Hope in the Dark

 

Hope in the Dark

By Rebecca Solnit

 

Rebecca Solnit is first and foremost an Activist.  This book is a cross section of world issues where she has played the role of Activist and her philosophic approach to what it is to be an activist.  She would say it this way:  if there is something going on in your life, weather it is around the block or around the world, that does not fit your moral standards do something about it.  She goes on to say if the issues look hopeless, know there are likely thousands of people on the dark edges, looking at the same thing.  Speak out, eventually the voice from the edges will arrive on the center stage. 

Yin/Yang are my words.  Rebecca says it this way.  This 21st century is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative movements that could not be foreseen.  It has also been a nightmarish time.  Full engagement requires the ability to see both.  In my words, the phrase ‘strange bedfellows’ comes to mind.  I provide two examples. 

·       First are my words.   I cite Trump who has been called a Populist, appealing to an outsider’s voice [drain the swamp] in his political role as POTUS.  Many news agencies cry the dangers of a populist leader not just in the USA but around the world.  The implication is the “populist” being revolutionary may be a bit untamed.  Yet the mere word popular, suggests the people like him and his revolutionary ideas.  You could call him an activist, a term usually associated by the Left here in America.    

·       Second, Rebecca cites ‘Silicon Valley as a global power center that has eliminated and automated countless jobs enhancing economic inequality; it has produced new elites and monstrous corporations from Amazon with its attack on publishing, authors and working conditions, to Google which is attempting to build global information monopoly in myriad arenas and in the process amassing terrifying powers including the powers that comes with sophisticated profiles of most computer users.  The tech companies have created and deployed surveillance capacities that the Kremlin and FBI…. ” 

·       Rebecca: “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.  When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able influence the outcome” 

Back to my words,  lets look at what we just witnessed in Facebook and Twitter regarding the New York Post on Hunter Biden.  Silicon Valley boldly showed their LEFT HAND and BLOCKED the NY Post of an alleged Biden crime.  Whereas we have heard for four years free flowing allegations and popular prosecution of Trump.  These tech companies are doing more than surveillance.  They are shaping popular opinion.  Ironically, this is exactly  what they despise in a Populist leader.   IS this not looking this from both sides.  Engage!!!! 

When you first open the book, read her forward.  Read it twice.  It is full of tightly packed allegory, metaphor-in-reality, poetry-in-prose that will inspire to move on to chapter one.  She closes each chapter with inspirational words that once you close the last page you will make your list of actionable movements you want to start or join.  She does not delve into philanthropy.  You will find with other book reviews on this site where Rebecca or you can pursue your activism. 

In reading this book I find most of Rebecca’s issues are not in alignment with mine.  So WHAT!!!  But the thread on the theme Hope in the Dark asks the reader to look at both sides of issues.  It is not the issue all by itself as it is how the issue sits with you and what action you take.  She defines hope in many ways.  She would say in hope when you personify your position on an issue, you are already successful. 

  I will capture just a couple here in this review.   Read the book and make you own list. 

• ·       After listing a few issues Rebecca says “Hope doesn’t mean denying these realities.  It means facing them and addressing them by remembering what else the twenty-first century has brought including the movements, heroes and shifts in consciousness that address these things now.”
• ·       “it’s important to say what hope is not:  it is not the belief that everything is, or will be fine …..  The hope I am interested is about broad perspectives with specific possibilities, ones that invite or demand that we act.