on agency & what it gives us
In ordinary language, we frequently speak of machinery or ideas ‘doing’ things in our lives. But they do nothing. People – human persons – produce, operate and apply their creations. The problem with assigning agency, even informally, to the nonhuman is that this disguises the strength of human control, limited though it is in other respects. It le... See more
Bennett Gilbert • On hope, philosophical personalism and Martin Luther King Jr | Aeon Essays
Keely Adler added 4mo
Often, hope works best alongside tools for proactively tackling future challenges. If our work becomes a catalysing force for people to imagine things they would not have been able to imagine otherwise and act upon that imagination, then that’s powerful, and for me, this is a slow form of critical activism.
Medium • Calling for a More-Than-Human Politics
Keely Adler added 4mo
hope is by no means a universal feeling. One recent study found about one-third of young adults describe themselves as encouraged about the future, but 60 percent are “very worried.”
Maddy Lauria • Hope is not passive: How activism keeps optimism alive
Keely Adler added 4mo
“Active Hope is about becoming active participants in bringing about what we hope for. Active Hope is a practice. It points us toward a way of life that enriches rather than depletes our world.”
Medium • Welcome to Terranascient Futures Studies & Foresight
Keely Adler added 4mo
Agency is the capacity to act. Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something different from the rigid path of events that simply happen to you. Remarkable people typically go off-script early, usually in more than one way. Carnegie becoming a telegraph message boy is one opportunity; asking how to operate the telegraph is another. He was
... See moreSimon Sarris • School Is Not Enough
Keely Adler added 4mo
When we do not know what we should hope for, we can hope to learn. There is room for what the philosopher Jonathan Lear calls “radical hope … directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is”.
Kieran Setiya • What’s the Use of Hope?
Keely Adler added 4mo
Gaining agency is gaining the capacity to do something differently from, or in addition to, the events that simply happen to you.
Simon Sarris • The Most Precious Resource is Agency
Keely Adler added 4mo
Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes—you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable,
... See moreRebecca Solnit • Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
Keely Adler added 4mo
Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.
Keely Adler added 4mo
On the other hand, I am a believer in radical hope, by which I mean recognising that the chances of success may be slim but still being driven to act by the values and vision you are rooted in. Time and again, humankind has risen up collectively, often against the odds, to tackle shared problems and overcome crises.
The challenge we face as a civili
... See moreKeely Adler added 4mo