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Combating hopelessness

friendofdorothy said:
Who is Peter?
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Peter Hichens and his anti-social Mail article above.

On topic I've been thinking about G.K. Chesterton lately and his (what I always thought was trite) quote.

“Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all... As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.”
 
Have had a few bad days lately, dull weather didn't help much, and I was starting to fail to see any purpose in most of the things that I do.
The pandemic and the Darwin awards candidates who ignore the rules (although it may not be them personally who suffers) has really made me feel dreadful ...

However, I still have work for work (a new project to start when we've finished the smaller of the two main projects) and a good team, even if it is currently reduced in numbers ... first reason.
second reason - I have my home and a large garden, and today the sun is shining, some of the seeds I planted less than a week ago have and daffillips, trees, shrubs etc are starting to grow ...
Third reason - I still have my family and friends and the internet / telephone for contacting them - and wonder of wonders, my little bro is replying ...

So, maybe things are not so bad, after all ...
 
To offset the relentless doom on TV news now I have started to intersperse it with The Ascent of Man - a really quite optimistic series by Jacob Broowski who muses on the nature of human progress, notwithstanding curious detours. I bought the box set ten years ago in a manic attack, before box sets were fashionable.

The third programme, largely about building monuments, from Gothic Cathedrals to Machu Picchu finishes on an extraordinary note - Bronowski muses about the Watts Towers in Los Angeles, built by an Italian immigrant construction worker and tiler who just wanted to do it. Outsider art on the grandest scale.
 
I note upthread some appreciation of Mark Fisher.
Accidentally dipped into a programme on Radio 3 tonight - apparently about encyclopedias Diderot to Wikipedia.
Guests included Jimmy Wales co-founder of Wikipedia, Andrew S Curran, author of "Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely".
Importantly from the Mark Fisher point of view was Tariq Goddard of Repeater Books, who has published k-punk: The collected writings of Marl Fisher 2004-2017.

There was even a sound-bite from Mark Fisher himself: "You've probably all head this story one way or another: if you want to keep your job your going to have to work longer hours. The whingeing boss is one of the key forms of the management of this stage of capitalism." usw.
Free Thinking - Encylopedias and Knowledge: from Diderot to Wikipedia - BBC Sounds

Not sure I'm any the wiser - but it made a nice change from discussing lock-downs and the resignation of those who impose lockdowns and then cannot control their hormones!
 
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I'm finding it really hard at the moment, a real mix of the personal and the political. I lost my Mum who was in a care home and so I couldn't see her in her last 2 months. My own health's not that grand. When you add in the way the tories have killed so many with their handling of the pandemic and the fact it will be them dishing out a new austerity to pay for it, I've been getting panic attacks and anxiety for the last 6 weeks. Mainly about my Mum, but the world feels really hopeless at the moment. But page 1 of this thread (as far as I've got so far) is a great antidote and a reminder if one was ever needed how great Greebo was. It's easy to say people had an influence after their death, but then here she is giving me some great advice to get back into the fight. Good on yer Greebo. :oldthumbsup:
 
I'm really sorry for your loss Wilf. Really sorry you couldn't see your mum at the end, that sounds extremely hard for both of you. Greebo was such a wise and calming presence on these boards and it's heartwarming to hear she is still having a good influence now.

I wish you fortitude to get through your grief. x
 
friendofdorothy said:
I'm really sorry for your loss Wilf. Really sorry you couldn't see your mum at the end, that sounds extremely hard for both of you. Greebo was such a wise and calming presence on these boards and it's heartwarming to hear she is still having a good influence now.

I wish you fortitude to get through your grief. x
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Thanks. :)
 
Ok. Covid is giving us opportunity to think about how we can do things differently. I'm feeling fairly positive that we can have a greener future and am writing up my plans for building a better world. New manifesto to follow.

Feel free to post your own hopeful manifestos / plans / dreams.

