: Jonas Grethlein, is there still a lot of hope for hope?
Jonas Grethlein: Indeed, hope is being evaluated in the present in very different ways. On one hand we have philosophers and sociologists who say that hope is a very important resource in the current polycrisis. And on the other hand we have Greta Thunberg, who in Davos hurled at the magnates of politics and business: “I do not want your hope. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.”
: What is hope, exactly?
Grethlein: Most people would say that hope is an emotion. The Church Fathers defined it as a virtue, and a third classification views hope as an attitude. I think all three interpretations have something going for them, without quite hitting the core. By my own definition, hope is a relation to the world; it is aimed at something good in the future that one holds to be possible but not controllable.
In the interview: Jonas Grethlein
born in 1978 in Munich, he is a classical philologist. At Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the professor holds the chair of Greek literature. In 2024 his book “Hope: A History of Optimism from Homer to Climate Change” was published.
: Can we even live without hope?
Grethlein: That is an important point, which becomes visible in depression. Among its symptoms is that patients feel hopeless. I believe we have a basic hope, without which we would not have the energy to get up in the morning and do anything.
: And in which historical epoch did hope also have a bad reputation?
Grethlein: In antiquity, hope was seen as highly ambivalent. Aristotle, for example, writes that it is mainly the young and the drunk who hope. And in Hesiod’s tale of Pandora’s box, all evils creep out and spread across the earth. Only hope remains inside. That naturally raises the question of whether hope is also a evil.
: But how can hope be so negatively charged?
Grethlein: There was in antiquity a very strong current that equates hope with illusion and sees a great danger in letting oneself be placated by hope and not taking the steps one should take. This continues into modern times, for example when Freud says that people hoped for a large estate on the Moon instead of cultivating their own plot on Earth.
: What major historical upheavals occurred when thinking about hope?
Grethlein: In Christian tradition, hope is strongly positively charged as the expectation of eternal life. In the course of secularization, this eschatological goal is shifted into history. The Marxist tradition expects the realm of freedom to begin when the working class is freed. Nationalism, in turn, hopes for the unity of nations. And in the civil rights movement, hope again plays a major role, for example when Martin Luther King says “I have a dream!”
Jonas Grethlein on “Hope: A History of Optimism from Homer to the Climate Change,” “Hope,” October 22, 7:30 p.m., Lübeck Adult Education Center, Hüxstr. 118-120. And online after registration.
: Isn’t the fundamental problem today that people can only picture dystopias instead of utopias?
Grethlein: Today it is questioned whether we still have a future at all. This is reflected in the names of activist groups like “Last Generation” and “Extinction Rebellion.” Since the great dark cloud of the climate catastrophe hangs over us, we no longer have these grand historical hopes, but rather small hopes that do not stretch so far into the future and do not view the entire humanity as a subject.
