A little over a year ago, I wrote a piece that touched upon the theme of 'hope' ('Five Hours in Barcelona', July 23rd 2017). Hope - yes, Hope - is one of those big words, which take up a lot of space, and can be looked at from many different angles and perspectives. As the months have passed, so have I become conscious of how I simply skimmed the surface of one single aspect of that big word during that article.
Several friends and acquaintances have recently put forth the idea that 'They have no hope.' Or 'There is little hope for the world.' These are not necessarily pessimistic people. They have simply surveyed the landscape of current humanity - its politics, culture, ethics, general affairs - as they see it, and come to this conclusion. Those who have reached a certain age are able to look back over decades of events and sense that, in terms of creating a decent world for the mass of humanity, no progress has been made. None at all. Instead, they look at May, Johnson, Corbin, Trump, the EU, Merkel, Syria, climate change, fake news, environmental catastrophe, the current inability to trust or believe anybody of influence - and just give up all hope.
I notice how those people of today who harbour little hope express their belief with the minimum of panic, horror, or despair. 'I can't see much hope for the future': it's a phrase that's stated almost cheerfully. Matter-of-fact, a self-evident truth.
This is very different to the moments when hope for the future was in the balance in earlier periods of my life. There was the time of the Cuban missile crisis, when our family went to bed in genuine fear of the possibility of planetary annihilation before sunrise on the morrow. The height of the Cold War similarly induced a sense that the future of humanity was in dire peril. At these times, though, the overall sense was that the destruction of humanity would be a real tragedy, a disaster of unprecedented proportions. Human life, human civilisation, was extremely precious; something worth holding on to, worth surviving and fighting for. Today, however, the absence of hope for the human venture is greeted with a shrug of the shoulders. People are beyond deeply caring. We're doomed, and we'll get what we deserve for our sins.
Part Two
Let's consider this passage about C.G.Jung. It is written by a friend of his, having met Jung in the final few years of his life.
"Jung had observed in the eyes of animals giving birth to their young an enormous suffering which seemed to represent a fear of the dark unknown. And he believed that these animals need us, that they are waiting for us to reveal to them the nature of the world and the mystery of their painful existence. We are needed because we alone can project them into the light. Thus in a word, we will become the mirror of all creation, of animal, tree, river, stone and, perhaps, of God himself, for in the end, we are the consciousness of the world...… Nature has created us ……. so that we may in turn contemplate it in all its evanescence and reveal it in its totality....."
It is possible to consider Jung's notion of the place of humanity in the overall scheme of things as ridiculous and laughable. That's not the point. The issue at stake is how we view things, and what we focus on. On Pale Green Vortex, a similar story to that of our no-hopers has at times been rolled out: how a glance at the past two thousand years of the history of 'western civilisation' reveals that, details aside, nothing much has changed. Technology has developed, we may live longer, but the structural pattern through which people live their lives has remained pretty much the same. Political, social, and economic affairs take place beneath the umbrella of 'Empire', as Neil Kramer has been known to describe it. The name of the game is containment rather than true betterment. The prime aim of law is not to promote big concepts such as truth, justice, fairness, moral excellence; it exists above all to manage and support a system.
To the extent that we permit Empire to shape our view of what human life is, to that extent will we most likely experience hopelessness. Hope is not part of the agenda of Empire. It never has been, and never will be. Instead, it fosters a sense of futility, an disposition of passive dependence, an attitude of servile disempowerment, where authenticity and real individuality are frowned upon. And it behoves us to remember that it takes two to tango. The game of containment continues with such effect because it is allowed to, through the silent consent of the mass of folk. It is not enough to simply blame Trump or the EU or the local council for our lack of hope. It is an attitude to develop individually, by moving beyond the limits which these petty views of human potential encourage.
Rather than conclude with a wave of the 'no hope' banner, Pale Green Vortex has a different take on the soul-destroying nature of life under Empire. There is no solution within its strangulating parameters. That is the nature of the beast, arguably consciously developed as such. Solutions - hope - come from somewhere else altogether. As a start, there presents itself the task of elegantly removing ourselves from the entire set-up, as best we can. Take our identity out of its poisoned embrace, in whatever ways we feel suitable and find possible.
Hope comes with a change of perspective on the purpose and destiny of humanity, such as the change outlined by Jung. And that's it.
