this question of hope....

[Peter Kropotkin]

in our current day and age, one thing that is truly lacking
hope...there are several different areas of life..

political, social, economic, philosophical, and religious...
there are more, but let's stick to the basics....

where is the hope today in the political?
as one of my favorite rock groups puts it,

''the world is corrupt and the strong take the weak''
(Kansas)

given how the right claims in a ''deep state" and that Biden ''stole'' the election,
and how the left, me included believes that big corporations have bought
various government entities, from the presidency to the state houses...
no one, left or right trusts or believe in government anymore....
and part of that hatred stems from the clearly corrupted Scotus..
with Clarence Thomas being more corrupt than the others...
he may as well put on a red dress and sell himself on a street corner
he is a whore... ''votes for sale'' is his motto...

and where is the hope in the political? and who in the political
world should we hope in? NO ONE as far as I can tell...

ok, so let us forget hope in the political world, and let us
try the social world for hope....and where would one find hope
in the social world? In the Kardashian? or in our deep love of
those celebrities shows that tell us who is together and who has broken up?
or which house a rapper brought for $40 million bucks? is that where we find
hope?

in the philosophical world, a world that no one pays any attention to?
enough said....

next, on purpose, I left the economics world to this spot...

where can hope be found in our modern world of capitalism, which
is nihilism personified... where we negate human beings and their values
in the pursuit of the trinkets of existence, of wealth, power, fame, titles
and of course, material possessions....pursuit of those values is a pursuit
of empty values...we might refer to them as ''empty calories" eat/gain
as many trinkets as possible and one will still be left empty and hungry...
an empty calorie we might call any one of those trinkets, money,
fame, titles, power or material possessions....and how does the pursuit of
empty calories/values allow one hope? I and as is coming into view,
millions of others are also thinking that the promise of capitalism,
is a lie, an empty calorie.. that distracts us from what we should be engaged
with? more on that one later...

and the final lie of hope... the religious.... of achieving heaven or
in the Buddhist understanding, no longer being reborn.....

as I have noted before, most Christians engage in situational ethics, not
the right and wrong of the bible, but in the idea that the situation
dictates the ethics... and having read the bible many times, I can state,
that situational ethics isn't in the bible..

to be blunt, there is no hope offered in the pursuit of the religious....
for one gain a benefit, in the next life, after death...in the gaining of
heaven and immortal life....both rather shabby goals.... to live forever?
a fate worse than death and to exists in heaven, where one simply
enjoys contemplating god, forever... another fate worse than death....

a far more practical understanding of the world, involves us thinking
about the world in terms of a no-god world.... what does hope look like
in a no-god world? and here we are..... today, right now.... where
do we find hope in our modern world? In a no-god world?

I have posed the question, and where do we find the answer?

Kropotkin

[Age]

in our current day and age, one thing that is truly lacking
hope...there are several different areas of life..

political, social, economic, philosophical, and religious...
there are more, but let's stick to the basics....

where is the hope today in the political?

All hope, or lack of, exists within you human beings.

Oh, and by the way, if any one is interested the very reason suicide existed back in the days when this was being written was because of and due to a 'lack of hope', within some human beings.

This will become much clearer and much better understood as 'time goes on', as some might say.

as one of my favorite rock groups puts it,

''the world is corrupt and the strong take the weak''
(Kansas)

given how the right claims in a ''deep state" and that Biden ''stole'' the election,
and how the left, me included believes that big corporations have bought
various government entities, from the presidency to the state houses...
no one, left or right trusts or believe in government anymore....
and part of that hatred stems from the clearly corrupted Scotus..
with Clarence Thomas being more corrupt than the others...
he may as well put on a red dress and sell himself on a street corner
he is a whore... ''votes for sale'' is his motto...

and where is the hope in the political? and who in the political
world should we hope in? NO ONE as far as I can tell...

What we can clearly see here is just how narrowed a view some people really had, considering that 'we' are in a philosophy forum.

ok, so let us forget hope in the political world, and let us
try the social world for hope....and where would one find hope
in the social world? In the Kardashian? or in our deep love of
those celebrities shows that tell us who is together and who has broken up?
or which house a rapper brought for $40 million bucks? is that where we find
hope?

in the philosophical world, a world that no one pays any attention to?

And 'you', "peter kropotkin", just literally proved 'this' by only viewing, seeing, and talking about, only, one very, very tiny part of the 'whole world'.

enough said....

