Hope in Uncertain Times

“Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”
— Václav Havel

Progress cannot survive on optimism alone. Outcomes are too uncertain, setbacks are too frequent. It requires something more.

The playwright, democratic activist, and president of the Czech Republic Václav Havel identified that something as hope, but not in the conventional sense. For Havel, hope is grounded in purpose and meaning, not unquestioned optimism. “Hope is not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out,” said Havel. Hope is a means to sustain our commitment and action even when success is unclear.

In a 2024 survey by the Human Flourishing Lab, only 44 percent of Americans were hopeful that humans will make progress on current challenges and that life will be better for future generations. In civic life despair often masquerades as "realism." People withdraw from their connections to one another because caring has become too costly.

Hope in Havel’s sense counters this pessimism and withdrawal. It anchors action in fidelity to a higher purpose rather than outcome. A hopeful society is committed to the proposition of social progress whether or not we can guarantee its achievement.

German artist Käthe Kollwitz’s work embodies this essential human discipline. Her figures labor, grieve and endure. In 1922 she created the woodblock print, "Das Volk (The People)," as part of a series about World War I. She suffered tremendous loss during the war, including the death of her son in battle, and she used the work to make sense of her experience. There is no triumph here, no promise of resolution. And yet in the visage of the central figure there is dignity and perseverance. The image has a prevailing sense of strength despite the surrounding blackness. Kollwitz's work offers us a vision of authentic hope.

Social progress requires hope without guarantees.

1. Václav Havel, "Disturbing the Peace" (1986).
2. Human Flourishing Lab, "Hope in America: Visions of the Future," (2024)
3. Käthe Kollwitz, "The People" (1922–23).