It appears irrational and ill-founded, but the powerful emotion that brought Obama to power will outlive any disappointments ahead
By A C Grayling
The Independent
".......Because the resonant ideas of hope and its necessary correlative, change, inspired so many Americans to vote who had never voted before, especially among the young and hitherto disaffected, an immediate reaction among observers is to ask: given the inevitability that not all, or perhaps even many, of the hopes that Obama has raised can be realised, surely he has taken a great risk in loading his presidency with such expectation? Why is it that people fail to realise how unlikely it is that all the hopes generated by his campaign will come to fruition?
These are good questions because they are prompted by one of history's clearest lessons: that almost all political endeavours end in failure and disappointment, whether or not they start in a joyous riot of welcome and relief. A minor forerunner of Obama's capture of the White House is Tony Blair's election victory in 1997, which reminds us of a painful truth: the higher the starting point, the steeper the eventual fall......
The answer lies not in whether the hopes will materialise in future, but in the catharsis of having hope in the present. Along with something to do and someone to love, having hope is one of life's essentials. It is an obvious but important fact that genuine hopelessness is a destructive, suicidal, terminal state of mind for an individual, and equally corrosive for a society. Even unrealistic hope is enough to get people out of bed in the morning, and to try again after failure or rejection.
Hope is a psychological necessity, and perhaps it is a distinctive mark of humanity too; for alone among animals, human beings have foresight which, informed by memory, would seem to give a truly rational individual good grounds for steeling himself against hope as much as possible – and yet most of us do exactly the opposite most of the time.
In describing a second marriage as the "triumph of hope over experience" the inimitable Dr Johnson exploited the central fact about hope: that it is an emotion, and moreover one of those emotions, such as fear, greed, desire and love, that trump rationality every time......."
By A C Grayling
The Independent
".......Because the resonant ideas of hope and its necessary correlative, change, inspired so many Americans to vote who had never voted before, especially among the young and hitherto disaffected, an immediate reaction among observers is to ask: given the inevitability that not all, or perhaps even many, of the hopes that Obama has raised can be realised, surely he has taken a great risk in loading his presidency with such expectation? Why is it that people fail to realise how unlikely it is that all the hopes generated by his campaign will come to fruition?
These are good questions because they are prompted by one of history's clearest lessons: that almost all political endeavours end in failure and disappointment, whether or not they start in a joyous riot of welcome and relief. A minor forerunner of Obama's capture of the White House is Tony Blair's election victory in 1997, which reminds us of a painful truth: the higher the starting point, the steeper the eventual fall......
The answer lies not in whether the hopes will materialise in future, but in the catharsis of having hope in the present. Along with something to do and someone to love, having hope is one of life's essentials. It is an obvious but important fact that genuine hopelessness is a destructive, suicidal, terminal state of mind for an individual, and equally corrosive for a society. Even unrealistic hope is enough to get people out of bed in the morning, and to try again after failure or rejection.
Hope is a psychological necessity, and perhaps it is a distinctive mark of humanity too; for alone among animals, human beings have foresight which, informed by memory, would seem to give a truly rational individual good grounds for steeling himself against hope as much as possible – and yet most of us do exactly the opposite most of the time.
In describing a second marriage as the "triumph of hope over experience" the inimitable Dr Johnson exploited the central fact about hope: that it is an emotion, and moreover one of those emotions, such as fear, greed, desire and love, that trump rationality every time......."
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