Chris Jordan - www.chrisjordan.com - this is from his Midway series. It is about albatross chicks that are fed a diet of plastic and refuse by their parents.
At first I was getting a little upset at the way that Derrick Jensen was speaking. But then he brought up a few interesting point in Beyond Hope from Orion Magazine. His tone was not just upset, but yelling at me, which I don’t think is a very good way to keep a persons attention. The tone calmed down a little towards the end, and that’s when the writing got a little more interesting. He starts speaking about hope, and how he has none. He continues talking about how hope is not a good thing, which is why he is glad that he has none. Hope according to him is something that keeps us chained down. Instead of hoping Derrick thinks we need to go out and do things. I agree with this statement mostly. I think that some hope is helpful though. If we went into things with out being hopeful that what we are doing is going to help change the world, no one would try. I believe that there are two kinds of hope, hope that others will fix the problem, and hope that what you are doing in the world will someday change the way things are. Some people hope that there money is going to a good cause, like with the computers for every one in the city we talked about in Lecture, a computer isn’t as important as a net to keep away malaria, yet people think they are helping these people out. You need to do research before you go out and try to fix things just by putting in money. There are bigger problems in the world then computers, and we should start by fixing those. I also did a few of the carbon footprint calculators on C-tools. I got a lot of mixed results. On one had I had two that said I was below average when it came to my carbon footprint? But the last one I did said that my footprint was about equal, or even more then the average person in the U.S. I would really like to improve my carbon footprint as much as possible over the semester. I’ve been telling a lot of people about the carbon footprint calculators, I even had my sister do it. She is quite a bit more aware when it comes to helping our earth. Her footprint looked about the same as mine, but she does do a lot of things differently then me, like her diet, she’s vegan. She also buys only Michigan grown products, which I have been trying to do more often lately. And the biggest one that I think is different between us is the fact that she drives a hybrid car, while I’m stuck driving my fathers “hand-me-down” pick-up truck that only does 14 MPG.
This is a very revealing picture of how our waste has infiltrated other organisms that live around us. Not only has our continued expansion into the habitats of wild animals put stress on the way they live and survive, our ever expanding waste has made it into the diet of certain animals. The albatross pictured here shows this extremely clearly, and it is our waste that most likely led to the bird’s death. This picture really points out to me the importance of our upcoming paper on garbage. I feel that I am very good at employing the “Three R’s” which are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. My perception of my success at following these three practices may be problematic. I expect my eyes to be opened by this paper when, at the end of the week, I realize that there are plenty of items I could have not used or reused. Currently, I use Tupperware whenever possible to cut down on plastic bag use on items such as sandwiches. Therefore, I feel like I am doing my part. But this is probably not the case, and when I open my black bag at the end of the week I hope that I can learn from it and make future changes to the waste I create. It is more than just reducing the amount that goes into a landfill, it will prevent future wildlife from becoming victims of our society’s need to consume and produce waste. This picture also ties in well with the reading. I have seen pictures similar to the one shown above of animals harmed from our waste. These include images of marine life stuck in the Pacific garbage patch and the like. When I have seen pictures like these in the past, I think about organizations such as Greenpeace which I hope are doing something to clean up the mess. But the paper reminds us that there is more to do that hope for other people to make amends for the problems I as a human help to create. Jensen says to give up hope and instead realize the potential we have to make change and use it, instead of relying on the government or large organizations to take on the project for us. I think his attack on ‘hope’ is a little harsh, considering the limited definition he assigned to the word. But nonetheless, it gets people to listen to his message and contemplate if they have simply been hoping for change, rather than doing it. What comes to my mind is Obama’s campaign slogan. Whoever came up with the slogan fed on the public’s desire to hope instead of act. But people all hope for different things, and one man cannot live up to everyone’s hope. Therefore, we need to do more than hope and instead must act on the issues that touch us the most.
This is a very revealing picture of how our waste has infiltrated other organisms that live around us. Not only has our continued expansion into the habitats of wild animals put stress on the way they live and survive, our ever expanding waste has made it into the diet of certain animals. The albatross pictured here shows this extremely clearly, and it is our waste that most likely led to the bird’s death. This picture really points out to me the importance of our upcoming paper on garbage. I feel that I am very good at employing the “Three R’s” which are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. My perception of my success at following these three practices may be problematic. I expect my eyes to be opened by this paper when, at the end of the week, I realize that there are plenty of items I could have not used or reused. Currently, I use Tupperware whenever possible to cut down on plastic bag use on items such as sandwiches. Therefore, I feel like I am doing my part. But this is probably not the case, and when I open my black bag at the end of the week I hope that I can learn from it and make future changes to the waste I create. It is more than just reducing the amount that goes into a landfill, it will prevent future wildlife from becoming victims of our society’s need to consume and produce waste. This picture also ties in well with the reading. I have seen pictures similar to the one shown above of animals harmed from our waste. These include images of marine life stuck in the Pacific garbage patch and the like. When I have seen pictures like these in the past, I think about organizations such as Greenpeace which I hope are doing something to clean up the mess. But the paper reminds us that there is more to do that hope for other people to make amends for the problems I as a human help to create. Jensen says to give up hope and instead realize the potential we have to make change and use it, instead of relying on the government or large organizations to take on the project for us. I think his attack on ‘hope’ is a little harsh, considering the limited definition he assigned to the word. But nonetheless, it gets people to listen to his message and contemplate if they have simply been hoping for change, rather than doing it. What comes to my mind is Obama’s campaign slogan. Whoever came up with the slogan fed on the public’s desire to hope instead of act. But people all hope for different things, and one man cannot live up to everyone’s hope. Therefore, we need to do more than hope and instead must act on the issues that touch us the most.
