of how hope can transform educational practice and engage students in the educational process. Hopeful teachers are driven by a greater sense of personal responsibility (Eren 2017) and, at their best, become “hope generators” (Roebben 2016). • The importance of high-hope parents has also been emphasized, with research claiming, for example, to show a correlation between the hopefulness of parents and the life satisfaction and academic attainment of their children (Jiang, Huebner and Hills 2013). Resources of all kinds exist to bolster the hope of parents who want to help their children achieve their dreams. The bestselling Great Big Book of Hope, for example, offers detailed guidance on how parents can enhance their children’s hopeful orientation toward the future (McDermott and Synder 2000).

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• The significance of hope is also stressed in relation to other constructs such as happiness, well-being and resilience—key motifs within educational policy discourse. Thus, hope is presented as a key predictor of resilience and studies strive to show its importance as a protective factor in education (Davidson, Feldman and Margalit 2012). There is a wealth of literature suggesting that hope is a significant contributor to psychological and physical well-being (e.g., Alarcon, Bowling and Khazon 2013; Ciarrochi et al. 2015; Demirli, Türkmen and Serkan Arik 2015; Marques, Lopez and PaisRibeiro 2011; Yang, Zhang and Kou 2016). And meta-analyses of empirical studies identify hope as a strong predictor of happiness (Alarcon, Bowling and Khazon 2013). All too often, however, hope is treated as an unproblematic concept. Sometimes it is simply assumed that we know what “hope” is and that its importance for education is plain to see. Kraftl (2008) highlights the elision of childhood and hope—children as the future, childhood as a repository for hope, childhood as a period of natural future-oriented hopefulness—that is so easily and uncritically made by policymakers and childhood researchers. At other times hope is reduced to, or is treated as just another word for aspiration or ambition, as if the hopes of young people consist of little more than future education or career aspirations (DfE 2014; HM Government 2011; Cummings et al. 2012; Gorard, Huat See and Davies 2012). Equally narrow are the standard models of hope used within clinical and educational psychology. Rick Snyder’s hope theory, in particular, has informed a range of educational interventions designed to “give” hope to young people (Snyder 2002). There are scales developed to measure state and trait hope and a host of hope activities, resources and therapies available (Lopez, Snyder and Pedrotti 2003; Martin-Krumm et al. 2015; Snyder 2000). The field of “hope studies”—studies exploring the experience of hope—is dominated by positive psychology. When Jaklin Eliot referred to the emergence of a hope industry, she also said that the baton of hope had been passed from theology to psychology (2005, 27). Once understood primarily as a theological virtue, hope now becomes an individual psychological state or trait, a dimension of human experience that can be quickly measured via a questionnaire and just as quickly treated through a hope intervention. A recent article in the Journal of Happiness Studies had the title “Can Hope Be Changed in 90 Minutes?” The answer was a resounding yes (Feldman and Dreher 2012). Hope, however, is a complex category of human experience. Pinning down the characteristics of hope has been compared to catching the spring breeze (Li, Mitton-Kukner and Yeom 2009). It cannot simply be reduced to aspiration or self-efficacy, or, rather, the construction of hope as such is something that needs to be critically interrogated (e.g., Brown

