Some thoughts on Hope
There are no easy answers anymore. As for hope, well: perhaps there was hope in the 70s, when people believed they could change things; perhaps there was hope – at least of a kind – in the 90s, too, when people thought “fuck it,” probably in those words, daring to believe that they didn’t have to care.
Things change.
The grim reality is that the age of freedom is over – the era of heroes is drawing to close – the world is slowly settling into the inevitable downward spiral of the mundane. As the age of Pisces, the age of Spirituality draws to a close, people who believe in such thing rave about the new Age, the age of Peace, of intellectual growth. Fools. The age of the fish was not only an age of religion and monotheism, but of belief; an age of faith. Slowly we strangle our capacity to trust with a noose of logic, and the consequences will be felt for centuries: till the end of the age, as it were, if not beyond. For humanity is slowly beginning to understand – or at least it thinks it understands – that ‘the heart is deceitful above all things,’ and is resolved to engage it as little as possible. Things are not to be believed until first proven, tested beyond doubt, justified ‘a priori’ with as little emotional involvement and possible. There is no room in this new age for instinct, for bias, no room for hoping against the odds or for leaps of faith.
Already the effects are being felt throughout society, though not always in obvious ways. Probably the most obvious sign is the decline of religion, especially those based exclusively on faith; why traditional Christianity has suffered so greatly in comparison to, say, Islam is precisely due to this – where Islam remains firmly rooted in action and consequence and practically. “Do this and be saved!” the Prophet proclaims, where the evangelicals have only “believe and you will live.” What use is it to ask for belief in the age of reason? Mainstream Christianity has become fatally disconnected from everyday cause-and-effect, from the modern predicament of blow and counter-blow, give and take. At the heart of things, this is why we are watching Christianity slowly die: because it is eternally rooted in paradox, Nietzsche’s absurdissimum of God on the cross, and above all the ultimate contradiction of grace. Christianity is based on the idea that God has let us off the hook simply because he desires too, and this is the idea that humanity is quickly going resistant to; God may forgive and forget as is his wont, but the acceptance of grace requires a belief that you are forgiven and a faith in the one forgiving you, two things that people are rapidly losing the capacity for. God may forgive and forget, but humans are slow to do both, and before long the word ‘grace’ will not only be connected inextricably with ‘paradox’ but also with ‘self-delusion.’ It is funny that, while people still seem capable of acts of tremendous grace, their ability to receive it is one of the first spiritual senses to go; perhaps one day we will be able to accept that it is just as blessed to receive as to give. Sadly, not even I am able to have faith in that.
Religion is not the only indicator of the world’s slow shift from the life-affirming to the willing suicide of the spirit, however – many things in life exist only through faith, and they too are feeling their energies wane. The divorce rate in the western world continues to rise, even as the marriage rate falls: not only do people lack the faith in one another – even in the ‘special someone’ or one of the multiple of them as it seems to be becoming – to believe that there will be better days after surviving the hard ones, they lack even the faith to try commitment in the first place. Marriage is just an experiment, a potentially costly flip of the coin that may or may not work out. How long before the casual sexual partner completely replaces the lover? Before the prenup replaces vows, lawyers replace priests, how long before the pragmatist has entirely killed off the lingering spirit of Romanticism? Love survives only in an environment of faith and hope; otherwise it is either lust or despair. How long before we take it for granted that those are all there is to be had?
Though at times it may seem like quite the opposite, the fabric of our society also relies fundamentally on faith and hope; without hope for the future and at least a modicum of faith in those who step up to the task of building it, how will we ever progress? Stagnation, at least socially, is the only outcome for a society that stops believing the future can be better: education, savings and pension plans, political activism, scientific research grants, entrepreneurialism – all these are entirely reliant on the people contributing to them having hope for what they will achieve in the future. If we lose that, or lose faith in the people who make such actions possible, what is the point? Why don’t we all just give up: curl up and die, or lose all now-meaningless restraints and behave exactly as we want to?
And of course, we do. From the alarmingly steep and consistent rise in mental health disorders to the growing weekend culture of binge drinking, drugs, random sex, violence, crime and whatever else appeals to the unrestrained psyche, society gasps out nihilism with every breath. The acts themselves are not the most worrying thing – every society has had its violently non-conformist, after all – but the way in which they are beginning to become the institutions of society, the frame into which people search for where they fit. Identity is no longer based around culture, religion, employment as it once was, but on cheap and transitory values. It may be old-fashioned of me to yearn for the ‘good old days,’ but it is easy to be sick of people whose lives are centred around getting smashed and/or laid at the weekend and talking about nothing else until it all beings the next week. Perhaps this is the origin of the midlife crisis: the slowly dawning realisation that living from day to day only leads to your ‘better tomorrow’ being the day you die, simply because there won’t be another one.
In none of this is there a solution for avoiding such a future. Why? Because there may not be one. There is no law anywhere that proves humanity ‘must’ survive; only our own amazing arrogance in believing our race will endure forever. The only real remaining question is this: will humanity realise before it is too late? It is never too late to begin hoping, certainly, and it is never too late to find something or someone to have faith in, or even become such a person ourselves. Only one thing is certain: humanity stands at a crossroads in history, because humanity is always at a crossroads in history – every day is a step down one road or the other, and every step has the possibility of being the one that takes us that bit too far; makes us that single second too far gone.
