The paradox is that, to inspire hope, we must always think that it is not too late to act. But empirically, it is self-evident that things can be lost that one had hoped to keep and preserve. And not only material things, but also living beings, relations, and ways of life. So situations where it is “too late” can certainly exist.
Against Benjamin’s idea that redemption must include the dead, Horkheimer replied that the dead are dead.
The disconnect is stubborn: it is true that it is never too late – in whatever circumstances, there will always be meaningful things to do, small actions that can make a difference, if not saving the world then at least make things a little less bad. But it is equally true that we often experience that it is too late. The disconnect has emotional consequences: shock, grief, traumatization, depression.
Even when the earth turns into a wasteland – Beckett’s rubbish heap – it will not be too late. This is the vindication of the Panglossian hope ridiculed by Voltaire. Even if we do not claim that the world is the best of all possible ones despite all catastrophes, we are obliged to think that things can always improve, regardless of how bad they are. We end up in Solnit’s: “I respect despair as an emotion, but not as an analysis”.
But at the same time, such an attitude is both cruel and cynical, especially in view of those who mourn what has been lost. Those insisting on hope – like Kant or Solnit – can easily appear unfeeling.
Can the paradox be overcome? No side is right: we are confronted with an incompatibility, or antinomy.
To hope is fine, but this must be a hope that proceeds through despair and through a loss of hope, a “hope beyond hope”. A hope that can bud even in the rubbish heap.
The problem with Kant and Solnit is that they never allow for giving up hope. For hope to be meaningful, it must be disappointable, as Bloch writes. Only a hope that can be lost is respectful of what people hold dear.
