We live in a culture obsessed with hope. We are trained to believe that being hopeful is the key to success. Stay positive. The sun will come out tomorrow. Keep the faith. But maintaining that kind of blind hope is hard. When our hopes are dashed, we often feel defeated.
In a world that’s filled with lots of dark clouds and very few silver linings, perhaps we need a better way to balance our hope and our pessimism.
In today’s episode, Sean interviews philosopher Mara van der Lugt about her new book Hopeful Pessimism. The two talk about how to sustain hope when you’re feeling pessimistic, the pitfalls of blind hope, and what the climate movement can teach us about staying motivated when success is unlikely.
Host: Sean Illing (@SeanIlling)
Guest: Mara van der Lugt, lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews and author of Hopeful Pessimism.
Listen to The Gray Area ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Hopeful pessimism
We live in a culture obsessed with hope. We are trained to believe that being hopeful is the key to success. Stay positive. The sun will come out tomorrow. Keep the faith. But maintaining that…
If AI can do your classwork, why go to college?
What’s the point of college if no one’s actually doing the work? It’s not a rhetorical question. In the age of AI, it’s incredibly easy for students to offload their assignments. AI tools can write…
Is Trump winning?
We’re nearly six months into Donald Trump’s second term as president, and a lot of us are still trying to figure out what that actually means. Not just politically. But culturally. What kind of country…
A right-wing economist makes his case
For decades, the American right has stayed on brand: the economy. Low taxes. Free markets. Deregulation. Those have been the buzzwords for more than half a century. But that doctrine is now being challenged by…
What “near death” feels like
Sebastian Junger came as close as you possibly can to dying. While his doctors struggled to revive him, the veteran reporter and avowed rationalist experienced things that shocked and shook him, leaving him with profound…
Machiavelli on how democracies die
Almost nothing stands the test of time. Machiavelli’s writings are a rare exception. Why are we still talking about Machiavelli, nearly 500 years after his death? What is it about his political philosophy that feels…
Do you have moral ambition?
We’re told from a young age to achieve. Get good grades. Get into a good school. Get a good job. Be ambitious about earning a high salary or a high-status position. Some of us love…
The science of ideology
What do you do when you’re faced with evidence that challenges your ideology? Do you engage with that new information? Are you willing to change your mind about your most deeply held beliefs? Are you pre-disposed to…
Politics after Covid
There are lots of stories to tell about the Covid pandemic. Most of them, on some level, are about politics, about decisions that affected people’s lives in different — and very unequal — ways. Covid…
Halfway there: a philosopher’s guide to midlife crises
Philosophy often feels like a disconnected discipline, obsessed with tedious and abstract problems. But MIT professor Kieran Setiya believes philosophical inquiry has a practical purpose outside the classroom — to help guide us through life’s…