Hope, the Absence & Meaning of

first draft published Sept 10, 2018
The meaning of hope / the absence of hope

"You'll always have Hope!", I've been told, but I don't believe it. More specifically, I don't see a reason to believe it. Which got me to thinking: what does Hope mean?

Wiki says:

Hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one's life or the world at large. As a verb, its definitions include: "expect with confidence" and "to cherish a desire with anticipation".
Hope is a positive expectation of the future. Hope is faith in future good outcomes.

Hope is no small matter; research indicates the presence of hope can affect medical outcomes; a recent Presidential campaign choose Hope as an organizing theme.


Hope. It's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru. Wait...

Well, what is the opposite of Hope? dejection, hopelessness and despair; perhaps fatalism. Is hope a force that displaces despair? Does that justify entertaining hope, as a sort of medicine?

Society tells people, You've got to have hope! in the way we say, you've got to support the Nation, or you've got to believe in G^d, or you've got to stand for the Anthem. And really, you don't have to do those things. Hope is, at best, a belief. Hope is a religion. You may or may not subscribe to that belief.

I would repeat myself: Hope is a belief, a religion; hope is faith-based rather than evidence-based. Like religion, it's a good way to control, influence, or keep people in line.

What is hope? What have people said about Hope

    Hope as Marketing

  • A leader is a dealer in hope.
    Napoleon I of France; Napoleon : In His Own Words
  • In the factory, we make cosmetics; in the store we sell hope.
    Charles H. Revson; quoted in Andrew Tobias, Fire and Ice (1976)
  • Also see: Pittsburgh Hope Institute, PIttsburgh WYCA's Hope For All.

    Hope as a necessity for life

  • 1678: Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of life along an agreeable road. François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes, 168
  • 1750: Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
    Samuel Johnson, The Rambler, No. 67
  • 1858: Beware how you take away hope from any human being. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., in his valedictory address to medical graduates at Harvard University

    Hope as a Healer through unknown effects

  • The prisoner who lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Victor Frankl

    Hope as a Sham

  • From 1815: But what is Hope? Nothing but the paint on the face of Existence. The least touch of truth rubs it off, and then we see what a hollow-cheeked harlot we have got hold of.
    Lord Byron, letter to Thomas Moore, 28 October 1815
  • 1919: Hope! of all ills that men endure, The only cheap and universal cure. Abraham Cowley, The Mistress, For Hope
  • 2006:Hope is the denial of reality. It is the carrot dangled before the draft horse to keep him plodding along in a vain attempt to reach it. Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragonlance Chronicles - Book 1 (2006), p. 393 (character of Raistlin Majere)

various definitions of Hope

    Hope as quasi-religious belief

  • The Christian Bible identifies three theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. Paul in (Thessalonians 1:3) and again in (1 Corinthians 13) positions Love as the greatest of the three, but there is no definition given of Hope. It is, notably, listed as a distinct item from Faith.
  • From 1845: Until the day when God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, Wait and hope. Some have argued that hope is faith in the future. Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
  • For some people Hope is a framework, or even a quasi-religious belief. They say, I believe in hope, and when pressed for the meaning they'll express, I think things will turn out for the better, or I think if I hang on to hope, things will turn out OK. In this meaning, Hope seems like a superstitious belief that if you keep a cheery outlook or cling to a belief set, you'll beat the scientific odds. It's a sort of American Exceptionalism, drilled down to the individual level.

    Hope as a yearning for Marxist Utopia

  • In The Principle of Hope, Ernst Bloch says hope is an expression of the universal yearning for Utopia, presented through a Marxist framework. The bits of hope we feel at times are suggestions of how we may feel when we come to understand what Utopia can be.

    Hope as Goal-Seaking or Visualization

  • Aristotle said, Hope is the dream of a waking man.

  • Charles Snyder, founder of a school called Positive Psychology, published The Psychology of Hope wherein he describes Hope as goal-seeking with two factors. Snyder's Hope consists of "Pathway Thinking" and "Agency Thinking".
  • Pathway Thinking is the creative capacity to find multiple routes to a desired goal, and Agency Thinking is mustering the required motivation to take action and accomplish the goal. He further identifies counter-productive motivations (excuse-making and forgiveness). Snyder and colleagues describe a process to quantify hope, so we can have scores just like the SATs etc.

Cost of Hope

Is hoping free of costs/ pain/ damage? When hopes go unrealized, does it incur any damage? What of the people who hope for a cure, who hope for a relationship, who hope for success? It seems like some unrealized hope could lead to thoughts of unworthiness. At times, hope seems like prosperity theology.

Zen Buddhism and Expectations

Let's substitute hope for expectations. It's pretty clear that Zen practitioners see expectations (hope) as the source of suffering, or more correctly that attachment (investment) in expectations/hope are the cause of suffering. One writer refers to the tyranny of expectations.

Personally, I see no warrant or evidence to believe in hope or to rely on hope to keep dismay at bay.

  • It does seem a useful soporific to help people endure horrible situations. It preserves social norms; would capitalism continue if the people lost all hope that they and theirs would come out ahead? Hope certainly helps preserve consumer society.
  • hope is a wish, a statement of desire
  • Hope certainly diminishes the role of time in expectations, shifting emphasis from the now to the future.