Learning How to Hope: Reviving Democracy through Our Schools and Civil Society by Sarah M. Stitzlein. Oxford University Press, 2020

In the past few months, people around the world have been reckoning with the enduring legacies of racism, white supremacy, and systematic abuses of power, while also battling a global health pandemic that has claimed the lives of over a million people. In the United States, an average of around 1000 citizens a day are dying from Covid-19, yet our president proclaims, in Orwellian doublespeak, that we have done an amazing job containing the virus in this country, and that he deserves an A+ for his leadership (Cillizza, 2020). Similarly, even as there are ongoing protests for racial justice in almost all major cities around the country, precipitated in part by high-profile and seemingly never-ending cases of police brutality against African Americans, the president proclaims that “nobody has ever done more for the black community” than he has (Qui, 2020). Political polarization is rampant around the world, while historic democracies like the United States seem to be descending into authoritarian rule, if not fascism. One thing we most certainly need in such uncertain and frightening times is hope. We need hope that things can be different, that our daily actions matter to reviving (or finally creating) democracy, and that ordinary citizens can craft a future that is marked by justice, equity, inclusion, compassion, and a sense of shared fate. In short, hope is a critical element to building a democratic future that better approximates our most idealistic dreams and visions. It is in the light of this troubling climate that I engaged Sarah Stitzlein’s latest book, Learning How to Hope. In this book, Stitzlein issues a “call to hope” (p. 137), arguing that hope is “not a particular program of political action, but a way of life” (p. 17) that is crucial to supporting and revitalizing democracy. She begins by describing why we need an activist sense of hope. This is hope as a verb: an “ongoing activity we do often, with or alongside others” (p. 44) in order our transform our current world. The barriers and challenges to hope are numerous, as Stitzlein thoughtfully outlines in her first chapter: pervasive cynicism, despair, and even fatalism; hyper polarization and partisanship; structural violence and inequality; rampant distrust; neoliberal ideologies that position citizens as competitors in a zero-sum game for individual rewards; and refusal to compromise or work collaboratively across lines of difference. “Speaking to concerned and struggling citizens on both sides of the aisle, as well as educators working to develop good citizens,” Stitzlein offers a “philosophically grounded yet accessible insight into our current state of affairs and suggestions for improvement” (p. 17). She proposes that cultivating hope–in schools and civic society–is essential to transforming society and breathing new life into democracy. Stitzlein’s argument for a pragmatist approach to hope is compelling and well-developed. She has gift for writing in clear and accessible ways that can draw in educational practitioners new to pragmatist thought, and, at the same time, deepen the thinking of philosophers, especially through her use of timely examples that illuminate the practical relevance of sometimes abstract ideas. Stitzlein begins in the first chapter by describing what hope is and is not, distinguishing it from problematic and limited understandings of hope, such as those connected to religious traditions, positive psychology, and optimistic but passive forms of wishful thinking. She then introduces her readers to pragmatism, describing how and why she grounds hope in this philosophical tradition. Pragmatism and hope go hand in hand. At the heart of pragmatist philosophy is inquiry and experimentation aimed at addressing and transforming problematic situations in everyday life. She describes a pragmatist sense …