Before reading this article I thought it was going to be about the environment and ways we could help change it. I am not sure if I was disappointed or just confused but I felt like the article turned into a personal reflection on Jenson’s connection with hope. At first this disappointed me, but after I read the article again I realized that Jenson is proving that fixing the environment has nothing to do with just yourself trying to improve the world around us, but hoping that others will realize. The fate of our world is relying on hoping that more than environmentalists try to help change the life style we live. One line that particularly stood out to me was, “How can we continue if we do not have hope?” This is like saying how do we know what right is if we do not know what wrong is? It confuses me because is Jenson trying to say that we need those people who do not want to help in order to create awareness and have those who realize the problems in our world help? Hope leads us to inspiration that others will step up and do what they can to help. Another valid point that Jenson makes is that he fears that people do not want to help because they are afraid. A lot of people do not want to accept the fact that our world is deteriorating, so Jenson hopes they will not shy away to helping because of fear. Overall this article surprised me and I was kind of inspired by it.
My opinion on the Jensen article kind of varied a little. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with some of the points he was making. I felt like the article was a little pessimistic for my taste. In “Beyond Hope,” Jensen’s main point is that people rely way too much on hope to solve their problems and that hope is pointless and a waste of everyone’s time. He says that when people rely on hope nothing actually gets done, and that it is basically and excuse for people not to act on certain issues. Now to be honest, I agree with the fact that in order to change and accomplish certain things, action is required and action is the only thing that will get the job done. Standing around and not doing anything but hoping will not get you anywhere. However, I do strongly disagree that hope is meaningless and pointless, and that everyone would be better off if there was no hope. Personally, I like to hope for a lot of things. Hope to me, gives me a sense of enlightenment, to believe that something will help you to accomplish whatever it is that needs accomplishment is a wonderful feeling. I am not saying that hope will create actions, but I feel that hope is a way to help boost your own actions.
In terms of changing our own habits, talking to others and finding new ways to help the environment on our own terms, Jensen is slightly correct. When a person can take matters into their own hands or work with those willing to help can they abandon hope and get things done. This seems especially true if you are a scientist or designer and can actually come up with ways to make the world a better place. If some are stubborn or blind to whats going on, someone can educate them about the world and how to fix things. At the same time, I don’t see how any amount of work will go heard if others already have their mind made up. From experience, I’ve noticed that if someone is set in their way with no inch of feeling towards the subject, no amount of talking will convince them to change.
One can write letters to senators and help get bills passed but when dealing with higher authority one can only hope that their cries can be heard after doing so. After all that work one would still have to hope that they had swayed a person of higher authority into taking action. Even trying to sway a neighbor takes hope since you cannot force the person into changing. Taking only action sounds as if a person where to force their way of life onto another.
In the end, I did agree with the author that one should abandon the idea of hoping that others would eventually change and do nothing. A person can encourage others to change, help change the government, change their own personal life habits or even find remedies; however, there is still a need for hope that the others will listen. Personal habits can be changed with out the need for hope because you can always change yourself but you can’t force change onto others, unless you happen to be a President or Government leader?
Though most people are put off by Derrick Jensen’s harsh and cynical tone in “Beyond Hope,” I find it to be actually really refreshing. This is a different outlook on the issue of the environment and not one that I am used to reading, especially by those in favor of gaining support to cause action. In fact, while many view Jensen’s as negative and aggressive, I think it is perhaps more positive than most others of its kind. While other environmental activists preach about what we have all done wrong to put the earth in this situation, Jensen does not criticize for things in the past but only bashes in order to prevent misguided thinking for the future.
Jensen’s voice in his article is extremely present and to me, that is its most important attribute in grabbing my attention. Feeling his fervor for the topic is pivotal in making me too care about what he is talking about. The piece is not so much factual as it is passionate and well written, which may not tell the audience exactly what to do, but, in my opinion, it sure gets us thinking. I love the part in which Jensen references Pandora’s box and writes, “The more I understand hope, the more I realize that all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow, and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power as surely as a belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular way of keeping us in line. Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane… Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless” (Jenson, Beyond Hope). This reticent attitude of hoping is to be expected, as Jensen says, but real change will come from just a little bit more effort, and this is where the idea of “creeping normalcy” comes into play. Hope is the go-to standard, making it seemingly a good thing, but it simply is not enough. While on the surface this may seem like a truly pessimistic view, I believe Jensen’s real intent with this is to get the reader out of their backseat and empower them. Empower them to believe that they can be an important part of the solution but that all it requires is a step away from the comforts of hope.
