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

A serious conversation about UFOs
You may have been following — I hope you are following — the New York Times’s recent UFO reporting. Videos that the Navy confirms are real show pilots seeing and marveling over craft they can’t…
A former prosecutor’s case for prison abolition
In 2017, Paul Butler published the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men. For Butler the chokehold is much more than a barbaric police tactic; it is also a powerful powerful metaphor for understanding how racial oppression…
Why Ta-Nehisi Coates is hopeful
The first question I asked Ta-Nehisi Coates, in this episode, was broad: What does he see right now, as he looks out at the country? “I can’t believe I’m gonna say this,” he replied, “but…
Are humans fundamentally good? (with Rutger Bregman)
Dutch historian and De Correspondent writer Rutger Bregman got famous for the lashings he gave Tucker Carlson and the assembled plutocrats of Davos. But his work is far more utopian than polemical. The conversation we…
From politician to priest
I first met Cyrus Habib at a conference a few years ago. You don’t forget him. He’s a Rhodes scholar. Iranian-America. As lieutenant governor of Washington state, he was the youngest Democrat elected to statewide…
Robert Frank’s radical idea
I’ve known Cornell economist Robert Frank for almost 15 years. And for as long as I’ve known him, Frank has been trying to convince his fellow economists of an idea that’s simple to state, but…
Why “essential” workers are treated as disposable
Grocery store clerks. Fast food cashiers. Hospice care workers. Bus drivers. Farm workers. Along with doctors and nurses, these are the people who are putting their own lives at risk to keep our society functioning…
“The world’s scariest economist” on coronavirus, innovation, and purpose
The Times of London called Mariana Mazzucato “the world’s scariest economist.” Quartz describes her as “on a mission to save capitalism from itself.” Wired says she has “a plan to fix capitalism,” and warns that…
A mind-bending conversation about quantum mechanics and parallel worlds
While you read these words, the universe is splitting into countless copies. New realities, all with a version of you, exactly like you are now, but journeying off into their own branch of the multiverse.…
Why the coronavirus is so deadly for black America
In Michigan, African Americans represent 14 percent of the population, 33 percent of infections, and 40 percent of deaths. In Mississippi they represent 38 percent of the population, 56 percent of infections, and 66 percent…