Summary and Analysis of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities: Based on the Book by Rebecca Solnit
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Summary and Analysis of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities: Based on the Book by Rebecca Solnit
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Written in response to the 2004 US presidential election, and updated during the 2016 race, Rebecca Solnit’s Hope in the Dark is a call to action for people who find themselves despairing about the political climate of the world today.
Hope in the Dark is a long essay that serves as a primer on social and environmental activism and uprisings from the mid-to-late 20th century to the present. Solnit uses this history of protesters, writers, and workers to argue that hope is the necessary catalyst for action. She insists that radicals and revolutionaries must hold onto hope in order to create a world more like the one they want to live in, even in the face of enormous obstacles, and especially in the face of uncertainty.
The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of nonfiction.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781504044783 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Worth Books |
| Publication date: | 03/21/2017 |
| Series: | Smart Summaries |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 30 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
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Summary and Analysis of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Based on the Book by Rebecca Solnit
By Worth Books
OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA
Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5040-4478-3
CHAPTER 1
Summary
Foreword to the Third Edition (2015): Grounds for Hope
Over a decade has passed since Rebecca Solnit wrote Hope in the Dark, and as her text anticipated, things have changed in unimaginable ways. The changes are both bad and good — consider, for instance, global tech companies destroying other commerce, and government surveillance of citizens, but also Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and the Dream Act. In most cases, if not all, it is too soon to make a value judgment.
Solnit's reasons for writing about hope have stayed the same, only growing more clear to her over time. Hope is necessary to outweigh cynicism, but hope does not mean convincing people that everything will be fine, or naively thinking it already is. Solnit has written a history of victories attained by activism because one way to produce hope is through memory, by recognizing that things were once different than they are now. Amnesia, on the other hand, creates depression, and is sometimes used as a tactic to suppress resistance.
She also celebrates the virtues of uncertainty and time. Uncertainty, because it means the realm of possibility is open to any of us — when no one knows what will happen, it could be any individual or group's influence that matters. Time, because it allows space for viewpoints to shift and events to take on new meaning. For instance, people who experience disasters often find an invigorating sense of connection from their community in the aftermath.
Ultimately we must remember that together, people are the most powerful force; hope can motivate us to seek change en masse.
Need to Know: Activists have a tendency to start from scratch when the practices they need already exist in the world; they just need to be sought out and brought into new contexts. "The past is set in daylight, and it can become a torch we carry into the night that is the future."
1. Looking Into Darkness
The future of our world is unknown, but we don't need to fear the unknowable: it has as much potential to be positive as it does to be negative. The present can, itself, be used as an example here: We often fail to recognize huge ways in which the world and society have changed, especially when the change is positive. Who could have believed that the political prisoner Nelson Mandela would go on to be the president of a new South Africa? Or that nonwhite Americans could vote? Or that same sex marriage was attainable? It is important to take note of those changes and take pride in them, for moral support and as a reminder to continue protecting them.
Need to Know: Hope should not be treated as a potential stroke of luck but instead heeded as a call to action. By naming victories and identifying changes, we can begin to abandon helplessness.
2. When We Lost
After George W. Bush won reelection in 2004, despite widespread opposition, many citizens of the United States — and the world — fell into despair. Solnit observed the progressive people around her participating in what she calls "the Conversation," a back-and-forth of weariness and complaining that is fueled not only by participants' despair, but by their certainty that despair is the only future — and the only option. Solnit, who refuses to join in this conversation, suggests that those of us who are lost need to start telling a different story.
South America is a good place to look to for examples of hope and emergence from struggle. After decades of suffering from oppression and economic decline brought on by neoliberal policies, the countries of Uruguay, Venezuela, and Brazil were able to overthrow military dictatorships, elect leftist presidents, and revolt against international capitalism in the early 2000s. These positive developments are evidence of people's resistance, which persisted despite lack of privilege, potential for exhaustion, and not knowing what results, if any, would come of it.
Need to Know: Hope is not equivalent to joy; it is not dependent upon or associated with an immediate physical state, which is perhaps why it can be found to reside most within those who have little power. It requires one to regard oneself as having weight in the world, rather than being useless. Solnit wants to document "victories and possibilities" because they are under-recorded, frequently abstract, and can serve as a tangible reminder of what is possible when we have hope.
3. What We Won
Solnit was inspired to write Hope in the Dark in 2003, after tens of millions of people on every continent staged anti-war protests — and after the United States invaded Iraq anyway, causing a sense of hopelessness among protesters. Despite their failure to stop the war in Iraq, the global peace movement activists did manage to prevent saturation bombing in Baghdad, delay the start of the war by a few months, alter the media portrayal of antiwar protesters for the better, and inspire activism among never-before-involved people. They increased awareness of corporations that profit from war, such as Halliburton and Chevron-Texaco, and convinced countries that usually ally with the United States and the UK to opt out of the invasion. And they did all this through a leaderless movement, instigated not by a figurehead, but through the Internet and local communities.
