Hope as Action
In our continuing quest for signs of hopefulness I recently found an article in The Nation by John Nichols that spoke to the issue. This article led to the work of Frances Moore Lappe, then to her website and finally to her own very special view on hope.
John Nichols wrote in the 2 November 2007 issue of The Nation an article entitled “Frances Moore Lappe’s Recipe for Radical Renewal. He says of her:
“No popular intellectual has been so very successful in reshaping the character and content of debates about environmental and food policy as this remarkable woman. It is true that there are still deniers of the truths she advances. But they are increasingly isolated in the West Wing of the Bush White House. And their days are numbered.”
This is the person who is probably best known for her book “Diet for a Small Planet” which was published in 1971 and has sold over 3 million copies. She has written some 15 additional books. Now she has published “Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad”. In the Introduction of this new work she asks:
“Why can’t we have a nation - why can’t we have a world we’re proud of? Why can’t we stop wringing our hands over poverty, hunger, species decimation, genocide, and death from curable disease that we know is all needless? The truth is there is no reason we can’t. They say - whoever the “they” are - that as we age, we mellow. I don’t think so. I’m getting less and less patient. Why? Because I realize that humanity has no excuses anymore. In the span of my own lifetime, both historical evidence and breakthroughs in knowledge have wiped out all our excuses. We know that we know how to end this needless suffering, and we have all the resources to do it. From sociology and anthropology to economics, from education and ecology to systems analysis - the evidence is in. We know what works.”
In his closing Nichols says that Lappe “is as right now as she has been in the past. It is time to go for it — no half steps, no half measures. We have a name for the failures of the past: Bush. Now that the Bush era is ending, we need to name and claim the future.”
I believe that Nichols is right in his praise of Lappe and her clarity of vision, and in his call for acting on that vision of what we can - what we must, accomplish. In visiting her website (smallplanetinstitute.org) there is much there that parallels the work of Paul Hawkin and his book ”Blessed Unrest” which we wrote about earlier. Both Lappe and Hawkin present optimistic views and realistic possibilities of bringing about a better world.
I was especially impressed with the lead quote on her website about hope: “Hope is not what we seek in evidence, it’s what we become in action...”
Bob
John Nichols wrote in the 2 November 2007 issue of The Nation an article entitled “Frances Moore Lappe’s Recipe for Radical Renewal. He says of her:
“No popular intellectual has been so very successful in reshaping the character and content of debates about environmental and food policy as this remarkable woman. It is true that there are still deniers of the truths she advances. But they are increasingly isolated in the West Wing of the Bush White House. And their days are numbered.”
This is the person who is probably best known for her book “Diet for a Small Planet” which was published in 1971 and has sold over 3 million copies. She has written some 15 additional books. Now she has published “Getting a Grip: Clarity, Creativity and Courage in a World Gone Mad”. In the Introduction of this new work she asks:
“Why can’t we have a nation - why can’t we have a world we’re proud of? Why can’t we stop wringing our hands over poverty, hunger, species decimation, genocide, and death from curable disease that we know is all needless? The truth is there is no reason we can’t. They say - whoever the “they” are - that as we age, we mellow. I don’t think so. I’m getting less and less patient. Why? Because I realize that humanity has no excuses anymore. In the span of my own lifetime, both historical evidence and breakthroughs in knowledge have wiped out all our excuses. We know that we know how to end this needless suffering, and we have all the resources to do it. From sociology and anthropology to economics, from education and ecology to systems analysis - the evidence is in. We know what works.”
In his closing Nichols says that Lappe “is as right now as she has been in the past. It is time to go for it — no half steps, no half measures. We have a name for the failures of the past: Bush. Now that the Bush era is ending, we need to name and claim the future.”
I believe that Nichols is right in his praise of Lappe and her clarity of vision, and in his call for acting on that vision of what we can - what we must, accomplish. In visiting her website (smallplanetinstitute.org) there is much there that parallels the work of Paul Hawkin and his book ”Blessed Unrest” which we wrote about earlier. Both Lappe and Hawkin present optimistic views and realistic possibilities of bringing about a better world.
I was especially impressed with the lead quote on her website about hope: “Hope is not what we seek in evidence, it’s what we become in action...”
Bob
posted by Looking for Hope | 8:34 PM
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