Last Friday, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a master class with ethicist Miguel De La Torre to discuss his 2017 book Embracing Hopelessness. Many thanks to Associate Professor Mike Mawson for organising this discussion, and to all others who were there to contribute their thoughts and energies. 

De La Torre’s book argues that there is a type of hope wielded by Christians that precludes any meaningful challenge to the status quo on behalf of others. Perhaps the best illustration is from his introduction:

I first began to develop a theology of hopelessness in 2006 when I took a group of predominately white students to the squatter villages of Cuernavaca, Mexico to learn from the poor. During our outing we spoke with many families living in horrific conditions. That evening, as we processed the day’s activities, one student struggling with what she had witnessed shared that in spite of the miserable conditions in which these people lived, she still saw “hope in the eyes of the little girls.” Hope, as a middle-class privilege, soothes the conscience of those complicit with oppressive structures, lulling them to do nothing except look forward to a salvific future where every wrong will be righted and every tear wiped away, while numbing themselves to the pain of those oppressed, lest that pain motivate them to take radical action. Hope is possible when privilege allows for a future. A child can hope when college is assured, when parents know how to game the system to advance themselves and their progeny economically, when safety and lack of fear create a livable environment. Even the hopeless can be distracted when stomachs are filled and rest can be found in warm comfortable beds. But for so many from minoritized communities where surviving into adulthood is itself a challenge, and where skin pigmentation ensures lack of opportunities to wealth and health, hope runs in short supply. My immediate response was to explain that this same little girl in whose eyes my student saw hope would more than likely be selling her body in a few years to put food on the table or would be trapped in an abusive marriage attempting to survive classism and sexism, so I wasn’t sure what kind of hope my student detected. Among the disenfranchised, the dispossessed, the least of the least, I discovered an ethos where hope is not apparent; rather, it is imposed by those who might be endangered if the marginalized were to instead act (page 5).

His argument builds through the book, as he considers various case studies of Korea, American Indians, Auschwitz, the shooting at Emmanuel AME church, and Latinx migrants. The book at its best is a polemic that affords an interruption in the usual machinations of theological and ethical thinking. The jarring language of embracing desperation instead of holding out hope for a better world does its job of unsettling the usual tracks of eschatological maneuvering. Acknowledging that change is not really possible, that God may or may not break into history (and likely will not), what horizons or possibilities emerge?  In the end, he argues for an ethic para joder, or screwing with (really, f*cking with) the system. This kind of trickster ethics emerges as a playful, life-oriented mode of messing with the mechanics of the system. There is much more to say about his thesis, the methods of the book, and the generosity and humility of the author in person, but for now, I want to answer the question that occupied the second half of our discussion: what kind of radical praxis are we called to here in Aotearoa?

There are many examples of jodiendo in the history of Aotearoa. The ones that spring immediately to mind are Hōne Heke cutting down the union jack flagpole, Tītokowaru’s followers removing the surveyor’s pegs at Parihaka, the Peace Squadron blockade of nuclear warships, and scattering broken glass on the rugby pitch in protest of the Springbok Tour of 1981. In Wellington, we are fond of Adi Leason and co’s disruption at the five eyes base at Waihopai. 

Whilst we might draw inspiration from the past, what creative disruptions might lay in our future? 

Early on in our conversation, Professor De La Torre mused that whatever we do, neoliberalism is always five steps ahead of us. Petitions, campaigns, marches, occupations, pamphlets, street art— all of these are more than easily absorbed by the intertia of the status quo. Some have even argued that these activist tools amount to no more than spinning our tires, leading to exhaustion and burnout. The desublimation of protest provides a tidy release of anxiety and frustration whilst material changes do not manifest. Even with the strategies and theories of change, there is not much that can be done in the face of power.

So what is left? Whether it’s hopelessness, Hulsether’s critical pessimism, Berlant’s cruel optimism, or Tony’s contained opposition, the systems out there and down here seem insurmountable. De La Torre argues that only once we realize the futility of it all can we move to an ethic para joder. 

If you’re keen to brainstorm, dream, or fuck with the system, give a shout!

There may be no hope. But whatever we do, at least we can do it together.

Michael

Bookworm (2024) is a compelling story about a precocious, adventurous 11-year-old girl connecting with her absent father as they search for one of Aotearoa’s only cryptids, the Canterbury Panther. Through the story’s twists and turns, the daughter Mildred and father Strawn get to know each other in their most vulnerable moments. 

Reader be warned, spoilers below

One of the most striking moments in the film is when young Mildred makes a confession to her father. She relates that she’s always felt an outsider, even with her mother. She confesses that she used to wish that her mum would disappear and that her father would scoop in and be the figure who understood her completely. 

This scene speaks a deep theological truth about the human condition, community, and belonging. On the one hand is the teenage—the Freudian analyst might add Oedipal or Elektra—impulse to push away from their known parent figure. And on the other hand, there’s the reality that our parents (literal or metaphorical) are flawed, but they are a part of our story nonetheless. 

As humans, we long for the unknown that might be better, that grass that is definitely, certainly, indubitably greener just over that fence. And yet, as Mildred finds out, her father is not the competent, caring dad she’s been longing for. Exactly the opposite. He’s almost the definition of incompetent—in his career, his parenting skills, and street smarts. Moreover, he does not understand her. He does not get her. He does not see her at a spiritual level with a preternatural recognition borne from a filial bond. Again, it’s almost the opposite. Mildred is just as strange to Strawn as she is to everyone else. But what this movie does do brilliantly, is show that there is more to life and love than belonging and understanding. 

Despite the two not understanding each other at a deep level, the two bond through shared ups and downs in their quest for video footage of the panther. The relationship the two have is not built on a cognitive understanding of the other, or even of relating to each other from shared past experiences, i.e. trauma bonding. What the film does particularly well in that it avoids the well worn trope of two misunderstood outcasts bonding over their shared societal marginalisation. 

Echoing a lesson of alterity from the phenomenologist tradition, understanding of the other is not the goal of relationships of any kind. Meaningful relationships start with recognition of the other as other: completely infinite in their otherness, completely unknowable as a complex human being. The beautiful paternal-filial relationship in the movie begins not with recognition of similarity—what Levinas diagnoses an “imperialism of the same”—but recognition of difference. 

I am not sure if it’s an universal experience, or just one that fictional Mildred and I share, but I have definitely felt that longing to be fully known, to be understood. I wonder though, how much of that anxiety of being understood is a product of the discourses, myths, and even theologies that flow out of our culture. The myth goes something like: if only someone understood me, I would not feel alone. But what this film shows is that the cure for loneliness is not being understood; it’s a commitment to show up, to recognise the other as strange and flawed and see their foibles. We may never be fully understood. We may never fully understand ourselves, let alone another. But that should not keep us from walking together on the adventurous, tumultuous, and hazardous paths life has set before us.