Need to Know: To gain notice, activists must often perform direct actions with simplified messages and make demands for almost-immediate returns. Because the results of their actions rarely look exactly like what they asked for, the media and politicians are more apt to dismiss their efforts than to give them credit. In having hope we must remember that activism's results tend to be more subtle and complex than sensational and straightforward.
4. False Hope and Easy Despair
A tactic used by the Bush Administration to quell public unrest was to (try to) instill a sense of false hope and a displaced fear in the electorate. False hope meaning that everything is and will be fine so action is unnecessary; displaced fear meaning that real dangers might come to afflict those who are relatively safe, should they decide to act in an uncouth manner.
Leftists have their own habitual methods of inhibiting action and attaining complacency. They do resist false hope, but they also tend to see only problems, and focus so entirely on the inevitable existence of these problems that they render themselves useless. Despair is easier. It it less demanding, and the outcome is predictable. Real, authentic hope requires clarity, hard work, and imagination.
Need to Know: Acknowledging problems and bad news can be helpful, but only insofar as it can provide direction and instigate action. Joy and happiness don't have to fall to the wayside, and shouldn't, lest we forget the reasons to continue fighting for solutions to the world's problems. Activism in itself is hopeful because it means imagining — and demanding — alternatives.
5. A History of Shadows
Solnit presents this chapter through the lens of a common analogy: The world is a theater, and political and economic powers take the stage. Media and history train our attention toward the spotlight, but as Solnit points out, staging, direction, writing, and other necessary actions all originate offstage, out of sight. This potential for driving change is what makes those in power paint marginalized people as dangerous, even going so far as to criminalize them (i.e., accusing activists of terrorism). This criminalization is not only retaliatory, but admissive: The state is threatened by those who dare to challenge it. This becomes obvious when one considers that politics is a reflection of the cultural and social change that has often already taken place, and already shifted in the collective consciousness (such as attitudes toward homosexuality). Legal decisions don't lead to change; the courtroom is where change ends up. Change comes from the edges — the people — to the center — the government — not the other way around. Ideas are the tools of the people and weapons are the tools of the government — ideas are much more dangerous.
The power of changing mindsets becomes evident when looking backward and remembering that what seems like common sense now probably seemed outlandish at first. Solnit recalls how students in shantytowns demanded their universities divest from South Africa, never imagining Nelson Mandela would eventually become that nation's president. Maintaining hope is made easier by keeping in mind that attitudes can and will change beyond what is imaginable in the present.
Need to Know: The story being told on the political stage is written by those who reside in the shadows. Even when there is overt resistance from those in power, stories have the ability to seep in and change minds until change becomes matter of fact.
6. The Millennium Arrives: November 9, 1989
When the Berlin Wall was erected in 1962, people lived in fear of a nuclear war. It would have been easier for them to imagine the apocalypse than the world we live in now, but instead, people maintained hope and worked for change. Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring was a response to these fears of nuclear fallout, and it sparked the rise of the environmental movement. Besides raising awareness about dangerous pesticides, Carson's book helped change people's perception of nature from object to living system.
The civil rights movement also rose during this decade, prompting new perspectives on race, authority, and nonviolent protest. So much became unsettled that people began to question everything, and while they didn't always find answers, they became open to change. The fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 marked the end of the world order these people had considered permanent — a sea change in global politics that the people of 1962 could hardly have imagined.
Need to Know: The new millennium was long regarded as an ending, rather than a renewal. Solnit posits it as a beginning, or as many beginnings, exemplified in this and the next four chapters by particular moments in time.
7. The Millennium Arrives: January 1, 1994
The Zapatistas announced themselves in Chiapas, Mexico, on the first day of 1994, in response to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) taking effect in Mexico, Canada, and the US. Poor indigenous farmers, who predicted their future disenfranchisement under the treaty, assembled to reject the implications of neoliberalism and promote localized agency and justice for all people.
While they carried guns (or representations of them, such as pieces of wood), their intent was less militaristic than artistic and idealistic, as described in manifestos written by de facto leader Subcomandante Marcos. Their view was of a future that embraced and promoted human beings over economic and state interests, which they encouraged people around the world to seek in their own communities by pursuing an "International of Hope" over an "International of Terror".
Need to Know: The Zapatista revolution indicated a rejection of capitalism as the answer to a freer world, but it didn't offer dogmatic ideology as an alternative answer. Instead, it suggested creativity and flexibility, and a willingness to be inclusive of humans as they were — with their desires and differences. Its influence on future activists is correspondingly open to interpretation, but reflected well in one of their maxims: "Todo para todos, nada para nosotros"/ "Everything for everyone, nothing for ourselves".
