With the polycrisis piling up large rocks on the Despair end of the see-saw, how helpful is placing a pebble on the Hope end?

This article weighs the value of hope, how to distinguish it from false hope, and the role both play in dodging despair over the climate crisis or any other existential threat. If you’re hoping for a simple, short answer, there’s an Executive Summary at the end.

The Tightrope of Hope

To be human is to walk the Tightrope of Hope over the Pit of Despair. 

No matter how close we think we get, we can never reach the end of the rope. That’s the point of Hope, always out of reach, but keeping us moving forward.

Chin up, arms stretched, we fix our eyes on the shimmering Golden Post of Hope that anchors the rope in front of us. Hope provides stability, and motivates us to progress.

We can never reach the end of the tightrope, so it shouldn’t matter whether or not we  progress along it. We may as well stand still and enjoy the view, but it’s harder to balance when you’re not moving. Try it on a bicycle.

Likewise, you don’t need to fix your gaze on the Golden Post to avoid the Pit of Despair, but it makes balancing easier. Try standing on one leg.

Besides, we’ve been told progress matters. Standing still is dangerous. Only losers stay put. If we don’t make progress, we’ll get left behind.

So we keep progressing, one foot in front of the other. This is easier if we:

• avert our eyes from the abyss below
• close our ears to anything discordant or unpleasant
• block our nostrils from the stench rising from the Pit

No going back

Sometimes we twist to peer over our shoulders.

The urge to look back can be strong, and the view can give comfort.

Behind us, we can see the Wooden Post of the past anchoring the other end of our tightrope. It’s less dazzling than the Golden Post of the future, hence easier to discern. 

But we can no more return to the Wooden Post behind us than we can make it to the Golden Post ahead of us.

Most of us choose to face forward. Looking back doesn’t make us fall off, but can throw us off balance.

For most of us, most of the time, our main priority is not falling into the Pit of Despair.

The Golden Posts of Hope

Each of our Golden Posts is as unique as our fingerprints, but they may not be trustworthy.

They may be genuine, made of pure gold, or false, made of fool’s gold. 

Realising yours is false throws you off balance, often tipping you into the Pit.

Shout to anyone on their tightrope, ask them to describe their Golden Post, and they’ll be able to tell you something about it. 

For some, their aspiration is not figurative gold, but literal gold. A tiny minority of gold-worshippers sprint along the tightrope at tremendous speed, though of course they can never arrive. 

Most gold-worshippers end up in the Pit of Despair before long.

But most people’s Golden Posts are more complex. Their might be partially gold, but most are a hodge-podge of abstract aspirations: status, family, our particular pleasures and peculiar desires.

In truth, most of us can’t describe our Golden Posts in much detail. They’re often recycled from other people’s hopes. 

We like to be dazzled. Most of us aren’t too curious about the exact composition of our Golden Posts.

The more dazzling we make our Golden Posts, the more we have to squint to see what they’re actually made of.

Squinting slows your progress.

There’s the choice: sprint towards an unexamined goal, or squint carefully and risk falling.

We are not alone

We’re all tethered to other tightrope walkers (in this analogy we’re not blindfolded). 

Some of the threads connecting us to others are so gossamer-thin we don’t feel them. When someone breaking a gossamer strand as they falls into Despair we keep going, oblivious.

Some of our tethers are thicker, stronger, more visible. We feel these ones, aware our progress depends on them:

• if they’re attached to others making rapid progress, we can be pulled along.
• if they’re attached to people who fall into the Pit, they might throw us off balance, slow us down, leave us teetering, or drag us into the Pit ourselves.

The community-minded among us are festooned with thick bonds tethering us to others. Individualist types may believe they have no bonds, because they can’t feel them. But we’re all connected to someone, somehow.

A fall into the Pit isn’t terminal. We can clamber back up and resume our tightrope walk.

The further you fall, the more arduous the return. 

More tethers haul you back up quicker.

The people at the other end of the strongest, thickest tethers will pause their own progress to help you up.

The Cacophony

It’s quite a cacophony. 

