Against Hope
Hope is seen as “an unqualified good” today, Adam Potkay writes in his excellent history of the idea. We hope that things will get better in the world — that peace will come to Ukraine, that religious violence will stop in Burkina Faso, that fat-cat sexual predators in Hollywood will be brought to justice. For members of the world’s three monotheistic religions, it is a virtue to hope in life after death. This hasn’t always been the case. For ancient Greeks and Romans, Potkay observes, hope was mostly a vice.