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2013). Nor is hope a singular experience that can be captured in a standardized hope scale (te Riele, 2010). As I shall argue in the following section, there are different modes of hoping. This means that different individuals and social classes, at different historical junctures, embedded in different social relations, enjoying different opportunities and facing different constraints, will experience hope in different ways. What I also argue—and this is important—is that the hope activities, interventions and curricula promoted by positive psychology need to be explored critically. MODES OF HOPING An important distinction can be made between two sets of questions: those concerning the nature of hope (what hope is) and those concerning its characteristics (what it is to hope). Regarding the former, the most common response is to suggest that hope is an emotion of some kind. What kind of emotion, however, is open to dispute. Some are doubtful that hope operates as a “basic” human emotion (Nesse 1999) while others regard it as the most “human” emotion of all (Bloch 1995). Some see the emotion of hope as a biologically based reaction shaped by natural selection (Maier and Watkins 2000; Tiger 1999) while others see it as a socially constructed pattern of behavior which is learned (Averill, Catlin and Chon 1990). Some include hope—together with desire, confidence, anxiety and despair—among the list of “prospective” emotions (Rycroft 1979) while others claim that hope is a unique emotion which straddles the border separating the passions from reason (Drahos 2004). Many dismiss the idea that hope is an emotion at all and characterize it instead as a cognitive phenomenon (Waterworth 2004), a cognitive process with emotional sequelae (Snyder 2002). Others suggest that hope should be considered an attitude, disposition or state of mind (Crapanzano 2003; Day 1969; Godfrey 1987; Pettit 2004). Or is it rather an emotion which resembles a state of mind (Bar-Tal 2001)? Or perhaps an instinct, impulse, intuition or subliminal “sense” (Mandel 2002; Ricoeur 1970; Taussig 2002)? The intricacies of these debates need not overly concern us here. All we need take from them is the recognition that hope is a complex and multifaceted aspect of human experience with emotional, cognitive, and behavioral dimensions (Dufault and Martocchio 1985; Farran, Herth and Poppovich 1995; McGreer 2004; Ojala, 2017). Regarding its characteristics, there is a tendency—within the fields of philosophy and psychology in particular—for researchers to insist that they, rather than others, have captured the experience of hope in its singularity. Acosta, for example, bemoans the fact that educators “do not understand the true definition of hope” (which turns out to be Rick Snyder’s, because no other definitions are considered) (Acosta 2017, 307).

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Hope is not, however, an undifferentiated experience. While in its broadest sense—in the sense that we need to distinguish hope from wish, desire, belief, expectation, optimism, faith, etc.—it can be understood as a positive orientation toward an uncertain future good, the objective of hope and the characteristics of its positive orientation can vary in significant ways. Hope can be experienced in different modes. Each mode of hoping is distinguished by its own particular orientation toward the objective of hope and by a particular matrix of cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions. Each mode of hoping affords a different sense of human agency and a different orientation toward oneself, others and the world. And the mode in which hope is experienced at any particular time, in any particular culture, within any particular group, is the result of a complex process of social mediation. Hope, then, is not a singular undifferentiated experience but a socially mediated human capacity experienced in different modes with varying affective-cognitive-behavioral dimensions. In other writings (see Webb 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2009a, 2013a) I have developed a taxonomy of modes of hoping. Drawing on, and bringing together, research from the fields of philosophy, psychology, the health sciences, theology, politics, and sociology, I identify five principal modes of hoping: patient, critical, sound, resolute and transformative. The characteristics of these are presented in summary form in Appendix A. The framework draws on literature referred to in other chapters of this book (e.g., Day, Snyder, Marcel, all discussed by Nancy Snow in chapter 1, and Bloch, the focus of much of Akiba Lerner’s chapter). Rather than presenting these varied readings as merely different perspectives on hope, I take the different perspectives as expressive of the complexity of hope as an experience. While recognizing, of course, that the taxonomy is an artifice that cannot possibly capture hope in all its complexity and fluidity, I do consider it useful as an analytical frame. It suggests that the characteristics of hope as a positive orientation toward an uncertain future good can vary immensely depending on the mode in which it is experienced. Thus, for example: hope can be active or passive; secure and trusting or restless and agitated; careful and realistic or ambitious and risky; resigned and accepting or passionate and critical; directed toward individual privatized goals or toward expansive social goals; directed toward a future that defies representation or a future given clear shape and form; apolitical or politically charged; a conservative force or a subversive one. Much of my research over recent years can be located within the field of critical pedagogy (e.g., Webb 2009b, 2010, 2012, 2013b). More specifically I have been concerned to tease out what we might understand by utopian pedagogy (Webb 2016, 2017, 2018). Here, of course, one encounters hope all the time. Paulo Freire famously declared that “without hope there is no way we can even start thinking about education” (Freire 2007, 87) and writers such as Henry Giroux have spent their careers developing

