The Fightback June 2025 Part II: The Destruction of Hope
‘Diary Entry: I can see how everyone is afraid. The Supreme Court judgement, the embedding of fascism both in the USA and its pandered to cousin in the UK Labour Government. This is how the psychology of fascism works. There is so much to be afraid of at present. So many groups, so many others, fear for their very being and existence right now. Where is the hope?’
Hope is a strange word. A tricky concept. Whilst the question in my own diary entry speaks of the lack of hope in 2025, there is importance in recognising that when we are riddled with fear, when we are then without hope, what we left with is depression and despair. We need hope. We need someone to believe in, someone to say that things are going to be alright. This is why this month’s blog speaks so much about the hope and its relevance.
Yet, it should be clearly stated that ideas of Hope can be misused. I have written in the past about hope being manipulated by those with systemic power to make the other more patient, and therefore more compliant, as they await for change. As they hope for change. The politicisation of hope, though, is a very different thing to what we are witnessing today.
As we watch presidents accept $400 billion planes from a government in the Middle East, as we hear Prime Ministers deny the existence of racism in their own country (and own party), as we witness both and many other means of forms of corruption, disruption, disinformation and lies, it becomes increasingly difficult to have any faith in the political systems which we have put so much of our faith in (as well as the people within them). The hope that Harvey Milk spoke of in his famous speech on the role of the other in politics, is in danger of becoming a hope which has been blown away by the systemic forces which want us to feel hopeless (Van Sant, 2008).
‘Diary Entry: I started writing my diaries in 1984 because I was depressed and there was no hope. As I look back on that year, I see the irony. I was a fan of the book, Orwell was a favourite of mine even back then (Orwell, 2021). A dark story without much hope in it, where survival is carved of suffering and fear, and is crafted through compliance, this was a book which moved a fear within me even when I read it at school. As I grew older though, I found myself drawn to the works of Moore, Miller and others, who, in the Graphic Novel genre, wrote about a lack of hope, and of somehow having to dredge up hope from the depths of despair. In many ways, their works kept me going, until I discovered hope in myself (Miller & Mazzucchelli, 1987; Moore, 2009, 2019).’
According to the brilliant Byung-Chul Han (2024), in this current cultural era, it is the political weaponisation of fear that threatens to drive hope away. Watching people being rounded up and decamped into jails in Central America without due process, means that so many people are afraid that they will be next. Hearing the stories of travellers into the USA buying pay-as-you-go phones so they wont be locked up and deported for criticising a government leaves so many others (myself included) pondering if I will ever travel West again. Watching as the Far Right in my own country rise to such levels and gain such systemic power, that it leaves so many Others (myself included) wary of the systemic mimicry which might come should these people ever gain a powerful foothold in the UK.
Yet, Han also spoke of the need to retain hope, of the fact that you cannot really destroy hope. It is there, it is a force which binds us all, it is an immovable object. For example, Jung’s Answer to Job (2002) speaks to the loss of hope of the biblical character Job, who when faced with the futility of his own existence, struggled to listen to the voice of God speaking to him, reminding him of his presence, reminding him of the presence, always, of hope.
In my own work as a psychotherapist, when clients come to me who are in a particular type of despair, then my job, my felt experience, is that I am holding the hope for them. A hope which over time they recover, they internalise, and they recognise they had all the time. They reconnect to that deeper archetypal wellspring of hope which we can lose sight of if we are not careful.
‘Dream dated 7th April 25: Scene where I am playing an indoor football match. The is a pause in the game as the other team are trying to right the game by setting things up so they can win more easily. But I outflank them by gathering lots of balls and valuable other things into the centre circle. As the whistle sounds, I then shoot and score lots of goals so that we are even further ahead and we win the game. It is important to note that I was aided by friends in the winning of the game.’
If I recall rightly, within pandora’s box, after everything else had been released, hope was the last thing to emerge. What I love about the dream from the 7th of April, is that is says so many things about our current condition. It recognises that the psychological hopelessness of fascism can quite easily be internalised. That we can lose faith and hope and disconnect from each other and from that which is most important within us, our richness, our uniqueness. Yet, what the dream also speaks of is that we will win ultimately. That together, we score all the goals which help us to win the game. And that we will not need to cheat and rig the game to do so.
Whilst I truly believe there is a very long way to go, that there may well be a lot of darkness to come, we can most possibly see the metaphorical bluebells which speak to this coming springlike emergence out of this darkest of winter times. For example, hope is there in Mark Carney’s election in Canada, in Australia’s Anthony Albanese, and in the election of an American to the pinnacle of the Catholic Church in Pope Leo IVX. It is there in their obvious rejections of right-wing populism in both Canada and Australia. It is there in the attempts to reclaim the religious high ground from the populist right’s co-option. Hope is there is the rising of voices of intersectional feminists in this country who are quite understandably fighting hard for Trans rights.
Hope is there in large forms and smaller ones, like it is there in this middle-aged Black British man writing his blogs and speaking up for those who need him.
‘You have to be invited into my TARDIS, Conrad. To be special. But you? You’re special for all the wrong reasons. You see I am fighting a battle on behalf of everyday people. Who just want to get through their day, and feel safe, and warm, and fed. And then comes along this… noise. All day long this relentless noise. Cowards like you, weaponizing lies, taking people’s insecurities and fear, and making it currency. You are exhausting. You stamp on the truth, choke our bandwidth, and shred our patience. Because the only strategy you have is to wear us down. But the thing is, Conrad, I have energy to burn and all the time in the universe?’ (Hoar, 2025)
References
Han, B.-C. (2024). The Spirit of Hope. Polity Press.
Hoar, P. (2025). Dr Who: Lucky Day. BBC Worldwide. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt35930919/
Jung, C. G. (2002). Answer to Job (2nd ed.). Routledge.
Miller, F., & Mazzucchelli, D. (1987). Daredevil: Born Again. Marvel Entertainment Group Limited.
Moore, A. (2009). V for Vendetta. Titan Books.
Moore, A. (2019). Watchmen. DC Comics.
Orwell, G. (2021). 1984. Wordsworth Editions Limited.
Van Sant, G. (2008). Milk (p. 1). Focus Features. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1013753/companycredits?ref_=ttfc_ql_5