Hopepunk. Can We Demand A Better World Into Existence?

[Stuart Suffel]

from the BBC article

"Hopepunk says that kindness and softness doesn't equal weakness, and that in this world of brutal cynicism and nihilism, being kind is a political act. An act of rebellion," Rowland wrote in a follow-up to her original viral post. "It's about DEMANDING a better, kinder world." If hope sings a "tune without words" – as Dickinson described – then Rowland hears that song as a battle cry. This is the "punk" side of the moniker.

The essence of the hopepunk philosophy can be found in an exchange between Frodo and Samwise Gamgee in The Two Towers from Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, as they struggle against the forces of evil around them.

"It's like in the great stories, Mr Frodo," Sam says. "Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the Sun shines it will shine out the clearer."

It's not unreasonable to believe our thoughts inform our actions, and our actions create our environment. So...

 

[BAYLOR]

I would very much like to believe a better world is a something that we could create.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Yet another reason to love The Lord of the Rings.

 

[WSDuffy]

I would go as far as to say that a better world is something we did create. Even today, when a tremendous amount of the world seems to suck, the world is objectively better in many ways than in most eras that we look back on fondly, particularly if you part of any marginalized community. We are in the fortunate place of not needing to start fighting to make the world better, but to keep doing so.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

I remember Stephen Pinker (just happened to be him, not endorsing or denouncing!) talking about all the improvements that don't get reported, like numbers lifted out of poverty, growth of literacy rates and so forth. Not 'If it bleeds it leads' material, so not often acknowledged.
If nothing else, it offers an alternative future vision.

 

[msstice]

I'd rather say that enough people through out history have been quietly working towards a better world that I'm happy to have been born when I was rather than at any earlier time in recorded history.

 

[BAYLOR]

I remember Stephen Pinker (just happened to be him, not endorsing or denouncing!) talking about all the improvements that don't get reported, like numbers lifted out of poverty, growth of literacy rates and so forth. Not 'If it bleeds it leads' material, so not often acknowledged.
If nothing else, it offers an alternative future vision.

We live in difficult age with alot strife ,anger, hated and fear. I don't see this state of affairs, changing anytime soon .

 

[Montero]

It's a lovely idea. Sounds similar to Solarpunk - though there are twists there. The more the merrier.
I've seen several online forums that have a code of conduct taken from Bill and Ted's "Be Excellent to Each Other". That is a good model and something to build on.

There is a lot of strife and so on - but whether this is an increase, or an increase in visibility is hard to measure. Maybe by seeing it we can mitigate it.
One of the many bits of social history I picked up from doing re-enactment was that the county was a massively important unit in the 17th century - to the extent that the county trained bands, frequently refused to march and fight outside of their county, on the grounds that they'd been created to protect their county. Also people from other counties, especially more distant ones, were referred to as foreigners. Still around a little - but a lot less.

I also have hope from the vastly better way that we treat animals than we used to. Have just been watching a documentary on an elephant hospital in Thailand and the effort they go to, and the kindness of the people, made my day.

I'd rather say that enough people through out history have been quietly working towards a better world that I'm happy to have been born when I was rather than at any earlier time in recorded history.

Yes.

 

[sknox]

It feels peculiar to me to speak of demanding kindness. The verb is too aggressive, for one thing. More importantly, it implies we're all standing around demanding, like protesters outside government offices. Me, I'd say it this way: we can *create* a kinder world.

That puts the onus where it belongs: on us, not on "them."

 

[Astro Pen]

Man cannot live by sugar alone.

hmm, Love Bombing. Looks good, feels nice... initially.

Love bombing

Love bombing refers to a cult recruitment tactic, in which a cult overwhelms potential recruits with "love", giving the feeling that their emotional and social needs will be met by joining the cult. Cult watchers often included love bombing as one of the features that may identify an...

rationalwiki.org

 

[Justin Swanton]

I suppose this sounds a bit dumb, but I don't really get the pessimism. It may have something to do with my growing up in Rhodesia, watched it become Zimbabwe then fall apart, and now living in South Africa and watching it follow a broadly similar route. I've long since given up thinking there's any chance of an optimistic future for this part of the world. This was hammered home for me in July when Durban descended into utter chaos, with the suburbs arming themselves and constructing defensive barricades against thousands of looters who gutted and destroyed the shops. It really felt post-apocalyptic. Now I just live in the present and leave the uncertain and dangerous future to take care of itself.

But I don't feel pessimistic. I suppose it all depends on what you expect out of life. For me living with integrity is of primary importance, and doing good to others as circumstances dictate is a close second. You can't make any assumptions. I caught covid in December 2020 and at one point thought my time was up. It rather puts things into perspective - you can't assume you will make the threescore and ten. One could go at any moment so, again, living for the present. It's rather a relief actually as it frees me to focus on the real day-to-day trials and problems which I can actually do something about. I'm cool.

 

[Toby Frost]

I DEMAND a better, kinder world and God help anyone who disagrees with me!