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radical pedagogies of hope (Giroux 2004, 2007, 2011). What I have argued time and again, however, is that there is nothing inherently radical or subversive about hope. Pedagogies of hope can serve to reproduce social relations as well as to transform them (Webb 2013a). In exploring the relationship between hope and education, we need to extend our gaze beyond the mainstream focus on its value for particular individuals or sets of individuals, be they students, teachers or parents. We need to look in particular at the construction of hope—the ways in which the experience of hope is shaped and organized in, by and through channels such as political discourse, the media, art, literature, and, of course, the education system. Education is clearly a key channel through which we are taught to orient ourselves toward an uncertain future; a key channel through which hope is constructed. It is important, therefore, to examine the role of education in constructing shared objectives of hope—affectively aligning us with objectives that circulate as social goods (Ahmed 2010)—and in framing appropriate cognitive, affective and behavioral responses. As I suggested at the outset, hope is not an unmitigated good. A key concern is how subjectivities are shaped through the construction of hope; how the construction of hope teaches us to feel, appraise, express, and behave in accordance with certain cognitive, affective and behavioral frames. THE CONSTRUCTION OF HOPE WITHIN CONTEMPORARY POLICY Appeals to “hope” are sometimes very explicit (Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, for example). So too resources for “giving” hope (the manuals produced by Snyder’s hope theory team—e.g., Lopez 2013a; Snyder et al. 1997—include chapters on “teaching hope”). Any rigorous study of hope cannot, however, confine itself to policies, practices and texts that explicitly evoke the word “hope.” Indeed, it would be a mistake to regard hope as the focus of this or that particular policy. Rather, the construction of hope is at work across a range of contemporary policies and practices. One particular area of interest is the infrastructure of emotional management erected in the UK. When emotional literacy became a mainstream educational buzzword in the late 1990s, it was presented as the antidote to moral malaise, holding out the promise of a brighter future. As Goleman put it, “while the everyday substance of emotional literacy classes may look mundane, the outcome—decent human beings—is more critical to our future than ever” (1996, 263). Influenced heavily by Goleman and positive psychology, the first decade of the new century saw the rolling out of, inter alia, the National Healthy Schools Programme (NHSP); Personal, Social, Health and Economic education (PSHE); Citizenship Educa-

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tion; Every Child Matters; and the Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL) program. At the heart of these pedagogies of emotional well-being is the construction of hope. What we have here is a policy ensemble framed explicitly in terms of instilling in children and young people a future-oriented understanding of themselves, others and the world, characterized by a range of specific cognitive, affective and behavioral attributes. The aim is to teach children and young people to think, feel and behave in a certain way as they orient themselves positively toward the future (e.g., DfES 2005). To give a specific example, the aim of Citizenship Education when it was introduced was to construct a shared objective of hope—an objective toward which we share an orientation as being good, an objective that provides a shared horizon with positive affective value. The objective of hope to be constructed through citizenship education was the democratic process; through citizenship education we were to be taught to value the democratic process as being good (QCA 1998). Not only was the objective of hope identified—the objective toward which we need to orient ourselves if “potentially explosive alienation” was to be overcome (QCA 1998, 16)—but we were also told how to align ourselves cognitively, affectively and behaviorally toward this objective (QCA 1998, 44). In developing the requisite values, dispositions, skills, aptitudes, concepts, knowledge and understanding (all laid out in dizzying detail), citizenship education was tasked with constructing a positive orientation toward an uncertain future—an orientation toward a future good, difficult but possible to obtain. The need to “bring” and “give” hope to children and young people deemed to be without it is a much-repeated explicit rallying cry. Less explicitly, though perhaps more importantly, at work across a range of policy areas is the very construction of hope, training children and young people how to orient themselves positively toward an uncertain future. But, of course, hope is not a singular undifferentiated experience. Thus, we need to look at the modes of hoping constructed through education and explore the complex, tense and potentially unstable operation of hope within contemporary schooling. A crucial consideration here is the privatization of hope. The private sphere has become “the only space in which to imagine any sense of hope, pleasure, or possibility” (Giroux 2003, 144) such that models of “the good life” have become increasingly cut off from models of “the good society” (Bauman 2003). As Thompson puts it, “hope generally resides now in individual liberation through money or fame or both. The dreams of a better world are dreams of a better world for oneself” (2013, 5). Objectives of hope have become increasingly individualized and privatized. The discourse of hope within the school simultaneously (but not necessarily harmoniously) teaches children to think, feel and behave in accordance with patient, sound and resolute hope while hope in its critical

