Politics
of Hope
by Kathy Jope
Over the
course of six Tuesday evenings in April and May, about
15 people from the congregation and the community
gathered for a discussion of the “Politics of Hope.”
Most of us came to this gathering not knowing what to
expect, other than perhaps having read that the
discussions would be facilitated by Donna Zajonc and
David Womeldorff of the Bainbridge Leadership Center.
Donna and David began by asking us why we
came. What drew us in to the discussion? One by one,
each person in the circle described what motivated him
or her to give a Tuesday evening for this purpose.
In many of the responses, there was a
sense of resignation, hopelessness, and fear of the
future.
Although she didn’t say so, that was
probably exactly what Donna expected. It is consistent
with the four stages that she sees our society going
through, which she describes in her book “The Politics
of Hope: Reviving the Dream of Democracy.”
Donna calls the first stage in this
evolution “Anarchy.” In this stage, the individual
rejects all rules and works alone.
Obviously, though, society needs some
rules to function, so rules are established in the next
stage, which she calls “Traditionalism.” Political
action is competitive, dominating, and hierarchical.
Those who are successful in this system rise in the
system and become its most powerful. Their power,
however, depends on perpetuation of the system and its
rules. The rules become ever more strict, and their
enforcement becomes ever more firm.
Fear becomes a tool that the powerful use
to try to keep people within the rule-based box: fear
of the consequences of going outside of the box, fear
that chaos would result or that society’s values would
be destroyed. As their system begins to crumble around
the edges, the powerful work even harder to raise the
level of fear in an effort to keep it together.
Yet for increasing numbers of people, the
rules become less and less acceptable. Contrary to what
the powerful say about these organizations defending
society’s values, people see them as destructive of the
most fundamental human values. But these organizations
seem to be “the only game in town.”
So, in a process that’s strikingly
similar to the phases of grief – denial, followed by
anger, and then resignation – people respond by simply
disengaging. They reject organized politics, organized
religion, and other representations of this inflexible
and destructive system.
Individuals in this third stage –
Resignation – focus on just doing things as
individuals. This describes many of us. We don’t want
anything to do with organized politics and/or religion.
By being unwilling to join with organized
groups – which are based on interconnections among
people – we put constraints on how effective we will be
able to be. Perhaps we are protecting ourselves from
further hurt and disillusion. In this self-protecting
decision, however, we turn our backs to the source of
that hurt and what it’s doing. “The system” seems so
monolithic and overwhelming that all we feel able to do
is ignore it and hope it will not bother us.
Yet, in reality, there is no overwhelming
monolith, and we are not alone. The monolith is a
fabrication. And the number of people who refrain from
voting may give us an idea of how many people have
rejected it and are in this state of Resignation. Many
of them would like to hope again.
According to “systems theory,” when
increasing pressure is placed on a “system” – a group of
many diverse and interconnected parts – it will strive
harder and harder to maintain its organization until it
finally, suddenly, collapses and reorganizes. There is
every reason to expect that this process will occur with
our society.
Is this something to fear or something to
look forward to? Many of the people who participated in
this discussion series began to see that the world is
not a scary place. We don’t know what the future will
hold, but we must have faith that it will be good.
Nelson Mandela said, “Our deepest fear is
not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we
are powerful beyond measure.”
The power that each of us holds is
scary. All great movements in the world began with just
a few people who shared an idea. And they ran with that
idea. They didn’t know where the idea would take them;
they just knew that they had to take the first step.
And then they took the next step.
In the process, they sought out others
who shared their vision. Each person brought talents
and perspectives and was embraced by the group. By
working with each other, they were able to do far more
than any one of them could have done alone.
And that’s the fourth stage: the
Politics of Hope. In this stage, “politics” is the
creation of alliances with others for the common good,
and leaders are most interested in
empowering others.
All of the participants in this
discussion saw the end of the six-week series not as an
“ending” but as a beginning. We plan to have further
discussions. We must take the next step.