As this is the combatting hopelessness thread please take any doom mongering, squabbling, pissing about and pedantry to other more appropriate threads. Thank you
 
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I've made a start on my own manifesto, I've written 2 pages so far. Not sure I'll publish the whole thing here as Urbs do tend to rip stuff to shreads and I'm not ready for that yet. This is the intro so far and the subject headings.
My Manifesto

UK needs a new greener more self-sufficient and sustainable economy.

Stop the benchmarking of ‘growth’ and profit as the only measures of success – it’s unsustainable and someone somewhere is paying for those ‘profits’. Reframe our thinking - people are not just workers or units of consumption – we are human beings. We are using up the earths resources and robbing them from future generations and destroying our planet.
  • Grow more food.
  • Make stuff
  • Less stuff
  • Decentralise
  • Sustainable Energy
  • Buildings and homes
  • Work life balance
  • Education
  • Freedom.
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I've started thinking about how we need to innovate more as the only way to get round the coronavirus, which is with us for the foreseeable - along the lines of changing schooling and working hours, changing the workplace (working from home here to stay, more use of remote technology), encouraging people to shop online more but with better pay and conditions (and unionisation) for delivery and warehouse staff and re-nationalising the Royal Mail, massive outside areas for eating and drinking, moving to electrified vehicles.

Plus a much improved welfare system and a much flatter wage structure.

And yes, what you say:
Stop the benchmarking of ‘growth’ and profit as the only measures of success – it’s unsustainable and someone somewhere is paying for those ‘profits’. Reframe our thinking - people are not just workers or units of consumption – we are human beings. We are using up the earths resources and robbing them from future generations and destroying our planet.
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friendofdorothy said:
I've made a start on my own manifesto, I've written 2 pages so far. Not sure I'll publish the whole thing here as Urbs do tend to rip stuff to shreads and I'm not ready for that yet. This is the intro so far and the subject headings.
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One thing I'd put in a manifesto would be reusing and repurposing material. Often recycling just the passive putting paper or plastic etc in a bin, but more active measures need to be taken. If you had this already in mind, pls ignore.
 
One of the things that I miss about being politically/socially naive is that I miss feeling like I'm a kind person. Years ago I never would have considered having a party when a particular politician dies, or loses an election by a significant margin. Now I would dance in the streets. It makes me feel small and mean.
 
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Pickman's model said:
One thing I'd put in a manifesto would be reusing and repurposing material. Often recycling just the passive putting paper or plastic etc in a bin, but more active measures need to be taken. If you had this already in mind, pls ignore.
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I was thinking more about manufacturers and national legislation - not the action of the individual end users. Companies should be forced to make and sell things with recycling in mind and be resposible for paying towards the cost of recyclying or ultimate disposal. Its only economic to make disposable things out of plastic if companies are not responsible for the costs of disposal. Lots of things could be recycled right now but are routinely just thrown away instead. In general ideas of reduce, reuse, recycle, needs to be adopted at every stage of production, distribution, use and disposal. Why is it cheaper to buy new rather than mend? how is it possible to buy a dress for a few quid? because the people who make it are not paid properly and who is paying to put it landfill when its been worn only once or twice? That was more the sort of thing I had in mind.

It's a common neoliberal trick to shift responsiblity from the rich large companies to the individual end users. eg Obesity has nothing to do with the many food corps spending millions filling shops with cheap sugary products, no, its just your own fault if you get fat etc. Its in the interest of capitalists to sell us shit and keep us unhappy then sell us something with the lure of possible happiness or invent a problem and sell us the solution.

I'd like to shift the enphasis.

Edited to add: feel free to write your own manifesto
 
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I heard on the radio that the Welsh a new policy to protect future gerations - hurray! Politicans have for too long enacted legisation and policies with no thought beyond their next election. I'd like all national govts to have truely long term plans.

