Hope

5/24/2025

I, even at my most hopefull, have never been an optimist. I'm under no illusions. As I sit hear waxing poetic about the dream we all share as anarchists, or as I shout in the streets for justice and human rights, I am under no illusions; I realize I will never see the revolution. That, however, must not stop me from trying.

pessimism is perhaps the most powerful tool of control the system possesses, but we must not forget, so is optimism. In my mind, pessimism is the acceptance of the idea that we as humans are incapable of changing the world. optimism, is believing that we don't need to. About a year ago, as I was making this account, I came up with the name "hopefulldoomer" As the more detail-oriented among you might have noticed, "hopefull" is not in fact a word. To me, "hopeful" has always carried a pseudo-mystical connotation; “hopeful” just as “optimist” ultimately invites us to stop trying, to believe everything will somehow be okay. i see true hope, as the simple understanding that we have the power to do something, the ability to (by virtue of community and mutual understanding) create for ourselves a better world. Hence, "hopefull" is ultimately a tong in check shorthand for "hope-full" as in full of hope, the kind of hope that incites action.

Life as a political agent (which is to say a person, since there exists no apolitical action) at its core is a tango between a pair of forces, the eventual result of which is, in both cases, inaction. The revolutionary must understand her power; concurrently, she must not fall victim to the "everything will be okay, you just need to wait" way of thinking, and only then can she fully realize the power she holds by virtue of being conscious.

Looking back on what I've written here (but also generally) I must ask my self, who am I to prescribe "the duties of a revolutionary" ? Is it not the ultimate symptom of my narcissism to write with such confidence about the future of humanity? Is it a simple effort to help? to do what I can to help the progress of the world I live in? Or is it a savior complex? As I sit behind my keyboard, almost 10 days after starting to write, I'm no longer sure of my self. I have been in an eternal battle with the parts of mine I find narcissistic, the current views I hold are a logical result. But can it be true that in the pursuit of goodness I've become what I was running from all along?

What does it mean to be "good"? We can talk about this at length in the context of philosophy, but today I'm no longer interested it that. I'm asking my self, do I feel like a good person? Even as I follow all that I find to be "good" the answer always turns out to be a resounding no, how could I? I wake up every day telling my self I'm making a difference, but the truth is I'm ineffective, my swinging bouts of depression mean I'm not consistent. What am I, the person asking all of you to rise up, doing to make change happen? What can I do? I insist I'm not powerless, I insist we can change things, but to be blunt, not even I believe it. What can I do? I can go in the street and shout at top of my longs fuck the police, and yet, I will still be thrown inside a jail cell just like a chicken locked in a cage. Chances are, not even the people hearing the commotion will support me. I'm funking alone in this fight even though, you, the reader of my midnight ramblings, might support my cause and feel the same sharp pain of isolation every time you're left alone with your thoughts for the shortest moment. I can't help you, and neither can you. Because the truth is the ultimate tool of control, the oppressive systems possess is isolation. the separate us from one another, they make it illegal to stand next to each other as we experience the pains of living.

that only leaves one question,

what can we do?

-hopefulldoomer

Bullshit conjecture from a philosophy nerd: my hatred for philosophy and why it matters

Before we start I need to discuss the perfect specimen of clickbait that is the title of this essay (and no the irony is not in fact lost on me); I do not “hate” all of philosophy. Epistemology, phenomenology, ethics and analytical philosophy are all important and impactful fields of study and hence will not be the main focus of this “critique” (Although I will touch on them later). The main point I'm trying to make, what compelled me to write this piece as the first installment of BCFAPN was my general anger and disappointment with the state of political discourse especially on the left (that sentence sounds a bit right-wingy but i assure you this “critique” is coming from an ostensibly leftist perspective).

With all the preamble over i will now give you the central thesis of this text:

Stop reading so much theory and do something you dumb fuck

I say this while being an avid reader of political science and the stereotypical “coffee shop revolutionary” so understand when I call you, the potential reader, an ineffective bitch that applies to me just as much as it does to anyone in the audience.

At this point i suspect many are thinking

“The first duty of a revolutionary is to be educated.”

As was said by a rich Argentine man whose name i cannot remember :). I have to say I agree with him whatever his name is. In order to be an effective political force you need to be educated, you need to understand who you’re fighting and what you are fighting for. what you don't need is to be a philosopher!

Let me rephrase, the average lib-soc/An-com in coming to believe the ideas with which they are identified has learned enough “theory” to be politically useful.

The wanna-be-politician™ does not benefit meaningfully from reading “The Sublime Object of Ideology” and sitting around a table talking about it. Neither dose the politically active college student.