I agree.

next, on purpose, I left the economics world to this spot...

where can hope be found in our modern world of capitalism, which
is nihilism personified... where we negate human beings and their values
in the pursuit of the trinkets of existence, of wealth, power, fame, titles
and of course, material possessions....pursuit of those values is a pursuit
of empty values...we might refer to them as ''empty calories" eat/gain
as many trinkets as possible and one will still be left empty and hungry...
an empty calorie we might call any one of those trinkets, money,
fame, titles, power or material possessions....and how does the pursuit of
empty calories/values allow one hope? I and as is coming into view,
millions of others are also thinking that the promise of capitalism,
is a lie, an empty calorie.. that distracts us from what we should be engaged
with? more on that one later...

and the final lie of hope... the religious.... of achieving heaven or
in the Buddhist understanding, no longer being reborn.....

as I have noted before, most Christians engage in situational ethics, not
the right and wrong of the bible, but in the idea that the situation
dictates the ethics... and having read the bible many times, I can state,
that situational ethics isn't in the bible..

to be blunt, there is no hope offered in the pursuit of the religious....
for one gain a benefit, in the next life, after death...in the gaining of
heaven and immortal life....both rather shabby goals.... to live forever?
a fate worse than death and to exists in heaven, where one simply
enjoys contemplating god, forever... another fate worse than death....

a far more practical understanding of the world, involves us thinking
about the world in terms of a no-god world.... what does hope look like
in a no-god world? and here we are..... today, right now.... where
do we find hope in our modern world? In a no-god world?

I have posed the question, and where do we find the answer?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

and back to reality....

religions are based on something, and I would submit that
''something'' is suffering...The Buddhist out and out say that
life is suffering... and the Christian agrees....

the entire Christian religion is based upon the suffering of Jesus...
he has suffered for you, he has died for you.....and his suffering allows
us to live the eternal life.. which is promised in his resurrection....
as was resurrection after suffering, you too will be resurrected after
your suffering........now I cannot speak for the Muslim religion in
this regard, that the Muslim religion is predicated on suffering to make
sense... I can't speak to that, so I won't.....and I can speak for Hinduism,
after making a long study of it... That Hinduism is, as most Indian religion,
engaged with reincarnation.... and I cannot recall a single writer
celebrating being reborn over and over again...but the focus of Hinduism,
is the belief and practice of/within of following the Vedas....
that is the central point of Hinduism, the Vedas...much like the Christian
west holds to the belief in and practice of the bible...

but as I have mentioned, I have found very little to hope for, in Hinduism
as in there is little hope in Buddhism or in Christanity.....

avoiding suffering in Buddhism and diving into the suffering
in Christianity... seems to be the point in both....

so, has noted in my opening post, if we do not have hope in
the modern isms and ideologies, then what can we hope for?
Which is, if one is paying attention, one of the Kantian questions...
"what am I to do?" ''What can I know?'' and of course, ''What can I
hope for?"

we can have hope in something beside ism's and ideologies...
for example, as a human being, I am born with certain
possibilities... I was a fast kid, which meant one of my possibilities
was in running... and I tried to engage with that possibility...
I ran cross-country and track... I can't say I was great, I wasn't really
even that good, but it was still a possibility for me to reach or overcome
becoming a better runner... maybe I can't, (and didn't) reach the 4 minute
mile... but I can become a better runner and reach my own personal best...
around 4:45 or so... not that great... but it was the best I could do, and
so I reached what was possible for me in running... because of several
factors, I am really, really bad at spelling... but because of all the writing I
have done over the years in various philosophy websites, I am not that bad
now....I have reached my possibilities in being a better speller...
I was unable to become a scientist because I am really terrible at math...
to this day, I can barely add, subtract, multiply and divide... but
because of my work in retail, I am actually much better at math...
I can actually add and subtract in my head now... divide, not so much...
and here, once again, I reach what was possible for me...

as we age, our possibilities become less and less... doors close
and few, if any open up...and if I get old enough, the only door left for
me to open will be death.. all my other options will be gone....

so, we can hope for, not for world peace or the return of god, but
we can hope for reaching our possibilities... but as usual, the seeking
of possibilities is not limited to us alone, but to us collectively...

a large-scale possibility for all of us, is to achieve collective peace...
and one way to achieve that collective possibility.. is by each of
us, individually rejecting the trinkets of existence.. to seek out
money, power, fame, titles and material possessions is in, large part
the reason we have a hard time with achieving peace..
our individual failure to achieve the goal of getting the trinkets,
leads us to hold to anger, hatred, violence, despair, to coveting
other goods and wealth....but if we don't covet other getting the
trinkets of existence, then we also don't get angry or mad or despair
or get violent.....much of the worlds problems lie in us being discontented
by not getting what we want.. as the Buddha so correctly pointed out...

