January 16, 2002 –What is Hope?

Today we are going to talk about hope. People have been asking throughout the last quarter, “Where is hope?” It seems as though we have been reading quite a few “depressing” books last quarter, and now we must try to find the good and the “hope” in what we have been presented.

What are different people’s ideas about what hope is, or where it lies?

People- that they will be strong and powerful to make a change

Faith

Wishful Thinking

Switching our perspective from negative to positive.

Implies that there is a need for improvement.

A weed growing out of the crack in a sidewalk

Something very solid; it keeps you going

A crutch to help us believe that our needs or wants will be manifested

Recognizing positive aspects of the world and people and environment; seeing that there is an inherent goodness throughout life.

An end to fear

Propeller of dreams

Desire to overcome suffering

Belief that human kind and life are based on inner-cooperativeness.

John: An important aspect of hope that I found in Refuge and Periodic Table is that it is not wishful thinking; there is the possibility that it will happen. How did the characters in these books continue to live productive lives in the face of great odds? That is where hope seems to come from. It is very possible to get overwhelmed by things such as environmental problems; when you see the statistics, it’s easy to not care, or to say that there is nothing I can do. That is not hope. Hope is the opposite.

Rita: Throughout Refuge, the book started with the problem of cancer, but it grew to higher and greater problems, worldwide, family wide, etc. Both authors seemed to describe both how they literally shifted themselves, they moved. Both of these writers talk about writing as a means for finding hope. There is a shift in their lives where they find the ability to write the stories, and in that the find hope.

John: Some things to look for in a book are signs of hope. What do they do to actively try to make a change, to find hope? Levi speaks about freedom, the ability to make a choice, and this is where he is finding hope. He would much rather have an easy life, but that struggle he is going through is his freedom; it is a sign of hope.

What is community?

Matt: We in our society have an extraordinarily high feeling for the idea of individual. We are indivisible, we are rights bearers. These are very powerful ideas in the American mind. When we get old, we are not quite so autonomous. When you are a parent, there is a certain amount of loss of autonomy. Most of the people in this class are at a fairly high level of freedom; they have broken away from the community that raised them, made choices that separated them. But the reality is we are very obligated to each other. It is out of our engagement with others that we shape our ideas and beliefs and understandings. If that weren’t true you wouldn’t be here in school. Although we prize our autonomy, much of who we are is formed by our interactions with others. And it is not solely with particular people, but rather those people being bearers of ideas and thoughts from the world. People who have told you how things in the world worked; helped you see that there was a potential pattern. People who made you think about what actions in the world might mean. There are people who help Levi make sense of the world. Hope is a variable quality of communities. It seems at times in American society that hope is a very thin quality. “I will go to school so hopefully I can make money so I can hopefully drive a fast car.” We also have a very deeper feeling of hope. For example, a hope in democracy; that we are able to govern ourselves without a dictator. There is a very positive understanding of hope in Martin Luther King’s writing. At many different levels there are very different ideas of hope.

When we think about community there are very distinct ideas. It holds certain qualities, such as place and history of people. Or people who have a strong sense of community together. We have a notion of community as being a group of people who living collectively makes something matter. Why are we calling these things communities? It’s not always obvious. Another way of thinking about community is thinking about it as a variable aspect, a quality of different kinds of social groups. There are all kinds of social groups, from something like McDonalds to something like a commune. To what extent do these social groups manifest social communities? Think of something with a clear goal as an organization on one end, to a group of people living together without specific goals or ends. This is the spectrum of people living together.

Selznick: What ideas and ideals are manifested by the history of a community? For example, our experience as a country. We have ideas about freedom and justice that we hope to believe that they come out of our history, and we use those ideas as comparisons to current ideas and ideals. As a group of people do this, the closer they move to a community.

We are socialized into identification as a part of a community. The feel good feeling that we are all one is a problematic feeling. For example the Germans united under Hitler felt strong in the fact of being a community. If you over identify you can lose your touch to the rest of the world.

Mutuality: based on the idea of interdependence/reciprocity. If I do something for you, you will do something back for me. To what extent are there different ways you can engage and identify yourself with?

Autonomy: the idea of people being able to foster their specific needs and wants. You get choose how you are and how you act in those groups. Mass mobilization is not a sign of participation; of a healthy community. Participation reflects and sustains community.