Voices from below, from beguiling whispers to bellowed commands, beg us to join them in the Pit.

• It’s not so bad down here.
• You get used to it.
• It’s the hope that kills you.
• It’s such a relief not to have to balance and progress.

Their invitations sound convincing and plausible, but you can detect the despair.

In drowning their voices out, we add to the cacophony.

Whispering, shouting, we urge others we’re tethered to, still on their tightropes, to keep going. They whisper and shout encouragement at us to do the same.

Mostly, we whisper and shout about our Golden Posts, extolling our own, criticising other people’s.

Some of these Golden Posts are bound to be false hopes, made of fool’s gold.

But with only the whispered and shouted descriptions of these dazzling Posts to go on, how can we tell them from the real thing, until it’s too late?

Hope, False Hope and Despair

Eavesdropping on some of these whispers and shouts may help us tell the difference.

Here are eight familiar cries of Despair, paired with eight common responses of Hope. Each is followed by: 

• A Hope Bit: a summary enabling you to recognise the tether dangled just beyond your reach.
• An If Bit: the little extra string attached you need to catch it.

Can you tell which provides the genuine hope, and which false?

Answers below.

The Parent

Child

It’s hopeless. 

I’m bound to fail.

There’s no point even trying.

I can’t do anything about it.

I may as well not bother.

Parent

Don’t despair.

Oh sweetie, believe in yourself.

You don’t know how great you are.

Give yourself a chance.

We love you anyway.

Hope Bit

We believe in you.

If Bit

If only you’d listen to us.

The Politician

Citizen

It’s hopeless.

You’re all as bad as each other.

You always break your promises.

You’re only in it for yourselves.

You’re puppets of the highest bidder.

Politician

Don’t despair. 

I’m not like the others.

This time it’s different.

It’s all because of Them.

I’ll take Them on for you.

Hope Bit

Change is possible.

If Bit

If only you’d support me.

The Philosopher

Student

It’s hopeless.

This is boring.

It’s just words.

No one cares.

Why bother arguing?

Philosopher

Don’t despair. 

We’re all philosophers.

You too act according to your code. 

Understanding our actions gives life meaning.

Ideas nourish the soul.

Hope Bit

Knowledge fulfils us.

If Bit

If only you’d choose to think.

The Advertiser

Client

It’s hopeless.

Our sales are tanking.

The industry is dying.

No one wants our products.

Advertising is expensive and useless.

Advertiser

Don’t despair. 

Let us paint a picture of sunny uplands full of beautiful people.

Exclusive entry by Golden Ticket only.

We print Golden Tickets for you to sell.

Just give us your account.

Hope Bit

We can sell anything.

If Bit

If only you’d pay us.

The Businessman

Regulator

It’s hopeless.

The Greater Good requires rules.

We don’t make the rules, just apply them.

All businesses bend the rules, many thrive by breaking them.

We too are broken.

Businessman

Don’t despair. 

We’re just trying to make a living here.

Apply your rules to Them, but stop strangling us in red tape.

Loosen our shackles and we’ll all thrive.

Jobs for the hard-working, profits for the risk-takers – maybe taxes for the nation, one day. 

Hope Bit

We can deliver Growth.

If Bit

If only you’d let us.

The Journalist

Reader/Audience

It’s hopeless.

You only report bad news or fake news.

Life is hard enough.

I don’t need more reasons to be depressed or angry.

I’d rather hear something nice.

Journalist

Don’t despair.

Knowledge is power.

Truth sets us free.

We speak truth to power.

We hold power to account for you.

Hope Bit

Forewarned is forearmed.

If Bit

If only you’d face reality.

The Scientist

Ordinary people

It’s hopeless.

Your reports are nothing but gloom and doom.

You always talk about the problems getting worse.

If you offer any solutions, they’re pipe-dreams.

And you can’t even say anything for sure.

Scientist

Don’t despair.

Evidence is our best guide.

Solutions depend on science.

Knowledge is our currency.

Truth is our gift to you to spend, bin, or ignore, as you wish.

Hope Bit

We have all the solutions.

If Bit

If only you’d implement them.