I want to make myself entirely clear. I don't think it's bad to read Das-Kapital or to have conversations on how we should make the revolution happen. I am talking to a very specific subset of people who cancel collaborations, stop organizing and refuse to build coalitions because they are too busy debating whether government in any form is acceptable, by all means an incredibly important conversation to be had but in the current political climate, it doesn't matter. In recent years the right has successfully built a political coalition at an scale never before seen, the incredible success of the right's tactics is undeniable. With all this apparent i feel compelled to ask if there exists a way to defeat the right-wing coalitions taking over the world as we speak, that does not in essence equal building a broad left-wing coalition including figures ranging from the (and yes saying this pains me too) establishment liberal to the most militantly antifascist political actors we have access to, the way i see it there is no other way.

With all that said, let me make what is so far my first (coherent) argument in defense of my admittedly preposterous claim. Internal consistency does not matter; not while we have not so much a loaded gun but an entire arsenal of nuclear missiles pointed at us from all sides. Today I believe the first duty of the revolutionary is not to pursue the “revolution” directly but to stay alive! The second duty she holds is to resist the constant forces of fascism at a personal and interpersonal level. Just as the effectiveness of the French resistance would have been drastically lowered if they had set their goal as building the “ideal” world rather than working together towards their shared goal of resisting the Nazi takeover of their nation, The American leftist for example shouldn't be talking about the details of a state that doesn't yet exist while ICE is detaining random brown people for just existing. To focus prematurely on our end goals we disallow ourselves the coalitions we need.

As a point of caution we need to remember the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend. Coalitions are useful as long as they are useful and no more. For example I would never consider collaborating with the very much fascist supporters of the shah in opposition to the IRI government. Rather what I'm referring to here is a collaboration with those who are at least progressive in nature.

There exists another reason people overly engage in theory, the outdated Belief in debate. The uncomfortable truth is we cannot change the world with debate (insofar as the change would entail “converting” fascists), this is not a war we can win with rhetoric we need direct action. To resist we need to forget the bullshit liberal belief in the system as sacred and do something radical. It is this system that gave way to fascist in the 21st century. As Marlon craft said “it aint a system if one guy can stop it”

Today isn't the time for dialectic, it's time for action!

-hopefulldoomer

Hopelog

1/28/2025

Since the night of the American election I've had to fight despair, that night hope to me seemed nothing but a distant memory. I don't live in America, so one who is less informed of my situation might legitimately believe the outcome should not have affected me as much as it did, but the truth of the matter is that loss for me signified the death of my last option; Now, I can't even run.  Back in 2022 I wasn't as politically active as I am now. When the uprising happened I stayed home. I cheered from the safety of my own house, while thousands died in the streets.  I did nothing! like a reincarnation of Kant.  I was no more than a spectator.

“a man at 15 already knows what he wants to die for and is not afraid of giving his life if he has found an ideal which makes the sacrifice essay” 

apparently said a young Che.  The truth is at 15 I wasn't ready, I didn't have an ideal powerful enough to die for.  Looking back I'm not mad at myself for not doing more.  Maybe i didn't do more because i felt like i had a second option, i said to myself i can always run.  Today that is no longer the case. There is nowhere to go.  Trump's second term made me realize that; but I never lost hope.  I always believed I could help do something. I always thought there was a way forward.  Today I'm not sure anymore.

From losing my community to depression and loneliness, I always saw hope, but not today. Today I confronted a friend, a friend I have known for as long as I've been alive.

His homophobia was becoming unbearable, and the truth is i could let it go, maybe i shouldn't have but i was willing to, until the moment he threatened me and my queer friends, after that there's no going back.

I have never felt more powerless.

Last night I watched what I presume will be one of the last episodes of the alt-right playbook “the south bank of the Rubicon” and re-read Ian's blog post on why he’s ending the series.  Last night I cried for hours, everything came together, the words felt…. So undeniably human, I could feel the tears in his eyes and the hopelessness he felt.  For the first time since the election I allowed myself to feel my feelings.  For the first time since the election I didn't tell myself “doomerisem is useless, it is time for action”.

The only thing is, I didn't cry last night. answering all the questions from my family felt truly herculean, so i stopped myself.

Thinking about it through the night, I'm still not sure how I feel.

All I know is when I woke up I was no longer hopeless.

Today I have once again gained the drive to try because YES doomerisem IS useless! but more importantly giving up means certain death. Today I am not scared of death, I am willing to die for my cause! but if i shall die i won't let my self be the murderer.

-HopefullDoomer