No Hope?

The other day we were talking about hope (or lack thereof) found in Joshua Cooper Ramo's The Age of the Unthinkable. In his book Ramo argues that, with the world going through major shifts due to globalization and the high speed technology accompanying such movement, the U.S.'s current foreign, economic, and environmental policies are informed by outdated paradigms that are, for all intents and purposes, leading us down paths of destruction.  Ramo's hope is that a new brand of leader will emerge from these webs of complexity to form models that can adapt quickly and efficiently, remaining resilient because they can.  No doubt Ramo is looking toward the future where the old boys who failed us in Iraq and Afghanistan and on Wall Street are put out to pasture, replaced by innovators and visionaries able to comprehend what each new day demands.  By looking to the future, Ramo offers a small gesture of hope in the face of daunting challenges.
     Personally, I'm not sure it's hope we need.  At the root of the concept is the practice of looking forward with confidence. Those with a religious bent might see in hope the act of trusting the testimony of a priest or prophet, understanding that the world is better on the far side, that in hope we lean toward the Divine. In regard to such, Emerson wrote, "Accept the place the Divine has for you," which renders us complacent in our faith.  In the same vein, William Law wrote, "Pray and let God worry." I have no problem with the notion of spiritual surrender at the heart of both quotes. To surrender is to receive, and to be selfless is to be alert. My concern is we become over-confident in a hope that projects us away from the difficulties of the world, that hope is used as an excuse to avoid our present circumstances, and rather than be energized in our surrender, we become blind.
     Today, without really knowing or wanting to know what's going on in Afghanistan, we hope good will comes out of the war even as civilian casualties continue to mount and the Afghanistan people turn against us.  Likewise, without really knowing or wanting to know the condition of the Ogallala aquifer, the water supply for 190,000 square miles of America's heartland, we hope that the water will last forever even as the aquifer is being diminished at 14 times the rate of natural replenishment.  In these  examples and ten thousand more, instead of the direct action and change that's called for, we continue to follow the kind of hope implied by Billy Graham when he said, "I've read the last page of the Bible.  It's going to turn out all right."  To believe everything "is going to turn out all right" is well and good only if we ignore the wreckage we just happen to be leaving in our wake.
     I admit, if it weren't for hope, many of us would not get out of bed. And, no doubt, the state of hopelessness can lead to suicidal despair.  But I agree with Ramo that the paradigms we currently work within need to shift, and the only way this can happen is if we face the problems squarely, understand the implications, and take the necessary actions to remedy what can be remedied, and prepare for the consequences of what cannot.  I call this neo-existentialism, where the future takes a back seat to the present, where every moment lived is the opportunity to create the world anew.