“the absence of hope is a beautiful catalyst”
At the risk of being completely reactionary and petty, speaking ill of my ancestors, and altogether regretting this, here is a curmudgeonly blog post in response to a WhatsApp message that irritated me. Because a blog post in response to a WhatsApp message is what “discourse” (or therapy, rather???) looks like these days.
Context: I am taking a rainwater harvesting course and have parents who are into all things Chinese and Christian. So, naturally, a documentary featuring irrigation in China and the Holy Lands presents itself as opportunity for both connection and possibly a gateway into accepting more propaganda in the future. I share the video in most culturally-appropriate way I know, and by this I mean, through WhatsApp:
And then I get this response:
As fellow newbie propagandists must already know, it’s jarring to see how material you thought could only be received in the way you intended can be received in the how-the-@#$~^@#-could-this-stimuli-produce-that-response kind of way.
I was livid. [Future debbie edit: Apparently what “livid” looks like is writing a blog post straight after sulkruminating in the shower in the dead of night. lolcool.]
Let’s dissect this statement.
“👆 there is hope for future generations 👏👍”
If I’m being completely honest, my intense irritation with this comment is stems from some personal baggage. Recently, I confirmed with my parents that hopelessness is one of the reasons that millennials are divesting from procreation. Between this and another encounter, I have reason to believe that my mother’s comment is an annoying motherly way steer me towards breeding. Meanwhile, anyone who knows me–no less my mother (!)-should know better than to utter “hope” and “future generations” in the same breath (!!), in my presence (!!!), (and with those flipping flippant emojis!!!!)
Now, in my mother’s defense, the documentary does imply that, each generation can have it better than the previous one, if drastic systemic changes are made. That is, as things currently are, each generation will continue to have it worse than the last. Obviously an inspirational video must make the positive stance to inspire action.
“👆 there is hope for future generations 👏👍”
And that’s the thing, it’s supposed to inspire action.
At a moral/how-can-you-live-with-yourself level, to claim hope while nonchalantly contributing to the problem–and we all are–is infuriating. To use another’s action to justify our inaction is arguably not the intention of the film. You don’t (or shouldn’t?) get to claim hope for the impending human-induced climate doom without doing jack shit to mitigate it.
Ultimately, I don’t think it’s actually action that I seek. Rather what I seek, again and again, is lament. I want hope to be for the hopeless.
“👆 there is hope for future generations 👏👍”
Actually, what I see in this WhatsApp message, is the exact combination of Chinese-ness and Christianity I resent.
I see the psyche of Chinese suburban middle class complacency that grasps at any reason to reproduce the traditional heteronormative nuclear family.
I see the psyche of the (white-)American brand of Christian triumphalism that jumps to the hope of salvation without lamenting the sin the put Christ on the cross in the first place.
I see how immigrant Chinese and Christian (and whiteness, more generally) are identities that act in tandem as normalizing forces to reproduce our current shitty modes of production, not only without remorse, but with pride.
“[This world] will destroy every species and contaminate every molecule of this world, and it will live in denial until the very end. In each new crisis… they will take [Black and Indigenous] organizing and make it their own, watering it down, washing it white, so that [Black and Indigenous] radical imaginings between the window dressings on the status quo of this world. … The system will remain intact and at the end of every event, they will ask us where we see hope.
– Leanne Betasamosake Simpson in Rehearsals for Living
We both know hope is a luxury [that] the tentacles of racial capitalism do not get to demand. … The absence of hope is a beautiful catalyst.”