Caerphilly - Caerphilly County Borough

The place to find services and information provided by Caerphilly County Borough Council and its partners.
www.caerphilly.gov.uk www.caerphilly.gov.uk
 
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I'm fairly cynical about things generally but i have to say the resistance to HS2 is cheering me up no end lately. There's a mainstream media blackout it seems, or maybe everyone just got bored of it / gave up after the Oakervee Report, yet every time they try to destroy an ancient oak for an access road which will then be disused again after the railway has been built (latest example), people are getting active and I think the project will last soooo long that even if it gets built, it will have bred another generation of hardened activists, which is just grand. And fair play to them, it's not easy nowadays, you can't just dole it up any more. I've got commitments which keep me where I am and it's annoying that most of the networking is now done via Facebook, but hey a new social movement is being born. Funnily enough some of my friends who were roads protestors back in the 1990s are now fully into HS2 for various convoluted reasons, but the more I read about it the more I am convinced that this is the issue to unite a lot of people together (unless BoJo bans the internet).
 
Tighter dole regimes after the introduction of the JSA meant that being a full time activist was no longer an option, this coupled with the rocketing cost of being a student has taken away the two main ways of funding a life of activism.
 
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vanya said:
Tighter dole regimes after the introduction of the JSA meant that being a full time activist was no longer an option, this coupled with the rocketing cost of being a student has taken away the two main ways of funding a life of activism.
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In the US, the Ronald Reagan pulled funding for student in California just so they wouldn't have the time/ability to protest. I think part of breaking down the average person is also part of that. If you're spending so much time and energy on just surviving, you won't be able to protest.
 
friendofdorothy said:
I was thinking more about manufacturers and national legislation - not the action of the individual end users. Companies should be forced to make and sell things with recycling in mind and be resposible for paying towards the cost of recyclying or ultimate disposal. Its only economic to make disposable things out of plastic if companies are not responsible for the costs of disposal. Lots of things could be recycled right now but are routinely just thrown away instead. In general ideas of reduce, reuse, recycle, needs to be adopted at every stage of production, distribution, use and disposal. Why is it cheaper to buy new rather than mend? how is it possible to buy a dress for a few quid? because the people who make it are not paid properly and who is paying to put it landfill when its been worn only once or twice? That was more the sort of thing I had in mind.

It's a common neoliberal trick to shift responsiblity from the rich large companies to the individual end users. eg Obesity has nothing to do with the many food corps spending millions filling shops with cheap sugary products, no, its just your own fault if you get fat etc. Its in the interest of capitalists to sell us shit and keep us unhappy then sell us something with the lure of possible happiness or invent a problem and sell us the solution.

I'd like to shift the enphasis.

Edited to add: feel free to write your own manifesto
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May I humbly suggest adding a bit about requiring products to be repairable. I've replaced products that were fixable if I could crack the case, but it required a special tool used only by the manufacturer. Sometimes all that was required was replacing a battery, but I had to buy a whole new product rather than fixing one that I liked just fine.
 
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Yuwipi Woman said:
May I humbly suggest adding a bit about requiring products to be repairable. I've replaced products that were fixable if I could crack the case, but it required a special tool used only by the manufacturer. Sometimes all that was required was replacing a battery, but I had to buy a whole new product rather than fixing one that I liked just fine.
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Didn't I just say that?
Why is it cheaper to buy new rather than mend?
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This is my personal manifesto, mostly to get all my swirling thoughts out of my confused head and onto paper, so I can focus and be calmer.

Why don't you write one too? I'll show you mine, if you show me yours
 
young activists! the Advocacy Academy enables young people to be activists , teaches them the skills. I saw their launch this week and found it inspiring, they are showing it again:

TUESDAY 8TH SEPTEMBER 18:00 - 19:30PM
Can't catch the livestream and feeling the FOMO? Don't worry! Join us for a watch-party the following week.
Sign up for the watch-party.
Redirect Notice
Watch-party: The Advocacy Academy Class of 2021 Campaign Launch
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Wish I'd been as aware or as articulate at 17. Wish there had been adults around willing to listen too, willing to help channel that youthful anger. Took me years of trying all sorts of things and having no idea what I was doing.
 
Well, I'm going to be out of emergency accomodation on Saturday by the look of it, which is when I move into my new place. It's a nice place too- I have my own kitchen with a washing machine, fridge and cooker and my own bathroom and toilet facilities, which is what I need as I have a stoma. So, this is kinds good news.

