Hope: A Critical Introduction

Abstract

In the face of hardship people hope-for better times and for signs that suggest that hope is justified. As the opposite of despair, hopefulness is also the bedrock of creative and non-violent change. While hope involves an emotional stance or style (emotion being understood as affective orientation and readiness to act), it is also different from other emotions and affective stances in important ways. Unlike, for example, joy or sorrow, where an actual object-a person, an event, a perception or thought-gives rise to emotion, hope is an emotional orientation to something that is desired but that has not (yet) happened. Indeed, we may hope for things that may never happen. In this sense hope and longing are often intertwined.Thus, hope is future-oriented, although in a unique way. There are other emotion-laden orientations that take shape in relation to desired future events-anticipation and expectancy, for example. Anticipating or expecting something 'good' is a 'happy' orientation. I can take pleasure in, and enjoy, for example, looking forward to being reunited with a loved one after a lengthy journey. I can enjoy looking forward to attending a long-awaited event-a live concert after a long period during which concert attendance was impossible (as it is now during