The Activist

Public

It’s hopeless.

I can’t make any difference when They hold all the power,

Me doing this tiny thing is pointless when They’re all doing that big thing.

I know we’re heading for the cliff edge, but we’re doomed.

May as well make the most of it before it’s too late.

Activist

Don’t despair.

Every little helps.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.

Do what you can and you’ll feel better.

Here’s a simple change you can make.

Hope Bit

You’re not impotent.

If Bit

If only you’d heed our call to action.

The Deafening Polycrisis

The cacophony is becoming deafening. 

We live in an age of Polycrisis. Those who can still bear to read the news are bombarded with multiple threats, any of which could wipe us all out:

• The Climate Crisis
• The Pandemic Crisis
• The Biodiversity Crisis
• The Acidification Crisis
• The Plastic Crisis
• The Extreme Weather Crisis 
• The Refugee Crisis
• The Testosterone Crisis
• The Fertility Crisis
• The Soil Crisis
• The Food Crisis
• The Faith Crisis
• The Biochemical Weapons Crisis
• The Nuclear Crisis
• The AI Crisis

The Polycrisis is too overwhelming for any single tightrope walker to hold them all in their head at the same time. Just thinking about them all would make you fall into the Pit.

These Crises, singly or in combination, could be catastrophic.

Existential threats would make all our Hopes, real and false disappear overnight.

Any survivors would be deep in the Pit of Despair with no one left on the tightropes to pull them out.

Polycrisis coping mechanisms

Each addition to the Polycrisis increases the pull of the Pit.

Those of us still wobbling on the tightrope have developed five types of coping mechanisms. They’re all designed:

• to keep us on the tightrope, whether the Golden Posts to which they’re attached turn out to be Real or False.
• to provide robust defences against falling into the Pit, with those we’re tethered to.

Which one best fits your own strategy?

1 Crisis, what crisis?

By far the most popular strategy: 

• Block out any Crisis and focus on staying on my tightrope.
• Keep my eyes fixed on my Golden Post.
• I don’t risk delay squinting to work out if my Post is real or false.
• I prioritise progress and urge others to keep moving.
• I ignore my fellow tightrope walkers’ shouts and whispers.
• I treat all whispers and shouts as if they come from the Pit.

Pro: highly effective for an individual tightrope walker.

Con: disastrous collectively, as it breeds false hopes. 

2 Pick a crisis, any crisis

The next most popular strategy:

• I choose a single crisis to focus on. 
• I ignore all the other crises.
• I customise my Golden Post to address my chosen crisis.
• I don’t squint overly to tell real from false hope – we can’t predict the future.
• I’m confident smart humans will invent a solution to fill in any gaps some day soon. 

While it lasts, this type of Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS) strategy appears effective. 

Were noise reduction were essential to survival, picking a single crisis would improve focus. Unfortunately, physics is largely unaffected by noise

Pros: a single, real Golden Post makes it appear closer, is reassuring, and aids progress along the tightrope.

Cons: ignoring other crises doesn’t make them disappear. Future solutions don’t work now. Human ingenuity caused the Polycrisis, so it’s irrationally optimistic to assume ingenuity alone will solve it.

3 Survivalist Hope Downsizers

The choice of a small, but growing, minority who believe:

• I know any one of multiplying crises (which one doesn’t matter) makes civilisational collapse inevitable and imminent.
• My certainty reveals all current Golden Posts to be False.
• I’ve replace my fool’s gold Post with a real wooden one, like the one behind me.
• My new Wooden Post will keep me on the tightrope because it’s less impressive, secure and dazzling.
• We’re all out for ourselves.
• The fittest will survive through superior violence.

Survivalist preppers’ Wooden Posts are replicas of the ones they see anchoring the tightrope behind them, composed of what they see as the minimum requirements to satisfy basic human needs:

• cultivating practical skills: stockpiling food, building shelters, self-defence.
• acquiring essential resources: water supplies, tinned food, generators, fuel, guns and ammunition

Survivalist Downsizers share the same bleak view of human nature as most in the Pit.