I say kinda because my rent is only getting topped up for six months, after which time the top up stops and I will somehow have to find an extra £111 per month to pay the landlord, and I don't fancy my chances of being able to cope with a job. Even if I had a job I think I'd struggle to pay off everything I needed to. The situation with my ex has progressed and we are friends, I can't see us ever being any more than that, which is fine.

So in a sense things are kind of looking up (atleast temporarily). However, I do actually feel very negative about things- the state that people (and society) are in and little hope or prospects for the future in this country and around the world. Things just seem like they are going to get worse and I can't help but blame people for it. I know the system has let them down and not provided them with much at all, including a decent education, but I find myself blaming people for the mess they are in. This applies to both working class and middle class people for me, neither being able to identify the right enemy and come up with the correct alternatives if you ask me. Where I am all most people can do is blame all their problems and the problems in society on immigration etc and no doubt go down far-right rabbit holes. The common thing I hear is working class people swallowing all the right-wing tabloid bullshit and considering the far-right government we have as 'not tough enough' on refugees etc. Meanwhile middle class people also do this, or throw their lot in with the Labour Party and the dead end of electoralism and liberalism. I really see no end to all of this and can just see things deteriorating more and more. People seem to be closed off to new ideas and insist on repeating the same mistakes, relying on the same old capitalist system that has let them down and failed time and time again.
 
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six months isn't very long. Something really needs to be done about affordable rents. Everyone deserves to have a permanent home.

We need not to blame each other but blame those govts, companies and bankers who have got us into the economic mess we are in, all those billionaires want poor people to pick up their tab. I can't believe how voters fell for the blame the immigrant lie, it's so disappointing but this is the lie the media feeds to them. Not sure how we can combat that - but glad to see numbers standing up for BLM and 'imigrants welcome here' marches.

I find some hope hope in the extintion rebellion movement. The fact that politicians are likening it to terrorism and newspapers are saying its stopping free speech shows they have hit some raw nerves.

I don't think there is a single answer but lots of movements all against right wing neoliberal shit. We all need to put aside our differences and stand together against the divide and rule tactics.

I hope that now covid has shut so much down, it means we have some possiblity of it starting up differently. I'd hate the term 'new normal' to mean much the same as before but poorer and shittier.
 
interesting thoughts about hope in times of Covid here from -
theconversation.com

Why resilience isn’t always the answer to coping with challenging times

Hope may be a better option.
theconversation.com theconversation.com
Turning to hope

Hope is an alternative to resilience. Hope is the capacity to identify meaningful goals, the steps necessary to attain them and the motivation to take these steps. The difference between hope and resilience is that, where resilience is conceptualised as a return to a normal state of functioning following a stressful event or situation, hope is based on the idea of reaching a goal.

Teachers can introduce this idea of hope into the classroom by sharing some of their hopes and vulnerabilities with their students. By doing this, a teacher can model how they identify and plan to reach goals, while also speaking honestly about fear and uncertainty in the presence of COVID-19.

These fears and vulnerabilities can have a paralysing effect and may mean temporary demotivation or even letting go of long treasured goals. Giving up specific goals should not lead to hopelessness. Instead it can provide an occasion to reflect on other goals more easily realisable during a global pandemic.

At the political level, a commitment to prioritising hope over resilience may mean that governments work towards providing a realistic vision of what life might be like after the pandemic. At the community level, sustaining hope might depend on policy makers, employers and teachers recognising that goals may have to change.

Some of us may not bounce back to our pre-COVID selves and our goals may reflect this change. Yet, if we can help each other to hang onto a bit of hope in the face of this adversity, we may have all the resources we will need to find meaning in the post-COVID world.
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and
'Hope' isn't mere wishful thinking – it's a valuable tool we can put to work in a crisis
theconversation.com

'Hope' isn't mere wishful thinking – it's a valuable tool we can put to work in a crisis

Hope can energise, motivate and help us see through to a time when things will be better. To pull together in a crisis, we should put hope to work.
theconversation.com theconversation.com
 
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