"Hope" Is Not a Buzz Word
I was 23 years old when the nation was attacked on September 11, 2001. I can remember hearing pundits say "this changes everything" and "things will never be the same." Obviously it was a tragic and traumatic event, but that sentiment has carried on through the better part of my twenties. If you were 43 years old on that day, I would imagine it was a difficult concept to get your head around as well, but if you were a young adult just entering his or her individual life, there was an added twist; how can you process the idea of everything changing and things never being the same when you have no point of reference for what "everything" and "the same" is? I was just beginning to put my hands on the world around me, to interact and engage with it, and to actualize the dream of being an adult in a free society. To wait in line for 23 years only to have the "sorry, future canceled" sign flipped in my face was depressing, to say the least.
The social and political narrative of the last eight years, if you're a young adult, has been "you are the first generation of the second half of the rest of human existence." That's a huge psychological undertaking, and I believe it's one that will someday be diagnosed on a massive scale as having led to a kind of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. (Something has to explain away our premature obsession with 1980s nostalgia.) My generation has come to know itself as the generation that should have seen the good days, my, were they spectacular, now take off your shoes and place them on the belt.
What Barack Obama says to me is these days are good for something. Just when I'd thought my only role as an adult was to help shoulder the nation through its darkest days (known to us as "the rest of them"), Obama gives me the feeling that I could be alive to witness one of the most brilliant upturns in a country's history. Imagine that -- a young adult in this day and age being given something to someday brag to his children about having being alive to witness. What a concept.
That's why hope is a worthwhile commodity. To those who question whether hope is a tangible product worth building a campaign around, I'd say take a look at despair and how powerful that has been in reshaping how people think and live. I believe the definition of the "hope" that Barack Obama enthuses operates on the unspoken thesis that there has to be a polar opposite to the despair of 9/11. Because if we accept that there's not, the will to live becomes forever altered. To adults who will vote for him, Barack Obama represents a return to prosperity. To the youth, he represents an introduction to it.
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Very well written John. Thank you for putting what so many of us feel in accessible and intelligent words- you have such a way with them...
You couldn't be more right in how the young people feel about this election. This is our moment to change the world. This is our time to make a difference and finally be proud of a government that has done nothing for our country the past eight years.
-LoOK
http://lastofourkind.blogspot.com
"To those who question whether hope is a tangible product worth building a campaign around, I'd say take a look at despair and how powerful that has been in reshaping how people think and live" (J. Mayer)
There is a fundamental argument for hope, John as being something we are mutually obligated to invest ourselves in building for one another.
It is something interwoven between our lives, connecting each of us to the next person.
It is intrinsic to our aspirations for the up-building of that perfect union of which Sen. Obama often speaks....
And it is as old as the declaration of independence ...
“And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
We mutually pledge - to each other ...
So much for the gluttony of self interests over service for our common good, by those wrapped up in dividing this nation, in conquering the poor, maintaining a standard of terminal economic hardship for the middle class and a wealth of opportunity for one percent of the population, while promoting deceptions through fear and false claims of socialism.
Hope is at the foundation of our pledge to one another.
Hope for building that perfect union, which involved nothing less than all that we had to offer.
We pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor....to one another.
There lies the seeds of hope.
The thing is, like I wrote somewhere else in a column, it has been a long time since a president has actually empowered a people to feel they can do something. That way, even if they can't change everything, they still feel (and try to) they can change things in their communities. We need that.
http://www.votesmarter2008.com
(Please spread them like butter...I talked to the producers and they've said they've had so many people tell them that they learned so much from the site, that they're trying to make it go viral ...)
Well said John Mayer. I had just turned 44 before 9/11 and my Daughter was 9 months old. I had to stay hopeful for her sake with all the strength I could muster. She shows me hope every time her big smiling eyes light up. I have worked extra hard to be hopeful, worked extra hard to help get Barack Obama elected, and I will work as hard as need be to make this country and the world what it once was, and that means turning it over to our children and their children in better shape than we found it. My last hope for today is that my son, age 13, does well performing a cover of your song 'Daughters' in his school talent show this evening. Thanks for inspiring him in many ways.
Everything comes full circle in my life.
Thanks again.
I thank you for this article. My daughter, almost 27, now feels the same weight being lifted asshe voted early in FL. Paying off school debt, working through grad school and working fulltime, leaves her with a feeling of "what for?" She's begining to see, like you, there may be hope. Having seen hope transformed through the 60s and 70s I am excited about the possibilities all over again.
Well spoken, sir! I remember on 9/11 being the only one in my sophomore high school english class to speak up and say, frankly, that everything that would follow that day was presupposed. We would find an enemy, we would start a cause that would cost more collateral damage and lives than those lost on 9/11, it would all start over again. And I say that as a person who will talk about 9/11 only under grave exceptions. But it was really depressing, because tragedies quickly become points of articulation for nationalism and aggression in an unending cycle of regenerative global violence. To see those whole chains of causality, and American's subsequent acquiescence to neo-conservative politics because of a state of collective shock, was disillusioning for a young person. What we saw and what we were learning about American principles bore no relation to one another, in which case learning can't really take place.