Perhaps that saddest thing is this: if today were that day, the first day of the ever-shortening span of our existence, would you even realise it?
Would any of us?
Things change.
The grim reality is that the age of freedom is over – the era of heroes is drawing to close – the world is slowly settling into the inevitable downward spiral of the mundane. As the age of Pisces, the age of Spirituality draws to a close, people who believe in such thing rave about the new Age, the age of Peace, of intellectual growth. Fools. The age of the fish was not only an age of religion and monotheism, but of belief; an age of faith. Slowly we strangle our capacity to trust with a noose of logic, and the consequences will be felt for centuries: till the end of the age, as it were, if not beyond. For humanity is slowly beginning to understand – or at least it thinks it understands – that ‘the heart is deceitful above all things,’ and is resolved to engage it as little as possible. Things are not to be believed until first proven, tested beyond doubt, justified ‘a priori’ with as little emotional involvement and possible. There is no room in this new age for instinct, for bias, no room for hoping against the odds or for leaps of faith.
Already the effects are being felt throughout society, though not always in obvious ways. Probably the most obvious sign is the decline of religion, especially those based exclusively on faith; why traditional Christianity has suffered so greatly in comparison to, say, Islam is precisely due to this – where Islam remains firmly rooted in action and consequence and practically. “Do this and be saved!” the Prophet proclaims, where the evangelicals have only “believe and you will live.” What use is it to ask for belief in the age of reason? Mainstream Christianity has become fatally disconnected from everyday cause-and-effect, from the modern predicament of blow and counter-blow, give and take. At the heart of things, this is why we are watching Christianity slowly die: because it is eternally rooted in paradox, Nietzsche’s absurdissimum of God on the cross, and above all the ultimate contradiction of grace. Christianity is based on the idea that God has let us off the hook simply because he desires too, and this is the idea that humanity is quickly going resistant to; God may forgive and forget as is his wont, but the acceptance of grace requires a belief that you are forgiven and a faith in the one forgiving you, two things that people are rapidly losing the capacity for. God may forgive and forget, but humans are slow to do both, and before long the word ‘grace’ will not only be connected inextricably with ‘paradox’ but also with ‘self-delusion.’ It is funny that, while people still seem capable of acts of tremendous grace, their ability to receive it is one of the first spiritual senses to go; perhaps one day we will be able to accept that it is just as blessed to receive as to give. Sadly, not even I am able to have faith in that.
Religion is not the only indicator of the world’s slow shift from the life-affirming to the willing suicide of the spirit, however – many things in life exist only through faith, and they too are feeling their energies wane. The divorce rate in the western world continues to rise, even as the marriage rate falls: not only do people lack the faith in one another – even in the ‘special someone’ or one of the multiple of them as it seems to be becoming – to believe that there will be better days after surviving the hard ones, they lack even the faith to try commitment in the first place. Marriage is just an experiment, a potentially costly flip of the coin that may or may not work out. How long before the casual sexual partner completely replaces the lover? Before the prenup replaces vows, lawyers replace priests, how long before the pragmatist has entirely killed off the lingering spirit of Romanticism? Love survives only in an environment of faith and hope; otherwise it is either lust or despair. How long before we take it for granted that those are all there is to be had?
Though at times it may seem like quite the opposite, the fabric of our society also relies fundamentally on faith and hope; without hope for the future and at least a modicum of faith in those who step up to the task of building it, how will we ever progress? Stagnation, at least socially, is the only outcome for a society that stops believing the future can be better: education, savings and pension plans, political activism, scientific research grants, entrepreneurialism – all these are entirely reliant on the people contributing to them having hope for what they will achieve in the future. If we lose that, or lose faith in the people who make such actions possible, what is the point? Why don’t we all just give up: curl up and die, or lose all now-meaningless restraints and behave exactly as we want to?
And of course, we do. From the alarmingly steep and consistent rise in mental health disorders to the growing weekend culture of binge drinking, drugs, random sex, violence, crime and whatever else appeals to the unrestrained psyche, society gasps out nihilism with every breath. The acts themselves are not the most worrying thing – every society has had its violently non-conformist, after all – but the way in which they are beginning to become the institutions of society, the frame into which people search for where they fit. Identity is no longer based around culture, religion, employment as it once was, but on cheap and transitory values. It may be old-fashioned of me to yearn for the ‘good old days,’ but it is easy to be sick of people whose lives are centred around getting smashed and/or laid at the weekend and talking about nothing else until it all beings the next week. Perhaps this is the origin of the midlife crisis: the slowly dawning realisation that living from day to day only leads to your ‘better tomorrow’ being the day you die, simply because there won’t be another one.
In none of this is there a solution for avoiding such a future. Why? Because there may not be one. There is no law anywhere that proves humanity ‘must’ survive; only our own amazing arrogance in believing our race will endure forever. The only real remaining question is this: will humanity realise before it is too late? It is never too late to begin hoping, certainly, and it is never too late to find something or someone to have faith in, or even become such a person ourselves. Only one thing is certain: humanity stands at a crossroads in history, because humanity is always at a crossroads in history – every day is a step down one road or the other, and every step has the possibility of being the one that takes us that bit too far; makes us that single second too far gone.
Perhaps that saddest thing is this: if today were that day, the first day of the ever-shortening span of our existence, would you even realise it?
Would any of us?
posted by backgroundbob at 12:51 am
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