What was it about Barack Obama's campaign of hope that resonated so
much not just with Americans, but people the world over? Have we
really become so despairing in the face of collapsed economies and
the threat of violence around every corner that a simple rallying
cry to remember hope can have such a powerful effect? In this
moving and thoughtful book, Ronald Aronson explores our
relationship to hope at a time some have called the end of history,
others the end of politics, in order to formulate a more active
stance, one in which hope is far more than a mood or feeling it is
the very basis of social will and political action. Aronson
examines our own heartbreaking story: a century of violence,
upheaval, and the undelivered promises of progress all of which
have contributed to the evaporation of social hope. As he shows, we
are now in an era when hope has been privatized, when despite all
the ways we are connected to each other we are desperately alone,
struggling to weather the maelstrom around us, demoralized by the
cynicism that permeates our culture and politics, and burdened with
finding personal solutions to social problems. Yet social hope,
Aronson argues, still persists. Carefully exploring what we mean
when we say we "hope" and teasing hope apart from its dangerously
misconstrued sibling, progress, he locates real seeds of change. He
argues that always underlying our experience even if we completely
ignore it is a sense of social belonging, and that this can be
reactivated into a powerful collective force, an active we. He
looks to various political movements, from the massive collective
force of environmentalists to the stunning rise of
movement-centered politicians such as Bernie Sanders and Jeremy
Corbyn, as powerful examples of socially energized, politically
determined, and actionably engaged forms of hope. The result is an
illuminating and inspiring call that anyone can clearly hear: we
can still create a better future for ourselves, but only if we do
it together.
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