Fear is the strongest human emotion. Whether it's a fear of spiders, commitment, plane crashes or watching democracy crumble in the hand of rising dictators, few emotions are as overwhelming and domineering as being afraid. There are a few antidotes to fear within the chemistry of human feelings: love, joy and courage are all forces against fear, but none as powerful as hope.
Hope carries many meanings, with synonyms ranging from anticipation to yearning to ambition. The most accurate description of hope as a force against fear is on Wikipedia, aggregated from many dictionaries to create a holistic definition: “an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances in one’s own life, or the world at large.”
This emphasis on “the world at large” is exactly why hope is so valuable in America’s modern political, social and cultural climate. The House Committee on Appropriations compiled a list of the numerous ways President Donald Trump has barraged the American people, trying to overwhelm them as he “actively and blatantly violates the law, undermines the U.S. Constitution in countless ways and attacks the men and women who patriotically serve their country in the Department of Justice.”
Both pop culture and history are full of examples of how hope has encouraged rebels to persevere through even bleaker situations than Trump is instigating.
In the late 1700s, the French monarchy was toppled by the bourgeoisie and the peasantry in one of history’s largest revolutions. In 1831, Nat Turner and his allies killed 55 white oppressors in “the clearest example of overt resistance in the United States to the system of slavery,” according to Encyclopedia Virginia. From 1936-1939, Palestinian Arabs revolted against the British colonizers in an attempt to rid what was then called Mandatory Palestine of Zionism.
These rebels all faced the ultimate risk, putting their lives on the line with nothing but hope for a better future to mitigate that fear. Outside of historical examples, pop culture is rich with fictional examples, often inspired by potential realities, of these rebellions that are designed to reach younger generations who live in the cultural zeitgeist rather than their history books.
For centuries, dystopian literature has told stories of rebels fighting against authoritarian regimes. Novels such as “The Handmaid’s Tale,” “1984” and “Fahrenheit 451” warned readers in the 20th century of the dangers of authoritarianism. Series such as “The Hunger Games,” “Divergent” and “Harry Potter” succeeded this early literature to paint pictures of young rebels fueled by hope to topple fictional, and sometimes mythical, oppressors.
The Trump-adjacent figure in “The Hunger Games,” the vindictive President Snow, described hope as dangerous to his totalitarian regime. This fictional example is doubtlessly applicable to America’s current political administration which is throwing Constitutional violation after human rights violation after Geneva Convention violation at the public.
In order to overcome these human rights infringements, citizens must turn to historical examples, fictional or otherwise, for proof that hope is unbelievably powerful and, despite the hopelessness President Trump is trying to instill in the world at large, cannot be snuffed out.
Sophia Rooksberry is a junior studying journalism. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnist do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Sophia know by tweeting her @sophiarooks_.