Actually, this reminds me of this thread:

Writing Nice Futures

I've been trying to write a space opera at least partially set in a pleasant and optimistic future society, and it's not easy! I don't think any of the following is political, but apologies if it's sneaked in... Part of the problem is that you have to say what constitutes "good". Almost...

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[Parson]

Perhaps related, I remember reading 50 years ago? about a group of budding S.F. writers who decided that they would write to "give humanity the stars." Their thinking went that if humans started dreaming something eventually they would find a way to do it. ---- So far it's hard to say that they were wrong about that.

 

[farntfar]

And in the same way, if all we expect is for things to get worse, then they probably will, for the simple reason that we'll have stopped struggling against that trend.
It's why the prevalence of dystopian and so called realist fiction upsets me so much.

 

[Justin Swanton]

Optimism is fine if it's grounded - at least to some extent - on reality. Kesselring, 'smiling Albert', was famous for his cheery optimism. After fighting a long, hopeless withdrawal in Italy, smiling all the time, he took command of the German forces on the Rhine in March 1945. There was no question of pessimism. Even though everything was falling apart, he refused to consider surrender until the 2nd May. Keep smiling, keep going. Alles sal reg kom.

In the not-so-distant past the West was optimistic, I think because it was making rapid technological and industrial strides and knew where it was going. Social reform was eliminating the horrors of Victorian industrialism and everyone was steadily getting wealthier. That's largely gone now. We no longer have any idea of what we're supposed to be heading towards or even what we're supposed to be here and now (we all have to be soooo careful what we say), and the side effects of planetary industrialisation are finally hitting home. I don't think pessimism makes things bad; it's a bad situation that creates pessimism.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think any sort of hope-based writing will have to grapple with the fact that a lot of older people are quite happy doing away with hope and would much prefer comfortable entropy. I'm middle-aged, but it seems to me that any attempt to improve the world is now immediately greeted by hordes of angry old people babbling their favourite insult, claiming that everything is fine. Sometimes, attempts to make things better are gauche and crass, sometimes they are misguided and no more than attention-seeking, but it's clear that there is a large group of old people who don't want to try. Not that this is any different to what happened to reformers of earlier generations, of course.

 

[Stuart Suffel]

I suppose this sounds a bit dumb, but I don't really get the pessimism. It may have something to do with my growing up in Rhodesia, watched it become Zimbabwe then fall apart, and now living in South Africa and watching it follow a broadly similar route. I've long since given up thinking there's any chance of an optimistic future for this part of the world. This was hammered home for me in July when Durban descended into utter chaos, with the suburbs arming themselves and constructing defensive barricades against thousands of looters who gutted and destroyed the shops. It really felt post-apocalyptic. Now I just live in the present and leave the uncertain and dangerous future to take care of itself.

But I don't feel pessimistic. I suppose it all depends on what you expect out of life. For me living with integrity is of primary importance, and doing good to others as circumstances dictate is a close second. You can't make any assumptions. I caught covid in December 2020 and at one point thought my time was up. It rather puts things into perspective - you can't assume you will make the threescore and ten. One could go at any moment so, again, living for the present. It's rather a relief actually as it frees me to focus on the real day-to-day trials and problems which I can actually do something about. I'm cool.

Well, if YOU'RE not pessimistic, no one should be! Great post.
I think the subtext issue, perhaps not best served with the word DEMAND, to me anyway, is this

Is the world as we know it, an outcome of our thinking/ thoughts, or a result of unthinking action.

One could argue both, but WHICH IS THE GREATER?

On this planet, Was the plunder of less advanced civilisations by the more advanced civilisations throughout our history, inevitable? And if so, why? What components of thought facilitated this ruthless plunder by one group to another?

Tis a lot of pondering to be had here, 'tis.

 

[Toby Frost]

Perhaps a key to the "hope" aspect of this is that future societies will break these cycles of plunder and behave a bit more morally. And there may well be something to that. Once an event occurs and gets a name, people can look back to it and make the choice not to do that again. Once you have, say, the real-world period of Appeasement to look back on, you can at least see what the effects of doing something similar might be. I think this lack of real-world history is an important difference between SF and other-world fantasy.

 

[Astro Pen]

I would like mankind to colonise space, expand enterprise and exploration into the universe.
My partner wants all that NASA money spent on housing the homeless and feeding the poor.
Both are reasonable hopes but you can't have your cake and eat it

My conclusion is that hope is not a universal shape but both individual and highly variable. The death of post war modernism that ran from 1945 to 1990 means that my generation's lot is up and we didn't quite make it.
Now something like fall era Rome has taken over the world. Maybe Hari Seldon was right?

 

[farntfar]

And yet both you and your partner can remain hopeful that things will advance on both fronts, if perhaps slower than you might wish.
If we all just get depressed and assume that it's hopeless, and the money will go to neither cause.

If we all hope and stop demanding that resources (including our own energies) go to hopeful causes, be sure they will simply be grabbed by the powerful.