Imagining the impossible: An act of radical hope

Abstract

Even the most determined optimists among us cannot deny we are living in dark times, with raging wars and the effects of climate change upon us. A pandemic has left us feeling uncertain about our futures, polarization has pressured social discourse. Our assumptions of the future are being challenged: even what we took for granted now seems uncertain. And instead of asking: how did we get here? We are left with the question: what made us think we would never get here? If the unimaginable suddenly becomes a reality, then what is left to imagine? Is it still worth being hopeful? It appears that we are not only suffering from the poverty of imagination, but also from the poverty of hope. But what if imagination and hope are inherently connected? In this essay we propose that we cannot be hopeful without rethinking our images of the future, in which imagining the impossible turns out to become a necessity: a radical act of hope.