Hopeful Pessimism

Mara van der Lugt lectures in philosophy at the University of St Andrews, and is the daughter of our beloved former Network Chair Dr Bart van der Lugt. Her voice evokes that of Mary Midgley in her generation as an engaged and passionate philosopher undertaking the work of what Mary called philosophical plumbing, questioning associations between words and their implications – in this case, hope and pessimism as they apply to our environmental prospects. Her immediate frame is the climate, but the argument could also relate to collapse more generally. The key lies in our attitude, and here she argues that pessimism cannot be equated with fatalism, and that we need to rethink the relationships between optimism and pessimism, hope and despair, activism and grief.

This erudite study is in three parts: pessimism, hope, and our ladies of sorrow – inspired by Thomas de Quincey. Artistically, the ambivalent depiction of hope by GF Watts dating from 1885 sets the tone. The thinking of Camus, Frankl and Tolkien – among others – plays an important role, highlighting resilience, courage, justice, solidarity, and our moral obligation to do what we can in the circumstances, rather than give up. Camus’ novel The Plague has assumed a new significance since 2020, while Frankl’s example of courage and resilience in Auschwitz sends a perennial message about what life expects from us; and in The Lord of the Rings, the characters find themselves in a situation where they have to go beyond hope and just keep going.

In the second part, Mara draws an important distinction between what Tolkien characterises as Amdir and Estel, representing what she calls green and blue hope respectively (she also makes the point that the political use of hope can lead to ‘hopewashing’; and in writing The Protein Crunch I noted that the last chapters of environmental books tended to focus on hope that was in fact conditional on a promissory note of action unlikely to be taken). Green hope is future-oriented and related to specific grounds, evidence and expectation, while blue is a value-oriented hope beyond hope, an existential commitment of the kind reflected in Vaclav Havel, and one that also applies to desperate situations. It is this hope that confers meaning and value in spite of any outcome.

In the third part, we meet the three ladies of sorrow – grief, despair, and darkness. Ecological grief is existential and anticipatory, prior to any actual loss, and I think in younger generations is accentuated by the hollowness of consumerism and shallowness of materialism that eviscerate deeper meaning. Despair cannot be acquainted with defeatism, and here Mara gives an interesting example of the 1960s Provo movement in Amsterdam encouraging desperate resistance rather than passive downfall. She persuasively concludes that hopeful pessimism can be understood as a virtue and a powerful moral source of activism, which she sees exemplified in Greta Thunberg. The book is a subtle, reflective and inspiring contribution to an engaged social philosophy for our time.