we can seek out hope, not in seeking out the trinkets of existence,
but in becoming our possibilities... some say that life is a competition....
and that might be so, but one can overcome, which is harder than hell,
and find the competition in that overcoming..... to become our possibilities
is competition enough...

many people just give up... we see this ever more in our modern world..
and why do people just give up? they see that the isms and ideologies that
drive us into seeking the trinkets of existence, are fake and hollow and
frankly, pointless to seek....many in America have given up on capitalism..
and why? because the hope offered by capitalism is worthless, barren,
meaningless, unprofitable... the cost of a lifetime in capitalism isn't
worth the ''reward...and what do I get in a ism like capitalism....
a lifetime of being one step ahead of true poverty, of being one or two
paychecks from living on the streets, of working 40 plus years for
maybe, maybe, 10 years of retirement... and that is if I am lucky...
the realistic number is closer to 7 years.. and half of those years,
I will suffer from diseases of being old... being old isn't worth the effort
put into it...and certainly not worth the 40 or 45, or in my case,
when I retire in a year or two, if I can even retire, I will have put
in 49 or 50 years of work...and if my life expectancy is right, (in 2020)
I will live another 16 years.... and I can't even afford to live that long....
If my math is right, I have enough money to last me for 7 years in retirement,
and that isn't including any money for the wife...

I see no hope in those numbers... but I still have hope... my often
statement is that I want to be the greatest philosopher of all time...
that is still possible for me... and a goal that I strive for every single day....
and as that is still possible for me, it gives me hope.....

it doesn't even matter if I can be the greatest philosopher, it is a goal
that can give me hope and if I try hard enough, one of the few goals I
can still achieve.. one of the few possibilities available to me....
and that allows me to hope...... and what is possible for you to achieve
and give you hope?

Kropotkin

[Age]

And, 'now', back to actual Reality.

[nemos]

Hope has to be about some kind of possibility as a goal, as I see it. The younger you are, the more opportunities there are and, accordingly, more room for expectations. Hoping for something unattainable, like looking at the earth while standing on the moon ... is nothing more than a foolish waste of time. Of course, this does not mean that dreaming is bad, you just don't need to get overly excited about it - you won't be full of dreams alone.
I can't say I don't have hope, but I try not to put too much weight on it. I am guided by obligations, including towards myself. And as far as resources are limited, I try to be as rational as possible to increase the chance of success. And the only true hope I have is that I will have enough strength and time, and maybe luck, so as not to be in debt to anyone, including myself.
''Life must be lived in such a way that, in the end, there will be no excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly."
Everything else is just resources that you can use, I talk about all the isms you mentioned. You should not look for hope in them, you should use them.

[Peter Kropotkin]

hope is as fundamental need as love and breathing is for human beings...

hope is why we get up in the morning... we hope today will be a good
day and tomorrow will be even better....the fact is that without hope,
life becomes so bleak as to be not worth it..

life is a death sentence... once born, you will die... and by hope,
one can, not escape it, but look past that death sentence...
with hope, we seek love and esteem and safety/security....
and a family... and while sometimes we get what we hope for,
other times, we don't... and quite often, it is by luck or chance,
that allows us to met our desires and other times, luck and chance,
prevent us from reaching out desired goals....

the hope for a better tomorrow is, in part, what drives us liberals to
try to improve lives, our own individual lives and our collective lives....
whereas conservatives are more of "it is what it is" type of people..
they find their hope in their hope for a higher power, in god....
where evil doers are punished in the next lifetime, I, I want
the evil doers to be punished in this lifetime, sooner than later....
and not by god hand, but by ours...

I hope for a no-god world... in a no-god world, we can create our own
hope and dreams...seek out our own possibilities... with hope...
in a god world, we are not in control, we have no power, we are helpless...
and for believers, they want that... I have no idea why.... I want a
world where my voice counts... I hope for things that are only possible
in a no-god world... justice delayed, as in justice only in the next life,
is justice denied... and that does crush people's hope...

Kropotkin

[nemos]

... I want a world where my voice counts...

Kropotkin

I think we should learn to respect what we have. I don't know about you, but for me, my voice matters. I'm quite modest, that's enough for me, everything else depends on luck and can't to impress me.