The Dialectic of Hope and Disillusionment
FOR A BETTER REASON: NOTHING CAN BE TAKEN FOR GRANTED
THEY DON'T REALLY CARE ABOUT US - EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE
For a better reason – Nothing can be taken for granted – They don’t really care about us – Everything is possible.” I find myself both drawn to and unsettled by this sequence of ideas, as though it contains the entire spectrum of human longing and disillusionment in a few stark lines. It begins with a quiet yet insistent moral imperative, hinting that everything we do ought to serve some greater cause than mere personal gain. At the same time, it refuses to offer any certainties about the world we inhabit; there are no cosy assumptions left to cling to, no well-worn beliefs that remain unchallenged. Such scepticism, in my eyes, is not an act of despair but rather an attempt to stay awake in a reality too easily clouded by complacency.
As soon as we start to feel the pull of lofty hopes, we are confronted by the jarring reminder that larger systems, whether political, social, or economic, are often more indifferent than we’d like to believe. “They don’t really care about us” tears away the last veil of romanticism, exposing a cold truth that has fuelled protest songs and rebellious graffiti for generations. Yet these words are as much an invitation to action as they are a lament. There is a certain clarity that comes from recognising the indifference of distant powers—it spurs me to question, to protest, to create, and to imagine futures that might eclipse the failures of the present.
And just when the cynic in me wishes to settle into permanent disillusionment, the phrase “Everything is possible” jolts me again. It offers a radical optimism that stands in profound tension with all that has come before. If “nothing can be taken for granted,” then every horizon might open up; every limit we thought was fixed might be renegotiated. We have seen such transformations in the most surprising corners of history and culture—moments when what once seemed impossible became inevitable, simply because people refused to accept that a failing system was their only option.
Perhaps that is the paradox of this entire statement: it is neither wholly dark nor wholly uplifting, neither naïve nor hopeless. I am reminded of the great writers who wrestled with the weight of moral responsibility, from Dostoevsky’s anguished explorations of conscience to Sartre’s insistence that we must invent our own values in a universe uninterested in our needs. Nothing is guaranteed; there is no promised salvation nor any stable ground underfoot. Yet, precisely because of this uncertainty, everything remains open to reinvention. The indifferent stance of institutions—of governments, corporations, or labyrinthine bureaucracies—cannot extinguish the creative spark that urges me to conjure new possibilities.
I see echoes of this tension in the more radical strains of modern and contemporary art. One can trace it in the wild fragmentation of Dada, the disorienting perspectives of cubism, the playful anarchy of Surrealism, and the pointed critiques of street artists whose stencils and slogans defy complacency. Each movement recognises that inherited structures fail to capture the full chaos and potential of life. Each also asserts, in its own way, that despite this failure—or perhaps because of it—we must keep pushing boundaries, keep imagining new forms of expression, keep insisting that human potential outstrips any attempt to contain it.
In political terms, the phrase resonates like the refrain of a protest chant that refuses to be silenced. “For a better reason” reminds me that true revolutions, whether internal or societal, need a moral core. “Nothing can be taken for granted” shakes up our sense of entitlement, telling us that rights and freedoms, once won, are never permanently secure. “They don’t really care about us” acknowledges the alienation many people feel under distant authorities, a cry heard in songs of social defiance across eras. Yet “Everything is possible” insists that even the most ossified structures can be dismantled or reshaped. This unwavering conviction in the power of collective action has always driven social movements that dream beyond their immediate confines, from the barricades of revolutions past to contemporary visions of climate justice or grassroots democracy.
All of these threads intertwine to form an uneasy manifesto of contradictions, one that speaks to my own sceptical optimism. I see no point in denying that the world is riddled with systemic failings, but I also cannot ignore the evidence of history and art that shows how even the bleakest conditions can ignite transformative ideas. This phrase, with its rapid shifts from idealism to despair and back again, captures something profoundly true about the modern condition: we are perpetually caught between discovering reasons to hope and realising how fragile those hopes can be.
Yet I find a peculiar solace in this uncertainty. Far from resigning me to cynicism, it fuels a restless creativity that questions everything yet clings to the idea that, somewhere in the rubble of broken promises, something wondrous could still grow. That is the stance of the sceptic visionary—a refusal to accept easy assurances and a refusal to surrender to fatalism. The tensions in this phrase may never resolve into a comfortable harmony, but perhaps that is their gift. They keep me awake, alert, and hungry for a better reason to keep imagining futures that the world insists are impossible—until, one day, they are not.
2022
