Is ‘Hope’ the new hot button?

by Franke James

As an artist, marketer and environmental activist, I’ve been asking myself lately, “How do we move more people to action? Is it through fear? If they imagine a scary future will they act now? Or is it by planting seeds of hope? Is ‘Hope’ the new hot button that will galvanize the world to take action?”

Money and celebrities trump humanity’s survival

Many people are becoming numb to the world’s problems, and retracting into their cocoons. Something that brought that fact into sharp focus for me was this… I was reading the newspaper at breakfast, and as I flipped through the various sections looking for something interesting to read, this headline caught my eye: “Humanity’s survival at stake: UN”. It announced the UN’s 572-page report, Global Environment Outlook.

Hmmm. Isn’t that curious? Humanity’s survival at stake is not front page news! The front page stories were about the soaring loonie (the nickname for the Canadian dollar) and a hot, young hockey phenomenon, John Tavares.

Does humanity’s future being bumped by the loonie and a fledgling hockey star sound loony to you? I don’t know… It must be a defensive play to sell newspapers. The editors know the public can only take so much bad news before we shut down and lose all hope. So they push in our faces the stories they think we really care about. Money and celebrities trump humanity’s survival.

The frog in a pot of boiling water

At times, I fear we are like the proverbial frog in a pot of boiling water. The story goes like this… If you throw a frog into a pot of boiling water, it will jump out. But if you place a frog in a pot of warm water and gradually turn up the heat, it will very happily boil to death. Because the frog’s survival instincts are only triggered by sudden changes. And so it is with climate change. We’ve heard many warnings about climate change over the past 30 years, but somehow we are deaf to them, and unaware of our impending doom.

Pitching Hope to Solve World Problems

Well, clever marketers, artists and writers sense the water is getting a bit too hot, and are serving up the solution. This new crop of “Hope products” could be just what the world needs to inspire action and jump out of the pot.

So where am I seeing evidence of hope? Seemingly disconnected dots have started joining up and a pattern is emerging… Is it a trend? In the past week I’ve been to a book launch for Geography of Hope (which gives us hope by showing signs of a sustainable future unfolding around the world). I also attended Chest of Hope, an art exhibit raising funds for cancer research (which rekindles the hope that cancer can be beaten if we all pitch in and contribute to medical research). Hope is an emotion that savvy Breast Cancer fundraisers have used for many years. Even the packaging on my favorite whole wheat bread features the familiar pink ribbon and a Harvest of Hope campaign to raise money for the cause!

But hope is too powerful a force to be owned by any one cause. Marketers know that hope sells — and some would argue (me included) that the environmental movement could motivate more people by injecting ‘hope’ into their message. Humanity’s survival is at stake — but too many people are tuning out the message. How are we going to flip this around? Personally, when I read about a successful green project it inspires me and gives me hope that perhaps my efforts are not wasted.

Hope as an inspirational force

Hope as an inspirational force is springing up everywhere. I also read news articles about actress Hilary Swank and shoe/clothing designer Kenneth Cole who have jumped on the hope bandwagon. Each promises to tell us how to achieve our dreams (if we buy tickets to their Power Within events in Vancouver and Toronto).

Swank offers hope to young women, “I feel like there’s not a lot of great women role models for girls. If a girl can see my story and somehow say, ‘Hey you know what, I’m NOT going to give up on my dream’ … then I am going to continue to tell my story….”

Cole offers hope to business people when he talks about his company’s efforts which have funded AIDS research and anti-poverty initiatives, “What I’m doing is taking a business that exists and somehow connecting it to a bigger purpose… it wins on every level.”

And this morning’s paper offered more hope in the form of a new book: Jean Vanier, Our Life Together. Vanier is the Founder of L’Arche, the international network of homes for people with disabilities. Vanier urges students to keep “hoping and dreaming.. the important thing is to go ahead and do it.” His message to students is to have the courage to do something different with their lives, “We don’t have to be doing what everyone else is doing… We don’t have to be like a bunch of cows or sheep.”

I say, “Amen to that!”

The common element in this cornucopia of new products — which all pitch different causes — is that they are selling hope that is backed up by action and offer doable solutions. They are giving us a glimpse of a hopeful future. (Listen to Turner’s podcast on CBC.ca for more inspiration.)

But the dilemma is we need a lot more Vanier’s, Turner’s, Gampp’s, Swank’s and Cole’s to get us to wake up and jump out of the pot!

The big question is: Are you ready to take action? Can you plant a few seeds which will offer the world hope?

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© 2007, Franke James,MFA

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Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.