8. The Millennium Arrives: November 30, 1999
On November 30, 1999, World Trade Organization (WTO) meetings in Seattle were halted and finally canceled at the behest of 60,000 anti-globalization protesters who marched and blockaded the streets around it. WTO protests brought visibility to the global justice movement and what it was there to oppose: the WTO's control over international trade and its dedication to corporate profit over all else. The day was also thought to symbolize the beginning of a new protest era, one that is more broad-based and diverse, due to the wide spectrum of those oppressed by international capitalism. The war being fought by corporations was harder to identify, but the people had shown up to fight it.
The success of the 1999 WTO protests was followed by actions around the world opposing privatization, GMOs, Monsanto, etc. In 2003, the WTO ministerial met in Cancun, where it collapsed entirely under the weight of protesting Mexican campesinos, a delegation of Korean farmers, and the Group of Twenty-Plus, a multinational coalition led by President Lula da Silva. Both of the failed WTO meetings showed the power of nonviolence and the strength of people uniting under a non-corporate version of globalization.
Need to Know: Aside from the canceled meetings in Seattle, November 30 was a victory because activists took precautions not to be hampered by past internal issues. There was a strong commitment to remaining nonviolent, and an effort to avoid (male) authoritarianism and to use decentralized power structures to orchestrate the action.
9. The Millennium Arrives: September 11, 2001
On September 11, Americans were thrust into a post-disaster state that forced us to reevaluate our connections and presence in the world, as individuals and as a collective entity. In a way, it was an opportunity for a more heroic outcome than what eventually came to pass under George W. Bush, which was a vow to fight evil, and unnecessary, mostly unrelated, oil-driven attacks launched under the guise of Americans' protection. But there were still individuals who acted heroically, or as optimal citizens, by giving blood, volunteering, and living for one another.
Need to Know: Like all disasters, 9/11 was terrible, but it also bore the unique qualities of aftermath: a sense of community, heroism, and connection that is healing, meaningful, and not necessarily ephemeral, if those qualities are learned from and continually put to use.
10. The Millennium Arrives: February 15, 2003
Citizens of the world proved that the spirit of connection inspired by September 11 had not been entirely erased when they gathered by the millions on February 15, 2003 to form a leaderless, international march against the Iraq War. The climate during the protests was less about anger and more about truly participating in democracy, sharing an ideological community, and acting beyond the preservation of one's own comfort. The dreaminess of the moment didn't last, but its enormity made an impact — it was the largest protest that had ever occurred.
Need to Know: People didn't feel a sense of obligation to participate in the global peace protests, but rather, a sense of yearning to exercise their rights as citizens. The march demonstrated that the next revolution was underway in the imagination of the people.
11. Changing the Imagination of Change
Activism is not a simple matter of measurable cause and effect; it is many complicated and disproportionate instances of ambiguous causes and effects. The future is dark, and activism is plunging into that darkness: defeats can eventually become victories, and victories can dissipate. The defense of victories requires commitment instead of abandonment, but Americans tend toward the latter when it comes to political engagement — after the excitement of an emergency, we rest up at home until the next one.
Cultural ecology seeks to see the evolution of society as alive and constantly in flux, not just as a series of disparate watershed moments. For example, history recognizes the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas as a turning point for gay rights in the United States, but cultural ecology would identify all the various roots of the public's turning away from homophobia — the things that prompted a lawsuit to begin with and encouraged the judges to assent to the change.
Need to Know: Becoming aware of cultural ecology can promote consistent participation in democracy and activism, which is necessary to protect past achievements. It also helps us recognize achievements that have some distance from their groundwork and understand the potential for our work to be far-reaching.
12. On the Indirectness of Direct Action
Another component of hope is faith — a longer-term commitment to futures that will very likely remain unseen by those who keep it. Solnit credits writers with having faith, because they often write in response to something inarticulate or someone distant or dead. Even if they write to something more immediate, there is no guarantee that anyone will ever read it. Writers like Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Walter Benjamin only became known years after their deaths.
Certain types of writing are often associated with activism (manifestos, for example), but lyrical writing can be a form of resistance, as well. In the movement that shut down the Soviet nuclear test site in Semipalatinsk, poet Olzhas Suleimenov read a manifesto on national television that was inspired by the Nevada Test Site protests. Writing, like all activism, can have latent, far-reaching, and unexpected effects.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Summary and Analysis of Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities by Worth Books. Copyright © 2017 Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Context,Overview,
Summary,
Timeline,
Cast of Characters,
Direct Quotes and Analysis,
Trivia,
What's That Word?,
Critical Response,
About Rebecca Solnit,
For Your Information,
Bibliography,
Copyright,