They don’t generally pay much attention to the truth-telling Scientists, Philosophers and Journalists. They’re more likely to heed the whispers and shouts of Advertisers, Businessmen, certain Activists and others who profit from their hope.

What distinguishes Survivalists from those in the Pit is hope. Their real Wooden Posts are designed to ensure they’re the last man standing. 

They’re usually men.

4 Simplificationist Hope Downsizers

‘Great Simplificationists’ share some perceptions with Survivalist Downsizers, but create different Wooden Posts:

• I know the Polycrisis is made up of interlocking crises which make civilizational collapse inevitable and imminent (which one triggers the final collapse doesn’t matter).
• My certainty reveals all current Golden Posts to be false.
• I’ve replaces my fool’s gold Post with a real Wooden Post.
• My Wooden Post will keep me on the tightrope because it is less impressive, secure and dazzling.
• We’re social animals, evolved to live in small communities of around 150.
• The most compassionate will survive through mutual aid, community level self-reliance, collective responsibility and cooperation.

Like the Survivalists, Simplificationists’ Wooden Posts are replicas of the posts they see anchoring the tightrope behind them, composed of the minimum requirements to satisfy basic human needs, 

Simplificationists, however, fashion their replica Wooden Posts on different aspirations:

• cultivating practical skills: growing food, building shelters, making tools.
• acquiring essential resources: clean water, seeds, shared spiritual values.

Simplificationists have listened to the Scientists, Philosophers and Journalists and concluded their Hope Bits are false.

Having done the maths, synthesised and analysed past data, plotted future trends, and calculated the odds, the Simplificationists have concluded:

1. Our current growth-obsessed path is irreconcilable with the biophysical limits of our finite planet. 
2. If we haven’t already passed one or more climate Tipping Points, it’s just a matter of (not very much) time.
3. Human folly means the likelihood of us collectively changing course to avoid civilisational collapse is functionally zero.

Pros: firmly based in hard science, facts and evidence.

Cons: the Polycrisis is impossibly complex, defying precise calculation. Our odds of avoiding civilisational collapse may not be zero. If so, jumping the gun and retreating to the hills betrays intellectual hubris and probabilistic irrationality. By preparing for tomorrow’s outcomes, Simplificationists may be diverting their valuable energy away from solving today’s crises.

5 Merge your Hopes

Like the Simplificationists, Hope-mergers listen carefully to the Scientists, Philosophers and Journalists. Applying the Parent’s Hope Bit, they’ve not yet completely given up on the Politicians and Businessmen. They deploy the tactics of the Advertiser, and model their Golden Post on that of the Activist:

• I know the Polycrisis is made up of interlocking crises and I’d be overwhelmed if I tried to fix them all at once,
• I reckon nearly all these crises overlap with the Climate Crisis, so I’ll focus on that one.
• It seems to me that our fossil fuel addiction is their key driver and hence would be a good place to start.
• It makes sense to me to merge my hopes for all the other crises into the climate one and use that as my Golden Post.
• I squint occasionally to check my Golden Post isn’t made of fool’s gold, but not so hard that I get stuck or fall into the Pit.
• I figure anything I can do to fix the climate crisis has a non-zero chance of diminishing the others and delaying/avoiding civilisational collapse.
• If I’m going to stay on the tightrope, this is my best way of avoiding the Pit.

Pros: blending realism, pragmatism and action offers good protection from the Pit of Despair, even if it fails.

Cons: it probably won’t work, such is human folly.

To Hope Or Not To Hope

Have you worked out which category you fall into?

If you think you have your own unique category, would you be able to explain the difference to a small child?

We’ll leave it to you to decide which strategy you’ve chosen, and whether your Golden Post is the real thing, or fool’s gold.

We’ll find out soon enough.

Executive Summary

Someone on the bus points out it’s hurtling towards a cliff edge.

Most of the passengers demand why no one is offering them ice cream.

One person tries nudging the steering wheel and tapping the brakes.

***

See Through Together is a global network of pro bono collaborators who, having sized things up, identified the steering wheel and brakes, and gone for Option 5.