Derrick Jensen’s article provided a different perspective on the word “hope”- one that I had never considered before. Upon reading the article through the first time around, I couldn’t decide whether I felt negatively or positively about this new point of view. However, after reflecting back on his words throughout the day and applying it to my own life, I decided that his definition and perception of hope was grounded in evidence that could not be refuted.
Everyone hopes aloud every once in a while that something will happen the way they wish it to unfold. I know I did more than once over the weekend. However, every time that I’ve done this, it has always been a situation that I have no direct control over. I’ve already made up my mind that I will not or cannot take any more steps toward achieving whatever thing it is that I am hoping for. Derrick did not necessarily make hope obsolete through his writing; he redirected our attention to a more active approach to tangible achievement rather than a passive waiting for a miracle that we can never be sure will occur.
Jensen’s harsh and passionate call to action, in my opinion, should not be viewed as an extremist’s criticism of our beliefs or of our lifestyle. Rather, it should be regarded as an urgent plea for active help from an able-bodied community that is more than capable of creating its own small miracles. Maybe what Jensen described as “hope” was actually our definition of “hopelessness.” But ultimately, the article is not about the definition or the word that is being defined. It is an intentionally uncomfortable piece of writing that causes us to cringe at our own inactivity and that force us to think inwardly about our own beliefs and whether we are doing anything to stand up for them.
I found Beyond Hope by Jensen to be a very gripping, intense article. The harsh tone of the article immediately grabs your attention, throwing radical statements and ideas immediately in your face, but instead of immediately tossing the article aside, you find yourself drawn in for more explanation. Jensen openly criticizes society’s hope that eventually someone somewhere will come up with something to heal the world once and for all of its self-inflicted wounds, and that everything will be better. He relates how hope essentially perpetuates the devastation of the world by saying “Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth,” (Jensen). I can definitely see where Jensen is coming from with this viewpoint, and I must say, I agree. If we as a people are always merely hoping that something will be developed that will patch the earth later on down the road, we will forever be complacent with just waiting around for that magical day, rather than trying to find a fix for the problems ourselves. Once we give up the hope we have, and assume responsibility for our problems today and begin to solve these problems today, we have a better shot at actually doing something worthwhile. I also found it interesting how Jensen then creates a sense of protection and love for the planet within the reader, instead of condemning him/her to a feeling of anguish and gloom once their hope has been taken away. Because, after all, once you completely give up on a hope for things in the future, it would seem to be the logical progression to launch yourself into a black hole of helplessness. But Jensen effectively provokes the reader into seeing that since all hope is gone, the pathways for today’s society to begin to remediate the ruins of the earth are now open. Overall I think Jensen’s article is a must-read for the masses. It could be the vital wake-up call that is about 50 years overdue to get society moving towards a definite (albeit small) solution NOW, rather than waiting for a possibility tomorrow.
In Derrick Jenson’s article, “Beyond Hope” he provided a new way for me to look at the world, one I had yet to consider. Although I was initially taken aback by his argumentative tone, it soon became clear that what I considered to be aggression in his writing was just an extreme passion for protecting the environment. Instead of being turned off to his point of view I actually became more convinced that his points were valid. It was because of his love for the world around him and his obvious eagerness to instill the same motivation in the reader that the severity of the situation was effectively relayed. In fact, after getting past his cynical and aggressive writing style, I found myself agreeing with many of the ideas he has on giving up on hope. Realizing the desperate nature of the environmental predicament we are in calls for action unlike the complacency and acceptance that comes with believing and hoping the situation will work itself out. When people rely on hope, they give up their power. I feel that Jenson is right about the public putting their faith in others when there are still actions that can be taken to ensure that we don’t sit idly by wishing for a cure while our world dies. His determination to make this idea understood by the audience is very compelling in itself. I am very appreciative for this class because of the new ways in which I look at our situation and the ideas that evolve from readings such as this.
As I began reading Derrick Jenson’s article, “Beyond Hope”, I felt that his tone was overly aggressive to a point where I had difficulty reading it. His writing early in the article felt like it came from a state of rage rather than encouraging or understanding. After reading the first page or two I found myself wanting to put the article down and put off reading the rest, until I could better understand where his emotion was coming from. Once I realized that his tone was coming from his passion for the environment, I found myself slowly understanding more and more of what he was trying to convey to the reader.