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and transformative—i.e., socialized—modes are more or less effectively (but not completely) negated (see Appendix A). Children are taught simultaneously to direct their hopes toward objectives that are realistic and achievable given things as they are (sound hope) and yet to perceive themselves as capable of attaining any personal objective, even in spite of the evidence, if they engage in determined goal pursuit and effective agency thinking (resolute hope). In outlining Positive for Youth, the single plan for young people in England, the government urged young people to train their hopes on objectives that are both “ambitious and pragmatic” (HM Government 2011, 34). To reach for the stars and keep one’s feet on the ground. At the same time, a discourse of patient hope operates to encourage the domesticating of circumstances; making oneself feel at home amongst the trials and tribulations of life in the secure trust that such trials have meaning (a key aim of both Citizenship Education and Positive for Youth). Moral literacy goes hand in hand here with emotional literacy. A key aspect of contemporary emotional pedagogy is character formation, instilling in children the virtues associated with patient hope: trust, patience, and responsibility. Critics have described the emotional curriculum as a powerful form of social engineering encouraging dependence on ritualized forms of emotional support (Ecclestone and Hayes 2009a); a moralizing normative political project disguised as value-neutral applied science (Dixon 2012; Ecclestone 2012; Miller 2008; Rietti 2008); and a mode of social control heavily regulating appropriate forms of emotional expression, modelled on a deficit analysis of children and young people, and serving to individualize social problems (Burman 2009; Cigman 2008; Gillies 2011; McLaughlin 2008). Using the modes of hoping taxonomy as an analytical frame, we can add here that pedagogies of resolute hope encourage the privatization and individualization of hope. Hope is increasingly directed toward private goals to be achieved via individualized means (by means of “willpower” and “waypower,” to use the language of hope psychology). Pedagogies of resolute hope are harnessed in the service of neoliberal human capital formation, as the objectives of hope (the individual, private goods toward which hope is directed) are increasingly narrowed so that the hopes of young people are understood almost solely in terms of educational “success” and employability skills. At the same time, pedagogies of patient hope operate as a form of moral instruction that guide and goad us to readjust our inner attitude toward others and the world so that we develop secure trust in the meaningfulness of our shared journey and learn to wait with patience amidst life’s trials. Patient hope provides the backdrop (a positive resignation to the status quo; a positive acceptance that things make sense, resilience in the face of precarity) against which individuals pursue their privatized goals. A particular kind of fortitude and resilience is required in order to cope with the uncertainties of contemporary life. Thus, the role of education is to form subjectivities able to en-

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dure in patient hope as they struggle to sell their labor power and find a foothold amidst increasingly austere and precarious conditions. Of key concern here is how emotional curricula and pedagogies serve to negate the expression of critical hope. Certain feelings are identified as “good” and in need of enhancement and others as “bad” and in need of inhibiting (Cigman 2008). Bad, or “uncomfortable,” feelings, include agitation, frustration, anxiety, and restlessness, and students who display the characteristics of critical hope—a yearning, a feeling of unfulfillment, a protest born of the sense that “something’s missing”—are pathologized, marked out as personally lacking and in need of therapeutic intervention. As for transformative hope, characterized by a profound confidence in the collective powers of human agency, discursive work across the cultural field has ensured that utopian possibilities stretching beyond the narrow confines of the “realistic” are derided as fanciful and have no place in the field of education (see Webb 2009b, 2016). 1 The work of Kathryn Ecclestone is important here, highlighting as she does how emotional pedagogies erode the idea of humans as conscious agents who realize their potential through projects to transform the world and replace it with a narrow introspective view of humans as diminished, fragile and vulnerable (Ecclestone 2012; Ecclestone and Hayes 2009a, 2009b). THE NEED FOR ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH In spite of its significance within policy discourse, few detailed empirical studies of “hope” exist within the social sciences. A special issue of the journal Children’s Geographies, devoted to the relationship between education and aspirations, concluded that further research was needed on “children’s hopes for the future and the factors which influence the dispositions of individuals” (Pimlott-Wilson 2011, 112). This has yet to be forthcoming. 2 There is a need for ethnographic research exploring the extent to which different modes of hoping are inscribed within, and constructed through, different emotional pedagogies and curricula; looking at how emotional pedagogies work to shape children’s identities and subjectivities, their orientation toward themselves, others and the world; delving beneath the commonplace assertion that hope is significant for education (for students, teachers and policy-makers alike) and exploring in detail the characteristics and dynamics of hope as constructed and experienced within particular educational sites and settings. Key questions that require detailed exploration include: The experience of hope How is hope experienced and practiced by young people across different social sites and contexts? How do young people make meaning of hope?

