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Half-past Hope
By: Albert Brenner

Hope springs forth eternally from the heart of man...so the saying goes. From the dawn of the West, hope has been the canvass on which the trails and tribulations of our civilization have been painted. Hope gave rise to the most humane empires, inspired some of the greatest works of art and led to the discovery of the most profound scientific truths. Transcending the interests of individuals, societies and nations throughout the various epochs, hope has guided us on our epic journey towards a better tomorrow – an enlightened future of true meaning and authentic existence. Finding expression in the discourse of Utopia, hope is the fons et origo of all the ideals that have animated the West's quest for eternal rest. From the confused adolescent strumming away on his guitar and the fearful elderly woman awaiting death, to the beguiled geneticist immersed in his research; hoping to understand, hoping for salvation and hoping to find the truth, has been the élan vital of our most ardent endeavors to find respite from the anguish, forlornness and despair of eternal mortality.

The story of utopia is, in a sense, an ongoing saga of the efforts of human Reason to mediate in the struggle between hope and despair that characterizes the human condition and his/her existence in via. Despair is rooted in the stark realization that we find ourselves in a world (Universe) that is not of our making, and that our desperate attempts to find meaning to existence are as much confounded by this arcane world as it is by our alien selves. It is as if our own incredulous amnesiac selves, of ourselves, have been thrown into an unrelentingly alien world that binds us together, gives us life, yet kills us - seemingly at random, and we don't know why, why we don't know why, or even if we could know why! The irreverence of existence towards humanity's well-being is, to put it bluntly, rather disconcerting. Consciousness is not an easy burden to bear - and despair, albeit less courageous, is always an option.

Despair comes in many forms, the most drastic and tragic being suicide - the fundamental negation of life itself. The more subtle forms of despair are, on the whole, less recognizable, especially when it comes to their manifestation in intellectual thought. The indifference of pragmatism, the escape into art of aestheticism and the irresponsibility of relativism, as evident in the main strands of postmodern thinking, are some of the more noticeable manifestations of despair in the current intellectual climate of the West. They all bear the hallmarks of disengagement, retreat and surrender - sometimes not unjustifiably so. But then, the quest for Truth is not for the fainthearted and, after more than 2500 years, something we simply cannot just turn a blind eye to or, heaven forbid, abandon. The hope for a better, more meaningful and enlightened tomorrow, is as important to us as the air we breathe. It is also that which has always distinguished us from all the other civilizations.

But hope is under siege, as never before. The age of Western supremacy is over, and the ideals that led to its ascendancy are finding it increasingly difficult to assert themselves in a world in which our modern feel-good self-centeredness (existential-humanism), greed (unchecked capitalism) and scientific knowledge (e.g. the A-bomb) have been globalized. Despair has set in. Hope seems to be utterly spent. Francis Bacon's quest to 'E = mc square' us back to Paradise has somehow got lost amidst the infuriatingly elusive box-within-the-box promise of modern science, alienation and the over-exploitation of the natural environment. Philosophy has, after Marx's 160-million dead, taken refuge in the abbey of Wittgensteinian language analysis, and Christianity is hanging on for dear life by evoking emotions exploited in an indifferent world centered on the alienated existentialist self. The series of dystopic recriminations that followed in the wake of the grand utopian schemes of the Enlightenment has diluted hope to such extent that all that is left is to blame an excess of carbon for all the woes besetting mankind.

The future does indeed look bleak (carbon-filled, according to silly Al Gore). The philosopher Richard Dworkin has, following John Gray's fundamental disillusionment (or realism?), forecasted that 'minor' utopias (e.g. human rights based idealism) is the only fate left for humankind. His skepticism is well-founded given the fact that none of the other civilizations have ever come up with any better suggestions. Even their religions are characterized by their innate exclusivity and escapism. Something which, given their desperate quest to emulate the 'progressive' example set by the West, certainly doesn't conjure up images of universal contentment. In our own divided camp; feminism and homosexualism have, rather predictably, remained reactionary, and our 'bridge' to Paradise Lost has been burned down by the death of the Noble Savage.

Not much to hope for, now is there? We are back in Darwin's Zoo again, and it is no wonder that the West is circling the wagons in the mean time - minus the poor white South Africans mercilessly abandoned to their horrific fate in The Heart of Darkness. Whether a global future of indifference or war will come to pass remains to be made history by the then present. Why? The way back is shut, the present is squabbling over the spoils left after the moral criminalization of the pale male, and the future is set to become a bloody fight over ever-diminishing natural resources in a world drowning in self-indulgent abundance?. Is global Rome to burn? Will we, in the words of the WWI poet Clive Owen, also succumb to utter despair?

"Was it for this the clay grew tall?

O what made fatuous sunbeams toil

To break earth’s sleep at all"?

Yes...but only if we forget the three-letter word that has made the West the beacon of hope....for all humanity. Why? Ever since Plato urged us to emerge from the cave of ignorance to follow the light of Reason, we have fervently believed that the truth will set us free. The freedom implied by the genius of Plato, and the like, is not limited to knowing the truth, but, more importantly, to understanding the truth. It goes without saying that knowing the truth and understanding it is not the same. If, for example, it does transpire that we are indeed the apogee of apehood, as Darwin, Dawkins and Dr. Doolittle would have us believe, then we would accept it, albeit very reluctantly, heckle the Pope, pay compensation to our younger cousins and develop a finer appreciation for banana soufflés. But it will definitely not stop us from asking that question which has haunted us ever since Hector saw Troy destroyed because of one woman. Why? All sarcasm aside; it will merely broaden the scope of the question to include our antics during this less dignified period of our being in this world. In short; the Why? can never be derived from the What?

The West was built on the question Why? Socrates, the first martyr of Reason, refused to desist from inciting the Athenian youth from asking this very question, thereby inviting his own voluntary demise. Why? implies dissatisfaction with the given, it is a steadfast challenge to the status quo to reveal its un-truths, assumptions and injustices. It is an ardent longing to know and understand the Truth, because it is only in its satisfaction that true meaning is revealed. It may sound a bit old-fashioned, but man is more than homo Tesco (the numbed shopper), homo coitus (the bonking man), homo faber (the "making" or working man) and homo civis (the responsible citizen of the state); he is - above all - homo hermeneuticus (the sustained effort to find meaning in life).

The mere fact that we can take cognizance and articulate our incredulity about having been delivered into this alien Existence, illustrates quite succinctly that we are not as hapless as our initial take on the world (…to cry) would have us believe. We have, very much like Chomsky's child, been endowed with that which it takes to take stock of, to comprehend and navigate this world that we find ourselves in. Reason, Faith and Art (in no particular order) are the handles we have to come to grips with ourselves and this alien reality confronting us. These innate 'faculties', that underpin our sense-making endeavors and engender our meaning-giving activities, all have one thing in common namely, hope!

The Hope of the West has an incredible legacy - grounded by those who realized that this amazing, yet tragically flawed world that we live in cannot, and must never, be left to its own devices, because then we'll cease being human. Although also animals, we are not mere animals; nothing illustrates that more succinctly than the fact that no animal commits suicide. Suicide, the final negation of a world in which all hope has faded, is the only way we can stop being human. Hope is what makes us human. Hope is what fuels our confrontation with our own alien selves and this alien Universe we have been thrown into - an imperfect existence in which our only real freedom is the care for its betterment. Adam's task?

Dare we hope....even as our darkest hour approaches? Yes we do! The owl of Minerva takes to wing at dusk.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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