Although the article is titled “Beyond Hope”, I felt that the messages gave me reason to find hope. The hope I find from the article is hope that I can make a difference if I put my whole self into my passions. Hope for the protection of our environment does not strictly mean that we rely on others to make change. Without hope, no one could ever put themselves into their passions. In saying that, I also realize that one person’s passion cannot solve a problem as grand as what we face with today’s environment. To make a difference it requires passion, persistence and patience. Years of environmental damage cannot be repaired in one day but we must hope that little by little we can make a difference. Without this hope, no one would put in effort to follow his or her passions. Everyone will take different lessons from this article but I have discovered that without hope for the future, life is without purpose.
Jensen quoted “They say hope is our beacon in the dark” in his article. This was a rather ironic title to the beginning of his rather-pessimistic view of hope in the beginning of his article. Yet this pessimistic view of hope turns around as a passion; a passion to make a difference by taking action instead of just wishing something will change. Jensen started his article with the sentence “We’re fucked.” In addition to a strong choice of words, it immediately implies a harsh and abrupt tone to the readers. He then goes onto saying : “Those in power are hell-bent on destroying the planet, and most people don’t care…there is a false hope that suddenly somehow the system may inexplicably change… or technology… Great Mother…Jesus Christ…Santa Claus…all of these false hopes.” As the article continues, we realize that the strong use of language is merely passion. In his article Derrick gave an example of eating, that he doesn’t hope he is able to eat tomorrow, he just will. What he is saying is that we simply must do the work and not just ‘wish’. For instance, we buy things that are labeled ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘hope’ that it will help decrease the high consumerism of natural goods. From the example Jensen provided, he would rather have us do something along the line of buying fewer products and re-using ones we have. That way, we know for sure that we are saving our resources and not wasting them. As humans we are driven by emotions and sometimes we just do things out of emotion rather than reason. For instance if we someone is about to hurt somebody we love, we will do whatever it takes to defend them, even if it might be out of our comfort zone. This was Derrick’s passion. I think through his harsh words, he wants to create a sense of urgency to his reader. As I read on through his article, I felt a sense of frustration of two things: one from people needing to take actions, and two to seek solutions so people can break free from the government so that we can do whatever it takes to save the thing we love. He talked about death, as a state of being liberated which I found quite interesting because of the government and law that people do not tie themselves to trees constantly to prevent deforestation. Perhaps that is what Derrick is trying to say, maybe we all need to get out of our comfort zones and do something for the sake of our Earth.
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." –Dante’s Inferno Well it is funny that I’m reading this article after this summer. I gave the same rousing speech and failed miserably. So badly in fact it left me dazed and in a week long stupor. Beyond Hope by Derrick Jensen has many feelings that I have on the subjects of change and improvement. In fact during the summer I could say I even had the same passion Derrick had shown in his writing. But it still was not enough. I hit the same wall that he did when dealing with people. They simply were afraid nothing would come out of it. This is an important part I feel when now thinking back on this article. Truly even our own professor Joe Trumpey must feel in some way this desire to just go out and take an active stance in solving these problems. Why else would he have started his class with the repeated message, “we are not here to say that everything sucks, we are here to look for ways to solve problems.” I wonder if He will feel the same way I did if we do not follow him along this quest… At any rate I have come to the conclusion that, while alright in personal message. Jensen has missed an overwhelming force that could help turn the tide for his cause. Therefor I would like to propose a better message. Abandon personal hope for a better tomorrow. Instead fight as hard as you can to make it so. At the same time inspire hope in others that through their active participation in your endeavors, a better tomorrow can be found.
While reading the Jensen article, my immediate response was that hope is the force, which drives human life, and without it, we have no motivation or purpose. Without motivation or purpose, then there is no reason to accomplish any amount of work in life, not to mention the fact that a lack of motivation is mentally and spiritually depressing. I adamantly oppose Jensen’s position, stating that it is hope that leads individuals to be overly optimistic to a point of ignorance. I do agree that there are some that are overly optimistic, some times to the point of ignorance, but this situation cannot be solved by completely eliminating all shreds of hope. Like all things in life, hope is a necessity, but must be kept in moderation. Too much or little hope can negatively affect a person, and even their lives, due to increased levels of stress that can be caused by such mindsets. When a person or group of people wishes to better a situation, hope is an absolute must, as they must be able to envision their goal in their mind. I can somewhat sympathize with Jensen’s position, as an environmental activist that is at his wits end due to the fact that there has been very little progress in the environmental movement in the past decade, however, I still believe that his position is incorrect. As an environmental activist, Jensen is supposed to be the type of person that is able to show others why the environment must be protected, and hopefully change their outlook, reducing their environmental impact. When a person who attempts to influence others in this manner loses faith himself or herself, not only will they never influence their fellow man in present time, but the individuals who were previously influenced will lose faith as well. Aside from the errors in his thinking, Jensen also utilized a writing style which was much too harsh and direct to influence any change in individuals that are already subscribing to the environmentalist way of thinking.
At first I was getting a little upset at the way that Derrick Jensen was speaking. But then he brought up a few interesting point in Beyond Hope from Orion Magazine. His tone was not just upset, but yelling at me, which I don’t think is a very good way to keep a persons attention. The tone calmed down a little towards the end, and that’s when the writing got a little more interesting.