Today IS different. Obama may be kind of represent the internal democratic revolution of a postmodern era, but he does represent real, substantive change and hope in opposition to the politics of co-optation, collective ignorance, and historical regression. Nonetheless, the hangover will be long...
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My son was entering his senior year in high school, September 11th. School closed and all the kids were sent home and I was working. But I rushed home as everyone else did, ran upstairs and opened the door to his bedroom and there, I saw him watching those buildings collapse on television. I will never forget the look on his face, that look of utter shock and sadness, the crushing loss of hope.
It was the defining moment of his young life and I believe, his generation. At a time when he should have been looking forward to his life beginning, he questioned what was left for him. It is the younger people who have started this movement for Obama. They listened to his words with different ears and they understand that there is no time to waste, no excuse for accepting less than the best of ourselves and our leaders. And they understand the power of hope.
The moment I heard the Republican party belittling Obama's message, I realized that they just did not get it.
The world will begin to change only when you are ready to pronounce this oath:
I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine.
Mr. Obama is a Marxist. It shows in his off-the-cuff statements, and in the people and policies with which he has surrounded himself for years.
The “wealthy” of this nation (who by the way are also the producers of most of our goods, services and jobs) will remain “wealthy” precisely because they will continue to do the things that made them wealthy in the first place, and will find ways to protect their assets from the draconian tax policies of an Obama Administration. If this calls for such measures as cutting jobs in order to keep their businesses financially healthy, they will do so. They will have to.
From whom then will the Obama Administration extract the necessary taxes with which to pay for their social engineering? The floor for their tax hike has already dropped from $250k to $200k (Mr. Obama said both of these figures in the last debate), to now $150k, per Mr. Biden. Gaffe? Or “foaming the runway”?
You are next. I am next. We all are. Believe it. Protect your assets now.
When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
– Ben Franklin
Boy did you drink the Republican Kool-Aid....
Oddly enough, my grand-father thought the same thing about FDR.
He was wrong too.
Not just Republican, man. The dude's a freaking Objectivist.
I am way past being a young adult but I totally understand where you are coming from in this piece. And it is for the young people in my life that I have been supporting Barack and his message.
When I was a teenager, I remember talking with friends about the fact that mosst of the adults didn't understand that we were the first generation to live with the reality of nuclear bombs in the world. We grew up with knowing they were a part of reality and felt sure in time, the world would come to understand how dangerous they were and disarmament would be a sure path. Here we are decades and decades later and they are still such a huge issue on the foreign stage.
Hope for a better world is the path. A better world as a reality would be best.
PS Love your music!
John, thank you for your words and thank you for your fine music. Although I haven't seen my 20s in a long, long, time, I understand your point about hope. For some of us who are of a different generation, and who have grandchildren we view the possibility of an Obama/Biden presidency as profoundly changing this darkness into a bright new world in which our grandchildren will grow and flourish. And let me tell you, we are about becoming part of that change, by holding every elected official and media accountable so that the people will be best served.
But for now, we must knock on some doors and make a few more phone calls and urge everyone to get out and vote.
Mr. Mayer, Very True. Thank you for writing this. Now it is time to get people out to vote. Personally, I have been a faithful voter since I was 21 years old, when I could first vote. Yet I meet people who have never voted. Who throw away their vote because it doesn't count -- which is wrong since we live in a time of very close elections.
Please do an effective announcement to people to get out and vote Nov 4. That everybody votes on Tuesday.
Thank you.
Hope is an incredibly powerful thing. It is positive, and energizing. We need it badly, and I am very pleased that Obama inspires it.
To be honest, as a person in his mid-forties, I have not thought much about those in their 20s and early 30s. I am saddened at the realization that our "post 9/11" society has seemed such a depressing place to spend early adulthood. It makes me angry at those who have perpetuated the ominous feelings of 9/11 for their own political gain. But - and I'll use the word - I'm hopeful that we are reaching the end of that dark time.
John, thanks for writing this. I and others will do everything in our power to ensure that the historical upturn you mention will come to pass. I am excited to get started. You will indeed have something to brag to your children and grandchildren about, and you need not resign yourself to living your adult life in a "future cancelled" society. The future is just getting started. We'll get there together.
As an old teacher I have a tendency to lecture and ramble, but I'll try to keep this clear and simple.
To fulfill "hope" you must also have courage. My generation fought in the streets and on the campuses of the '60s and while the actual "victory" (if there was one ) has been a long time coming... it did arrive as Barak Obama's name on the Presidential ballot shows.
Your generation has another, equally challenging task ahead of you...to restore honor and dignity to our government and to not tolerate those who would demean and deny who the American people are.
So I wish you the courage of your convictions, and the wisdom to overcome the apathy which is your generation's biggest roadblock to success.
Hope for the change we can believe in. Nov. 4.
Get out and vote if you haven't already.
Speaking as a 55 year old, John Mayer also gives me hope for the younger generation.
Obama/Biden 2008, 2012!
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