9 Ways Hope Is Being Systematically Depleted And How To Reclaim It

“They sowed fear in us, we grew wings,” goes the song in Spanish by Vivir Quintana, about women in Mexico resisting femicide.

Amid the protests, a global collective hope crisis is also simmering, with many people hurting, criminalized, repressed, and doubting that justice and dignity are possible. The old fable of a stable job, home, family and retirement is crumbling. For many, it is becoming very hard to plan ahead, to dream. This, while also experiencing an ongoing, crippling concern for planet and people; a state of prolonged alarm at an abyss of too-big problems.

The hope scarcity is being created and capitalized on with deliberate, anti-people policies designed to keep people disheartened and passive, in order to maintain elitist power. But, things are much more hopeful than they initially seem. We can come out of this growing wings. There is possibility built into uncertainty and all this disillusionment. The lack of safety and a clear path forward, however, has many people understandably focusing on gloom.

Globally, there are significant increases in depression, especially among young adults and in parts of Africa, and happiness among young people in North America has nose dived. Happiness rates have also dropped in South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Downward trends in hope are contributing to rising numbers of deaths of despair (suicide, overdoses and alcohol-related mortality) in the US. A Lancet global survey found that 60% of young adults were experiencing climate anxiety.

The hope crisis isn’t equal. Young people with the biggest fears around climate change live in the Global South, with people in the Philippines and India feeling that “humanity is doomed” and “the future is frightening.” 

The crisis also isn’t entirely new; the horrors of inequality, imperialism, and the recklessness of corporations are old, ongoing patterns. Now, though, the climate crisis has declared deadlines. The hazardous weather and floodscapes are less and less limited to just the Global Majority regions. Social media stupefaction is concerning. The ineffectiveness of global bodies like the UN to stop obvious horrors, while the ear-clogged baboon beings in power are also unable or unwilling to do anything about any of it, is perturbing. An emboldened right wing is dismantling care services and with them, the future. Most governments are going to increasing lengths to discourage resistance and initiative, and repress protests.

Why hope is so important and 9 ways they stifle it

n encourage people to realize the importance of their own role and to stop waiting for the people in power to solve everything. AI is taking from creatives, journalists, and researchers, but the phenomenon is also challenging people to appreciate the uniqueness of humanity. The climate deadline causes anxiety, but it also hastens action. The climate emergency and the droughts affecting Mexico to Ethiopia, the fires burning from the US to Australia, remind us that air and water are shared, and the battle for justice is ultimately global. Gaza has put the violence of colonialism back in people’s minds. Imperialism against the Global South isn’t academic, it is an ongoing lived atrocity. 

The lack of faith in a better tomorrow, as agonizing as it feels, is precisely the catalyst needed for people to fight today. This current crisis is ripe with change, because it is prompting questioning. It’s not just us facing instability, the old and problematic ways of doing things are also unstable. Systems of subjugation aren’t everlasting. The crisis comes with considering new things. It shouts that the future is not predetermined. That makes space for action, agency, adventure and non-conformity. 

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