ReplyDeleteHe starts speaking about hope, and how he has none. He continues talking about how hope is not a good thing, which is why he is glad that he has none. Hope according to him is something that keeps us chained down. Instead of hoping Derrick thinks we need to go out and do things. I agree with this statement mostly. I think that some hope is helpful though. If we went into things with out being hopeful that what we are doing is going to help change the world, no one would try. I believe that there are two kinds of hope, hope that others will fix the problem, and hope that what you are doing in the world will someday change the way things are. Some people hope that there money is going to a good cause, like with the computers for every one in the city we talked about in Lecture, a computer isn’t as important as a net to keep away malaria, yet people think they are helping these people out. You need to do research before you go out and try to fix things just by putting in money. There are bigger problems in the world then computers, and we should start by fixing those.
I also did a few of the carbon footprint calculators on C-tools. I got a lot of mixed results. On one had I had two that said I was below average when it came to my carbon footprint? But the last one I did said that my footprint was about equal, or even more then the average person in the U.S. I would really like to improve my carbon footprint as much as possible over the semester. I’ve been telling a lot of people about the carbon footprint calculators, I even had my sister do it. She is quite a bit more aware when it comes to helping our earth. Her footprint looked about the same as mine, but she does do a lot of things differently then me, like her diet, she’s vegan. She also buys only Michigan grown products, which I have been trying to do more often lately. And the biggest one that I think is different between us is the fact that she drives a hybrid car, while I’m stuck driving my fathers “hand-me-down” pick-up truck that only does 14 MPG.
This is a very revealing picture of how our waste has infiltrated other organisms that live around us. Not only has our continued expansion into the habitats of wild animals put stress on the way they live and survive, our ever expanding waste has made it into the diet of certain animals. The albatross pictured here shows this extremely clearly, and it is our waste that most likely led to the bird’s death. This picture really points out to me the importance of our upcoming paper on garbage. I feel that I am very good at employing the “Three R’s” which are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. My perception of my success at following these three practices may be problematic. I expect my eyes to be opened by this paper when, at the end of the week, I realize that there are plenty of items I could have not used or reused. Currently, I use Tupperware whenever possible to cut down on plastic bag use on items such as sandwiches. Therefore, I feel like I am doing my part. But this is probably not the case, and when I open my black bag at the end of the week I hope that I can learn from it and make future changes to the waste I create. It is more than just reducing the amount that goes into a landfill, it will prevent future wildlife from becoming victims of our society’s need to consume and produce waste.
ReplyDeleteThis picture also ties in well with the reading. I have seen pictures similar to the one shown above of animals harmed from our waste. These include images of marine life stuck in the Pacific garbage patch and the like. When I have seen pictures like these in the past, I think about organizations such as Greenpeace which I hope are doing something to clean up the mess. But the paper reminds us that there is more to do that hope for other people to make amends for the problems I as a human help to create. Jensen says to give up hope and instead realize the potential we have to make change and use it, instead of relying on the government or large organizations to take on the project for us. I think his attack on ‘hope’ is a little harsh, considering the limited definition he assigned to the word. But nonetheless, it gets people to listen to his message and contemplate if they have simply been hoping for change, rather than doing it. What comes to my mind is Obama’s campaign slogan. Whoever came up with the slogan fed on the public’s desire to hope instead of act. But people all hope for different things, and one man cannot live up to everyone’s hope. Therefore, we need to do more than hope and instead must act on the issues that touch us the most.
This is a very revealing picture of how our waste has infiltrated other organisms that live around us. Not only has our continued expansion into the habitats of wild animals put stress on the way they live and survive, our ever expanding waste has made it into the diet of certain animals. The albatross pictured here shows this extremely clearly, and it is our waste that most likely led to the bird’s death. This picture really points out to me the importance of our upcoming paper on garbage. I feel that I am very good at employing the “Three R’s” which are Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. My perception of my success at following these three practices may be problematic. I expect my eyes to be opened by this paper when, at the end of the week, I realize that there are plenty of items I could have not used or reused. Currently, I use Tupperware whenever possible to cut down on plastic bag use on items such as sandwiches. Therefore, I feel like I am doing my part. But this is probably not the case, and when I open my black bag at the end of the week I hope that I can learn from it and make future changes to the waste I create. It is more than just reducing the amount that goes into a landfill, it will prevent future wildlife from becoming victims of our society’s need to consume and produce waste.
ReplyDeleteThis picture also ties in well with the reading. I have seen pictures similar to the one shown above of animals harmed from our waste. These include images of marine life stuck in the Pacific garbage patch and the like. When I have seen pictures like these in the past, I think about organizations such as Greenpeace which I hope are doing something to clean up the mess. But the paper reminds us that there is more to do that hope for other people to make amends for the problems I as a human help to create. Jensen says to give up hope and instead realize the potential we have to make change and use it, instead of relying on the government or large organizations to take on the project for us. I think his attack on ‘hope’ is a little harsh, considering the limited definition he assigned to the word. But nonetheless, it gets people to listen to his message and contemplate if they have simply been hoping for change, rather than doing it. What comes to my mind is Obama’s campaign slogan. Whoever came up with the slogan fed on the public’s desire to hope instead of act. But people all hope for different things, and one man cannot live up to everyone’s hope. Therefore, we need to do more than hope and instead must act on the issues that touch us the most.
