FINISHED READING - Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit

" The future is dark, which is on the whole, the best thing the future can be" - Virginia Woolf

Stubtitled - Untold Histories and Wild Possibilities, Solnit's book, was first published in 2005 in the aftermath of 9/11 and the Iraq War. There is a new foreward to this third edition published in 2016. This might appear to have little to give us hope in this Trumpian world, where we reverse into the future with a blindfold on. But what she has to say here about purpose and the results people can achieve if the have hope, still stand proud. Collective action still works, and the tech bros do fear that it might rear it's none co-operative head. Focusing on keeping us distracted, passively consuming the endless amounts of dreck on the internet.  When we look up from our start phones, then we might start to think. This book does stirs ones confidence, to grasp hope and fight for what you want. Nothing ever progresses or improves without cultivating the imagination to hope.

" Your opponents would love you to believe that it's all hopeless, that you have no power, that there's no reason to act, that you can't win. Hope is a gift you don't have to surrender, a power you don't have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn't enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons."

I bought this book because I was finding in our contemporary zeitgeist, it was all too easy for me to fall into despairing, and I wanted to be more In touch with a more open hopeful demeanor. Though as a Budfhist I should already know, not everything we do produces the change we desire, that over desired desires are problematic. Solnit asks us to step back and look at things from a broader perspective, to perceived how change happens in the longer term. That perhaps one small campaign that appeared to fail or fall short in it's aims, might actively change the terms of a discussion and lead to a turn around in public opinion in later years. Hope is for the long run. If we expect revolutions and instant changes, then everything will undoubtedly fail to live up to the expectations we hold. It's so easy to get caught up in despair because what was achieved is only a compromised shadow of what we'd wished for. This may not be the perfect solution, but it is going in the right direction.

"Perfectionists often position themselves on the sidelines, from which they point out that nothing is good enough."

Naysaying, becomes a habit. Yes, this completely glorious thing had just happened, but the entity that achieved it had done something bad at another point in history. Yes, the anguish of this group was ended, but somewhere some other perhaps unrelated group are suffering hideously. It boiled down to: we can't talk about good things until there are no more bad things. Which, given that the supply of bad things is inexhaustible, and more bad things are always arising, means that we can't talk about the good things at all. Ever."

Solnit uses the example of the abolition of slavery, that the campaign took from first utterance to completion, around 250 years to reach abolition. Even then slave labour was often instantly indentured, which was another way of tying them to a particular landowner. Slave owners wanted compensation for the loss of their 'property', which they were duly paid. Though this could look like recognising that slaves could be personal property. All these things got the abolition bill eventually over the line and into law, imperfect though they were as mechanisms. The Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's was able to build further on that, by removing some of the lingering prejudicial circumstances that bedeviled black lives. And so on, through to # Black Lives Matter. None of this was a perfectly clean fast track trajectory, in the treatment of all humankind with dignity and respect, but it is being driven by the hope that it could be.

"We write history with our feet and with our presence and our collective voices and vision. And yet, of course, everything in the mainstream media suggests that popular resistance is ridiculous, pointless,or criminal, unless it is far away, was long ago, or, ideally, both. There are forces that prefer the giant remain asleep."

" One of the key recognitions is that the change that counts in a revolution takes place first in the imagination."

I found myself excitedly pencilling brackets around the clarity with which she expressed ideas in sentences and whole paragraphs sometimes. Particularly her criticisms that people on the political left get too self absorbed, and paradoxically like those on the far right, become all about what is wrong, not what it is you want to create. You oppose the comfy consensus by pointing out all its self evident flaws. As a result the left today, can be perceived as constantly in a negative state of mind, in relation to how the world operates, neglecting the need to offer hope and a positive vision for what a better world might look like.

" The despairing were deeply attached to their despair, so much so I came to refer to my project as stealing the teddy bear of despair from the loving arms of the left.  What did it give that particular sector of the left ? It got them off the hook, for one thing. If the world is totally doomed no matter what, little or nothing is demanded of you in response..... And those who were active were often hopeful, though it may be the other way around, some of those who are hopeful are active. Yet the range of the hopeful extends beyond that, and you can find hope in surprising corners."

The assumption by the authorities is that in a time of disaster, civil society will instantly crumble, and tight authoritarian controls will be required to prevent anarchy breaking out. When in fact the opposite is what occurs, people pull together and organise themselves and form alliances to help as many people as possible. During the San Fransisco earthquake in 1906, the city authorities literally impeded and got in the way of ordinary San Franciscan's organising soup kitchens and housing homeless families. 

Solnit champions nonviolent protests, and a growing use of none partisanship in solving problems or issues at a local level. The old left/right polarities were collapsing even in the noughties. You don't come in now with your preformed ideological solutions to solve issues anymore, it's more about finding where the common ground is, listening and being open to hear where the direction of ideas, and possible solutions maybe going. 

"Every act is an act of faith, because you don't know what will happen. You just hope and employ whatever wisdom and experience seems most likely to get you there."

This book is a welcome short shot in the arm. As she points out through examples again and again, those expectations of ours for what is possible, and how quickly it can be achieved, need careful monitoring. Otherwise despair will appear and apathy will get in the way.

" Perfection is a stick with which to beat the possible.'

All quotations taken from Hope In The Dark by Rebecca Solnit, Published by Canongate Books, 2016.