Should we be optimistic, hopeful, or neither? And does it actually matter in terms of what we do?

In my recent book Musicking in a Relational Key, I present its central concept in terms of optimism:

“Relational musicking and design is an optimistic credo for musicians because musicking is a meaningful action in a relational transition, and because design is something that we can all participate in.”

“A better world is possible,” insists Hartmut Rosa, one of my theoretical inspirations.

“Another way of relating is possible,” echoes Zuza Gonçalves of Música do Círculo, one of my musical lodestars.  

Referring to my employer Agrigento, I write: “When I look at the work that our partners have undertaken in recent years, at the 2026 round of Innovar projects getting underway as I write, and at the projects in the pipeline for 2027, I cannot help but feel cautiously optimistic.”

However, I am careful to qualify that optimism:

“Taking a broad view of music in Latin America, in particular of its organizations, institutions, and funding, I would argue that musicking in a relational key is a work in progress that faces substantial obstacles. There are significant challenges at the political and policy level, which are not a matter of Left or Right but rather derive from common misconceptions about music and music education that can be found across the political spectrum, not to mention in much of the music sector itself. It is currently hard to detect much appetite for change, let alone for radical transformation, at this level. Taking an even broader view, I cannot say that I am optimistic about the state of the world or that I see major breakthroughs on the immediate horizon. My optimism is more modest, and focused on the hypo- rather than hyper-level. I believe that taking action musically is worthwhile and meaningful in an interconnected world. My optimism is cautious and limited, then—but sufficient to motivate action for change.”

Alongside cautious and limited optimism, another way I define my own perspective here is micro-level optimism and macro-level pessimism. A third way would be to return to Romain Rolland’s pithy phrase, popularized by Antonio Gramsci, which has guided me in recent years: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” The big picture is worrying, but we should not give up on trying to change things. In a relational, interconnected world, every action has the potential to reverberate more widely.

***

No sooner had I published the book than I read this quote by Vaclav Havel:

“Hope is definitely 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.”

I really like this framing, which elegantly condenses my own feelings, so perhaps I should have labelled my proposal a hopeful credo rather than an optimistic one. After all, I’m far from convinced that everything is going to turn out well, but I am pretty certain that the musical practices I describe in the book make sense whatever happens. Maybe I will make this switch in the next edition (since it is a self-published digital book, I can make a new edition whenever I like).

The only problem is… I have an ambivalent relationship with hope. Lots of thinkers and writers, like Rebecca Solnit, have argued convincingly for the importance and value of hope. And yet, the two Brazilian authors on whose work I draw extensively in my book, Vanessa Machado de Oliveira and Eliane Brum, have more critical perspectives on this issue, and they speak to me more.

In Hospicing Modernity, Machado de Oliveira argues that modernity is dying, hence it needs to be given a good death (“hospiced”) as we prepare for what comes next. She associates hope with denial; with desire for the continuation of the failing, dying system; with soft reform or “difference that makes no difference.” Instead, we need something more substantial, more radical; we must learn “to walk on a tightrope between projective (naive/delusional) hope and projective (nihilistic, hedonistic, or misanthropic) hopelessness.” In her own words, her book “is about rescuing hope from the cages of projections into the future and enabling it to weave relationships and movements in the present—the very texture that futures are made of. Whatever happens ‘then’ depends more on the quality of relationships in the ‘now’ than on the accuracy or appeal of images of the future that one projects as a way forward.”

Brum, in a chapter entitled “Hope is overrated,” writes of her disillusionment as she watches environmental, social, and cultural devastation in the Brazilian Amazon. She also tunes into young climate activists like Greta Thunberg who reject hope as facile avoidance by adults. They “seem to intuit that they must make these adults relinquish the crutch of hope, because it allows the adults to stay put on their metaphorical couches in a state of stupor while our planet-house burns.” Abandoning hope, however, does not imply inaction:

“Movement and hope, as the (extremely) young climate activists prove day after day, are not linked. It is possible to act without hope, but rather — as Anuna de Wever told me — with the joy of being together, doing together, fighting together. Her words allude to something else urgent: the need to weave the commons, to make community. Not family, clan, or nation. Community. Community is also what the new generation of climate activists is creating in the world.”

Nor does abandoning hope imply nihilism or despair:

“What fascinated me right then, and still fascinates me today, was the joy of being together, even during catastrophe. […] Joy as an act of insurrection, like a finger plunged into the eye of the hurricane, into the oppressor’s eye.” Brum marvels at “our ability to take on conflict even when we know we’re going to lose. Or fight even when the cause is lost. Act without believing. Act as an ethical imperative.”

In a similar vein is a recent article on “the obscenity of hope,” the authors of which challenge the assumption that education should instil hope in the face of the ecological crisis, and argue that hope can be a comforting illusion that distracts from the realities of the Anthropocene. They suggest that honesty, courage, ethical action, and radical creativity are more valuable than hope or optimism, given the need “to address the obscenity of the status quo.” Echoing Machado de Oliveira, they seek a path between hope and despair that leads to facing squarely the metacrisis. They call for “a ‘hope-less’ revolution” that combines “do what you can” pragmatism alongside learning about the possibility for fundamental changes. They conclude: “We can do much more than hope (or despair), we can do something, be something, and create meaning and purpose in a world that is bonkers and out of control.”

Sarah Wilson is another writer who sees collapse as somewhere between likely and inevitable. She holds up Meg Wheatley’s idea that we should strive to create “islands of sanity”: “These islands are not places where we fix the whole system. They are where we preserve human values, sanity, and coherence in small communities in advance of the chaos ahead.” For her, our job is to start working on the ideas and practices that could shape what comes next, after the terminal crisis of modernity.

What if the predictions of crisis and collapse turn out to be wrong? This seems less likely with each passing year, but Wilson argues that the sorts of changes that we might make in building islands of sanity are ones that would make our lives richer and more fulfilling anyway.

***

These various positions on optimism, hope, and hopelessness have one thing in common: they all propose active, even joyful responses to our current challenges – to the metacrisis – rather than despair and inaction. We don’t need hope to act or do something constructive. For these authors, the responses are more about preparing for what comes next rather than hoping for a solution. But in terms of what is actually done, maybe it doesn’t matter too much either way.

Focusing on relationships in the now; acting with the joy of being together and making community; pursuing honesty, courage, ethical action, and radical creativity; building islands of sanity. Do these proposals not make sense irrespective of our degree of hope or optimism about the future?

Similarly, the examples of music education and community music in my book have a value that is independent of future global trajectories. Facing up to the present metacrisis, rather than ignoring or contributing to it, these projects respond to the needs of today. They may provide models for the future, but they make sense now, regardless of how things turn out.

I think it’s important to ask what music education and community might look like in a time of societal decline, if ideas of constant growth, institutional expansion, and societal progress become untenable. How could these fields help to cultivate the relational capacities, such as listening, care, and reciprocity, that would help people to navigate a world of contraction and uncertainty?

Facing an uncertain future in which living conditions may become harsher and material and economic resources scarcer, it would make sense to invest in music education and community music that rest on the simplest technologies, such as song, movement, and body percussion, and that foreground relationality. Yet we do not need to project forwards to such a future to see the value of such musicking. It can also be a powerful response to the crisis of separation and the relational recession that we face today.

Just read the words of Fernanda Vicente in my last post. The practice she describes, Música do Círculo, draws on ancient ways of musicking and offers a model for recovering and developing those ways for a possible future of crisis and collapse. Yet, as she reveals, it may also be just what we need right now.

[Photo by Sandip Karangiya on Unsplash]