Before reading this article I thought it was going to be about the environment and ways we could help change it. I am not sure if I was disappointed or just confused but I felt like the article turned into a personal reflection on Jenson’s connection with hope. At first this disappointed me, but after I read the article again I realized that Jenson is proving that fixing the environment has nothing to do with just yourself trying to improve the world around us, but hoping that others will realize. The fate of our world is relying on hoping that more than environmentalists try to help change the life style we live. One line that particularly stood out to me was, “How can we continue if we do not have hope?” This is like saying how do we know what right is if we do not know what wrong is? It confuses me because is Jenson trying to say that we need those people who do not want to help in order to create awareness and have those who realize the problems in our world help? Hope leads us to inspiration that others will step up and do what they can to help.
ReplyDeleteAnother valid point that Jenson makes is that he fears that people do not want to help because they are afraid. A lot of people do not want to accept the fact that our world is deteriorating, so Jenson hopes they will not shy away to helping because of fear. Overall this article surprised me and I was kind of inspired by it.
My opinion on the Jensen article kind of varied a little. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with some of the points he was making. I felt like the article was a little pessimistic for my taste. In “Beyond Hope,” Jensen’s main point is that people rely way too much on hope to solve their problems and that hope is pointless and a waste of everyone’s time. He says that when people rely on hope nothing actually gets done, and that it is basically and excuse for people not to act on certain issues. Now to be honest, I agree with the fact that in order to change and accomplish certain things, action is required and action is the only thing that will get the job done. Standing around and not doing anything but hoping will not get you anywhere. However, I do strongly disagree that hope is meaningless and pointless, and that everyone would be better off if there was no hope. Personally, I like to hope for a lot of things. Hope to me, gives me a sense of enlightenment, to believe that something will help you to accomplish whatever it is that needs accomplishment is a wonderful feeling. I am not saying that hope will create actions, but I feel that hope is a way to help boost your own actions.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of changing our own habits, talking to others and finding new ways to help the environment on our own terms, Jensen is slightly correct. When a person can take matters into their own hands or work with those willing to help can they abandon hope and get things done. This seems especially true if you are a scientist or designer and can actually come up with ways to make the world a better place. If some are stubborn or blind to whats going on, someone can educate them about the world and how to fix things. At the same time, I don’t see how any amount of work will go heard if others already have their mind made up. From experience, I’ve noticed that if someone is set in their way with no inch of feeling towards the subject, no amount of talking will convince them to change.
ReplyDeleteOne can write letters to senators and help get bills passed but when dealing with higher authority one can only hope that their cries can be heard after doing so. After all that work one would still have to hope that they had swayed a person of higher authority into taking action. Even trying to sway a neighbor takes hope since you cannot force the person into changing. Taking only action sounds as if a person where to force their way of life onto another.
In the end, I did agree with the author that one should abandon the idea of hoping that others would eventually change and do nothing. A person can encourage others to change, help change the government, change their own personal life habits or even find remedies; however, there is still a need for hope that the others will listen. Personal habits can be changed with out the need for hope because you can always change yourself but you can’t force change onto others, unless you happen to be a President or Government leader?
Though most people are put off by Derrick Jensen’s harsh and cynical tone in “Beyond Hope,” I find it to be actually really refreshing. This is a different outlook on the issue of the environment and not one that I am used to reading, especially by those in favor of gaining support to cause action. In fact, while many view Jensen’s as negative and aggressive, I think it is perhaps more positive than most others of its kind. While other environmental activists preach about what we have all done wrong to put the earth in this situation, Jensen does not criticize for things in the past but only bashes in order to prevent misguided thinking for the future.
ReplyDeleteJensen’s voice in his article is extremely present and to me, that is its most important attribute in grabbing my attention. Feeling his fervor for the topic is pivotal in making me too care about what he is talking about. The piece is not so much factual as it is passionate and well written, which may not tell the audience exactly what to do, but, in my opinion, it sure gets us thinking. I love the part in which Jensen references Pandora’s box and writes, “The more I understand hope, the more I realize that all along it deserved to be in the box with the plagues, sorrow, and mischief; that it serves the needs of those in power as surely as a belief in a distant heaven; that hope is really nothing more than a secular way of keeping us in line. Hope is, in fact, a curse, a bane… Hope is a longing for a future condition over which you have no agency; it means you are essentially powerless” (Jenson, Beyond Hope). This reticent attitude of hoping is to be expected, as Jensen says, but real change will come from just a little bit more effort, and this is where the idea of “creeping normalcy” comes into play. Hope is the go-to standard, making it seemingly a good thing, but it simply is not enough. While on the surface this may seem like a truly pessimistic view, I believe Jensen’s real intent with this is to get the reader out of their backseat and empower them. Empower them to believe that they can be an important part of the solution but that all it requires is a step away from the comforts of hope.