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Conflicting experiences of hope To what extent is there dissonance between, for example, hope as constructed and experienced within the family and hope as constructed and experienced within the school? How do these different experiences of hope serve to shape young people’s identities? The experience of hopelessness How are low aspirations, low hopes and hopelessness identified and treated within social policy and practice? What is it to live life as a young person deemed to be without hope? “Giving” hope What does “giving hope” look like? How is hope given to young people through education and other institutions? How does the operation of hope impact on young people’s orientations toward themselves, others, the world and the future?

These questions connect with two other areas of research concerned with childhood and the future. The first concerns the future-orientedness of childhood itself. For a long time, childhood was interpreted predominantly as a process of becoming; an unfolding project in which “‘becoming’ relates to the transformation as children move into adulthood” (Harden et al. 2012). From the late 1990s, however, the construction of childhood as becoming was challenged by the emergent paradigm of childhood as being, in which children are regarded as competent social actors actively constructing their own childhood (Christensen and James 2008; James, Jenks and Prout 1998; Mayall 2002). Childhood as becoming was criticized for positioning children as incomplete, lacking, a work-inprogress. The emphasis was placed on who the child will become rather than on who the child is, with the discourse of “development” serving to structure, stratify and discipline children’s experiences of time (Christensen, James and Jenks 2001). Understanding future narratives is important because the way we orient ourselves to the future shapes our present actions and redefines our pasts (Harden et al. 2012). Further research is needed to develop our understanding of what has been termed a “being and becomings” approach, which explores the ways in which children’s orientations toward the future help shape the experiences of being a child and contribute to the formation of childhood in the here and now (Lee 2002; Qvortrup 2004; Uprichard 2008). We need not afford childhood any special relationship with hope or the future here; there is no suggestion that an abstract notion of the future is somehow inscribed within a romanticized construction of childhood (Kraftl 2008). Rather, exploring the role of education in constructing shared objectives of hope and framing appropriate cognitive, affective and behavioral responses is needed in order to exam-

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ine how power operates in and through the construction of hope and the ways in which this impacts on children’s agency. The second area of research is concerned with the increasing uncertainty of the future to which we orient ourselves. It has been suggested that traditional narratives of the lifecourse (constructed around, for example, class, gender and age) have been eroded. The “destandardization” and “individualization” of the lifecourse has given rise to both increased uncertainty regarding the future and the growing significance of individual choices (Beck 1992). In late modernity we no longer follow a traditional lifecourse but live “life as a planning project” (Beck-Gernsheim 1996). Nowotny (1994), however, talks of the acceleration of time, with more activities (work, consumption, play, care) having to be compressed into a shorter timespan, while technologies ensuring that we are always available ensure also that the possibilities far exceed what can be achieved within any timeframe. The future is taken into the here and now and loses its meaning. Rather than living life as a planning project, “people are unable to think about the long term much less plan for it. Lived experience is imprisoned in an all pervasive extended present” (Nowotny 1994, 517). Research with children and young people has offered some support for both positions. Brannen and Nilsen, for example, suggest that young people, time-pressured and future-anxious, find it difficult to imagine the future or engage in forms of “life-planning” (Brannen 2005; Brannen and Nilsen 2002, 2007). Others, however, claim that young people do plan for the future and have a linear forward-looking concept of the lifecourse (Anderson et al. 2005). There are, however, only a limited number of studies that explicitly explore the future orientations of children. The studies that do exist tend to treat “hope” as synonymous with “ambition” and “aspiration” (Devadason 2008), focusing narrowly on employment aspirations (Harden et al. 2012), or they conflate it with other constructs such as faith and optimism (Cook 2016). As Bryant and Ellard rightly note, what is lacking within childhood and youth studies is research exploring “how hope is produced through social processes and spaces” (2015, 495). The limited research that exists describes the hopes of young people (or rather, narrows the scope of hope to descriptions of weak proxy constructs such as aspiration and ambition), but “it does not speak to questions about what social processes produce or shut down hope” (Bryant and Ellard 2015, 495). CONCLUDING REMARKS Research on hope and education has been dominated by positive psychology. Hope is conceptualized as a singular state or trait which can be measured via eight questions on a questionnaire and transformed

