Narratives of Hope and Despair

Despair is often taken to be a psychological malady. However, this paper argues that certain forms of despair, along with hope, have value in the way that they shape the narratives through which we imagine possible futures. Just as hope provides encouragement for the attainment of an outcome and so motivates the pursuit of that outcome, despair, of the right form, can redirect our efforts away from implausible outcomes and so help support coherent narratives that make future hoped for scenarios meaningful. Accordingly, narrative also provides a means by which we might understand some of our hopes and despairs as warranted or not. There are two purposes to this paper. First, this paper will clarify the contrast between episodic and dispositional forms of hope and despair. Second, this paper will apply that contrast to the narratives that frame our future imaginaries. As we face the challenges of climate change and other concerns that change the trajectory of our future narratives to the new and unfamiliar, it will be increasingly important to understand the relationship between our future imaginaries, meaningful hopes and despairs, and threats to motivation.