Derrick Jensen’s article provided a different perspective on the word “hope”- one that I had never considered before. Upon reading the article through the first time around, I couldn’t decide whether I felt negatively or positively about this new point of view. However, after reflecting back on his words throughout the day and applying it to my own life, I decided that his definition and perception of hope was grounded in evidence that could not be refuted.
ReplyDeleteEveryone hopes aloud every once in a while that something will happen the way they wish it to unfold. I know I did more than once over the weekend. However, every time that I’ve done this, it has always been a situation that I have no direct control over. I’ve already made up my mind that I will not or cannot take any more steps toward achieving whatever thing it is that I am hoping for. Derrick did not necessarily make hope obsolete through his writing; he redirected our attention to a more active approach to tangible achievement rather than a passive waiting for a miracle that we can never be sure will occur.
Jensen’s harsh and passionate call to action, in my opinion, should not be viewed as an extremist’s criticism of our beliefs or of our lifestyle. Rather, it should be regarded as an urgent plea for active help from an able-bodied community that is more than capable of creating its own small miracles. Maybe what Jensen described as “hope” was actually our definition of “hopelessness.” But ultimately, the article is not about the definition or the word that is being defined. It is an intentionally uncomfortable piece of writing that causes us to cringe at our own inactivity and that force us to think inwardly about our own beliefs and whether we are doing anything to stand up for them.
I found Beyond Hope by Jensen to be a very gripping, intense article. The harsh tone of the article immediately grabs your attention, throwing radical statements and ideas immediately in your face, but instead of immediately tossing the article aside, you find yourself drawn in for more explanation.
ReplyDeleteJensen openly criticizes society’s hope that eventually someone somewhere will come up with something to heal the world once and for all of its self-inflicted wounds, and that everything will be better. He relates how hope essentially perpetuates the devastation of the world by saying “Hope is what keeps us chained to the system, the conglomerate of people and ideas and ideals that is causing the destruction of the Earth,” (Jensen). I can definitely see where Jensen is coming from with this viewpoint, and I must say, I agree. If we as a people are always merely hoping that something will be developed that will patch the earth later on down the road, we will forever be complacent with just waiting around for that magical day, rather than trying to find a fix for the problems ourselves. Once we give up the hope we have, and assume responsibility for our problems today and begin to solve these problems today, we have a better shot at actually doing something worthwhile.
I also found it interesting how Jensen then creates a sense of protection and love for the planet within the reader, instead of condemning him/her to a feeling of anguish and gloom once their hope has been taken away. Because, after all, once you completely give up on a hope for things in the future, it would seem to be the logical progression to launch yourself into a black hole of helplessness. But Jensen effectively provokes the reader into seeing that since all hope is gone, the pathways for today’s society to begin to remediate the ruins of the earth are now open.
Overall I think Jensen’s article is a must-read for the masses. It could be the vital wake-up call that is about 50 years overdue to get society moving towards a definite (albeit small) solution NOW, rather than waiting for a possibility tomorrow.
In Derrick Jenson’s article, “Beyond Hope” he provided a new way for me to look at the world, one I had yet to consider. Although I was initially taken aback by his argumentative tone, it soon became clear that what I considered to be aggression in his writing was just an extreme passion for protecting the environment. Instead of being turned off to his point of view I actually became more convinced that his points were valid. It was because of his love for the world around him and his obvious eagerness to instill the same motivation in the reader that the severity of the situation was effectively relayed.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, after getting past his cynical and aggressive writing style, I found myself agreeing with many of the ideas he has on giving up on hope. Realizing the desperate nature of the environmental predicament we are in calls for action unlike the complacency and acceptance that comes with believing and hoping the situation will work itself out. When people rely on hope, they give up their power. I feel that Jenson is right about the public putting their faith in others when there are still actions that can be taken to ensure that we don’t sit idly by wishing for a cure while our world dies. His determination to make this idea understood by the audience is very compelling in itself. I am very appreciative for this class because of the new ways in which I look at our situation and the ideas that evolve from readings such as this.
As I began reading Derrick Jenson’s article, “Beyond Hope”, I felt that his tone was overly aggressive to a point where I had difficulty reading it. His writing early in the article felt like it came from a state of rage rather than encouraging or understanding. After reading the first page or two I found myself wanting to put the article down and put off reading the rest, until I could better understand where his emotion was coming from. Once I realized that his tone was coming from his passion for the environment, I found myself slowly understanding more and more of what he was trying to convey to the reader.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the article is titled “Beyond Hope”, I felt that the messages gave me reason to find hope. The hope I find from the article is hope that I can make a difference if I put my whole self into my passions. Hope for the protection of our environment does not strictly mean that we rely on others to make change. Without hope, no one could ever put themselves into their passions. In saying that, I also realize that one person’s passion cannot solve a problem as grand as what we face with today’s environment. To make a difference it requires passion, persistence and patience. Years of environmental damage cannot be repaired in one day but we must hope that little by little we can make a difference. Without this hope, no one would put in effort to follow his or her passions. Everyone will take different lessons from this article but I have discovered that without hope for the future, life is without purpose.
