What Do We Hope For? (Hope part 1)

We don't need to look to the Bible to hear stories of people who tell us what we want to hear triumphing over people who tell us what we need to hear. Politicians, if we are really honest with ourselves, have won our support by telling us they are cutting taxes or bringing in jobs when we know they are lying. Economists tell us that we can have our cake and eat it too, when simple reality dictates the irrationality of their claim. Even artists will invite us to indulge in this nonsense. Our syrupy love songs about people "not treatin' us right" or books that posit some self-love garbage wrapped in pretty words, stroke our ego. Isaiah and the Psalmists talk about people listening to those with "smooth words" rather than the real God or at least common sense.

But, more importantly, what happens when the "smooth words reality" fades away into the mist? We are left even more hopeless than before. We struggle in this wasteland like drowning souls in the ocean or thirsty people in the desert. Alone, or so we think, we begin questioning everything that has led us down this path. There are many paths we think of taking. Some become angry at the system or people that "led" them down a certain path. Other folks "get religion,"* which is another form of trying to break the system or people that "led" them down a path. Then, there is a third choice; a tougher one than the previous two.

The first two choices are easy for us to pick. The require little of us, only our passions. They give us both the light of our pride for being on the winning side and the ability to jettison the belief when it becomes too much or we just get bored. In addition to this we are never responsible for when bad stuff happens. There is always an easy scapegoat: the unenlightened, the evil-doers, and sometimes even God himself. We are given a purpose (though one that gives us no real pleasure) and the pride for doing what is right.

In listening to Arcade Fire's latest album, Neon Bible, I understand their anger and frustration with the banality and ubiquity of modern culture. I understand the desire to scream at the world, but we must understand that it does little good to do this if all we have is contempt and hatred for the world's lower nature. This brings us to the third choice, and the most difficult one.

Hope. Presidential candidate Barack Obama has wrapped himself in the mantle of hope. He has been amazing at his eloquence of this subject. Indeed, he is to be commended for doing three things: first trying to instill the notion of "hope" in all those who back him and the country at large, secondly, he has worked hard to get people to believe that "hope" is an agent that can change things for the better, and lastly, he has been able to assist people in transcending the pettiness of everyday "politics."

However there are some main problems with Mr. Obama's strategy. From a purely political way of looking at things, he is obviously okay. But, we can never be interested in just the purely political. His discussion about how we must hope has not, and indeed cannot, eat down into the core of many people my age. Instead of hoping for a better future, they seem more interested in fighting the powers that be. Assuming the powers of today are vanquished, what are these people going to do when the new problems face them? Secondly, Mr. Obama's hope is based on a world view that we can save the world. But, like the person saved by the protagonist at the beginning of the Incredibles, what do we do if the world doesn't want saving? Human beings cannot save the world, we can only affect it.

Let me make it perfectly clear, Mr. Obama is a very good candidate. He has character; one of the only true indispensable characteristics of a great leader. Yet, Mr. Obama's message is one product of a people fed up with the base hedonism of its age. This leads to an important question. If our main problem in society is base hedonism and lackluster lifestyles, what can one candidate really do? He can really only plug up the dams. What can one citizen movement really do? They can only put Band-aids on the problems.

No, our society suffers much deeper problems than just pork-barrel spending and taxation irregularities. We have larger problems than corporate welfare or welfare queens. We cannot fix these issues until we ourselves are fixed. And we know we cannot do that. Wilson tried to end all wars. Johnson declared war on poverty. Both presidents, hopeful in the remedies, failed miserably.

Hope therefore is rooted somewhere deeper in humanity than in our policies. Hope is rooted in our faith. Hope is made of tougher stuff than what we want or what we think we ought to do. Hope declares that we must dig deep within ourselves and ask not what we hope for, but what needs to be done. Sometimes hope means that we have to abandon what we want or what we believe will be easiest for us. I do not see a politician, even someone as gifted as Mr. Obama, being able to deliver us hope. He may wake us up to our need for hope (an obviously important and praiseworthy task) and he may give us things to hope for; but he cannot give us hope. That will come from somewhere else. The question is do we want it? Do we want real earth-shattering hope...or do we want smooth words? It is a question we human beings must ask ourselves every day.


* I should note that when I say, "get religion" I am referring to the curious way that people trust the laws of God that so appeal to them; not the real earth-shattering, mind-blowing thing. Real faith is a force of nature.