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through short classroom interventions. It is assumed that hope is a “good” and that what we all need is more of it. Studies within the field of “hope theory” demonstrate the good things that come when students, parents and teachers possess high levels of hope. The imperative to give children hope is central to contemporary policy discourse. Untheorized, and generally conflated with other constructs such as ambition or aspiration, “hope” becomes a thing that some groups of young people lack (the poor and marginalized) and “giving” these young people hope becomes a mission to be pursued with the passion of a zealot. Hope is a more complex category of human experience than this. It is not an undifferentiated experience that is “good,” but rather a socially mediated human capacity that can be experienced in different modes and with complex effects. Hope is constructed across a range of social sites— family, community, education, media, art and literature, public political discourse—and the modes in which hope is constructed within and across these sites may be mutually reinforcing or may produce dissonance. Within education, for example, the twin operation of resolute hope (aim for the stars) and sound hope (keep your feet on the ground) points to an instability within the operation of hope, creating a dissonance and sense of unease that could (potentially at least) underpin a more restless, agitated, critical mode of hoping. Further research is needed in order fully to understand the complexities of hope as a human experience. What is lacking in hope studies is any detailed ethnographic research exploring how the material, social, cultural and discursive construction of positive orientations toward an uncertain future help shape children and young people’s identities and subjectivities in the present. Of particular interest is how subjectivities are shaped through the construction of hope within the school; how the material and discursive construction of hope teaches us to feel, appraise, express and behave in accordance with certain cognitive, emotional and behavioral frames. This chapter has offered some contextual and conceptual reflections. As Kraftl rightly suggests, however, “the task is to understand how hope is figured through the matters, routines, and practices of everyday lives” (2008, 86).

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Appendix A: Modes of Hoping

Objective of Hope

Cognitive-Affective Dimension of Hope

Behavioural dimension of hope

Unrepresentable enroutedness hope underpinned by a sense that we as human beings remain as yet incomplete and are travelling the path to ourselves. Hope directed toward the ontological journey itself and is characterized by the conviction that being en route makes sense and has meaning. Hope directed toward an openended objective that defies attempts to map it.

Secure trust a basic trust in the underlying goodness of the world; it affords a feeling of safety and security; and it enables one to relax and to let life take its course. In the end all shall be well.

Courageous patience to hope is to take one’s time and await an essentially unforeseen future. In hope one stands steadfast amidst life’s trials and humbly though courageously perseveres, securely confident that a solution to life’s trials will be found.

Critical hope See, for example, Bloch (1995), Moltmann (1967), and Giroux (2011)

Negation of the negative hope directed toward a better future, a vision or sense of a world without hunger, oppression and humiliation but which defies the hypostasis of “closed” or “final” representation.

Passionate longing the experience of critical hope is captured by the phrase “something’s missing.” Hope is experienced as a restless, futureoriented longing; a sense of lack and unfulfillment; a response to an inchoate future that calls to the present.

Critique and protest hope is experienced as the compulsion to critically negate the conditions giving rise to the sense of unfulfillment. To live in hope is to critically engage with the suffering of the present while remaining open to the future. A restless, future-oriented protest, criticizing present negatives in light of their ultimate negation.

Darren Webb

Patient hope See, for example, Marcel (1962) and Dauenhauer (1986) for classic expressions of this mode of hoping.

Objective of Hope

Cognitive-Affective Dimension of Hope

Behavioural dimension of hope

Realistic objective the objective of hope should be realistic, grounded in a sound assessment of the evidence, recognize the obstacles confronting its realization and be vulnerable to evidence that counts against it.

Evidence-based probability estimate in order to prevent the hoper from losing their grip on reality (false hope), “sound hope” is based on a careful study of the evidence and an accurate calculation of the likelihood of one’s hoped-for objective coming to pass (probability >0