Jensen quoted “They say hope is our beacon in the dark” in his article. This was a rather ironic title to the beginning of his rather-pessimistic view of hope in the beginning of his article. Yet this pessimistic view of hope turns around as a passion; a passion to make a difference by taking action instead of just wishing something will change.
ReplyDeleteJensen started his article with the sentence “We’re fucked.” In addition to a strong choice of words, it immediately implies a harsh and abrupt tone to the readers. He then goes onto saying :
“Those in power are hell-bent on destroying the planet, and most people don’t care…there is a false hope that suddenly somehow the system may inexplicably change… or technology… Great Mother…Jesus Christ…Santa Claus…all of these false hopes.”
As the article continues, we realize that the strong use of language is merely passion. In his article Derrick gave an example of eating, that he doesn’t hope he is able to eat tomorrow, he just will. What he is saying is that we simply must do the work and not just ‘wish’. For instance, we buy things that are labeled ‘eco-friendly’ and ‘hope’ that it will help decrease the high consumerism of natural goods. From the example Jensen provided, he would rather have us do something along the line of buying fewer products and re-using ones we have. That way, we know for sure that we are saving our resources and not wasting them.
As humans we are driven by emotions and sometimes we just do things out of emotion rather than reason. For instance if we someone is about to hurt somebody we love, we will do whatever it takes to defend them, even if it might be out of our comfort zone. This was Derrick’s passion. I think through his harsh words, he wants to create a sense of urgency to his reader. As I read on through his article, I felt a sense of frustration of two things: one from people needing to take actions, and two to seek solutions so people can break free from the government so that we can do whatever it takes to save the thing we love.
He talked about death, as a state of being liberated which I found quite interesting because of the government and law that people do not tie themselves to trees constantly to prevent deforestation. Perhaps that is what Derrick is trying to say, maybe we all need to get out of our comfort zones and do something for the sake of our Earth.
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." –Dante’s Inferno
ReplyDeleteWell it is funny that I’m reading this article after this summer. I gave the same rousing speech and failed miserably. So badly in fact it left me dazed and in a week long stupor. Beyond Hope by Derrick Jensen has many feelings that I have on the subjects of change and improvement. In fact during the summer I could say I even had the same passion Derrick had shown in his writing. But it still was not enough. I hit the same wall that he did when dealing with people. They simply were afraid nothing would come out of it. This is an important part I feel when now thinking back on this article. Truly even our own professor Joe Trumpey must feel in some way this desire to just go out and take an active stance in solving these problems. Why else would he have started his class with the repeated message, “we are not here to say that everything sucks, we are here to look for ways to solve problems.” I wonder if He will feel the same way I did if we do not follow him along this quest… At any rate I have come to the conclusion that, while alright in personal message. Jensen has missed an overwhelming force that could help turn the tide for his cause. Therefor I would like to propose a better message. Abandon personal hope for a better tomorrow. Instead fight as hard as you can to make it so. At the same time inspire hope in others that through their active participation in your endeavors, a better tomorrow can be found.
While reading the Jensen article, my immediate response was that hope is the force, which drives human life, and without it, we have no motivation or purpose. Without motivation or purpose, then there is no reason to accomplish any amount of work in life, not to mention the fact that a lack of motivation is mentally and spiritually depressing. I adamantly oppose Jensen’s position, stating that it is hope that leads individuals to be overly optimistic to a point of ignorance. I do agree that there are some that are overly optimistic, some times to the point of ignorance, but this situation cannot be solved by completely eliminating all shreds of hope. Like all things in life, hope is a necessity, but must be kept in moderation. Too much or little hope can negatively affect a person, and even their lives, due to increased levels of stress that can be caused by such mindsets. When a person or group of people wishes to better a situation, hope is an absolute must, as they must be able to envision their goal in their mind.
ReplyDeleteI can somewhat sympathize with Jensen’s position, as an environmental activist that is at his wits end due to the fact that there has been very little progress in the environmental movement in the past decade, however, I still believe that his position is incorrect. As an environmental activist, Jensen is supposed to be the type of person that is able to show others why the environment must be protected, and hopefully change their outlook, reducing their environmental impact. When a person who attempts to influence others in this manner loses faith himself or herself, not only will they never influence their fellow man in present time, but the individuals who were previously influenced will lose faith as well. Aside from the errors in his thinking, Jensen also utilized a writing style which was much too harsh and direct to influence any change in individuals that are already subscribing to the environmentalist way of thinking.