Despair and the Importance of Tragedy

In her book Hopeful Pessimism, Van der Lugt argues that, often, political activists act regardless of the outcome of their action. This form of action is informed by a ‘blue hope’ that finds its value in commitment regardless of effect and is based on openness of the future and uncertainty, not evidence and probability. This short essay argues for an alternative explanation of political action: often, activists are acting from despair, and the effects, outcomes and consequences are the central motivating factor despite the near impossibility of success. Acting from despair involves a tragic pursuit of one’s goals that is (almost certainly) doomed to fail to reach one’s goals. An agent that acts from despair is (1) motivated by the outcome they desperately want to bring about and, at the same time, (2) accurately judges the outcome to be extremely unlikely or impossible to achieve for the agent. I argue that acting from despair is not only just as plausible as blue hope for explaining political action but often captures the normative orientation of political activism better than blue hope can.