In reading through Plato's "The Republic" in which he imagines the perfect future society/city state, one of the words that comes up with a surprising amount of regularity is the word Elpis (ἐλπίς). It is strange because Elpis appears to be kind of like hope, or expectation, or some kind of trust, which might be similar to the later Roman concept of Fidus. I find it weird because when Plato speaks about the Republic as an imagined future thing, he seems to almost take the expectation that society is going to naturally emerge towards it. I do not suffer from the mislaid illusion that society naturally tends towards rule by the wise, the kind, or the benevolent but the hope that if society collectively puts in the moral work to achieve such and end, is certainly worthy of hope.
It seems to me that in trying to nail down elements of Eudaimonia, the ones that are further along in the list are both harder to identify as well as harder to do. Invariably they all have to start from some kind of civic philos; which also implies that all of them require active work.
The broadest conception for a definition that I can find for 'elpis' within Greek philosophy, encompasses the whole realm of the expectation of a thing or event happening, or that the person or thing will do what they say that they will do. Elpis can be applied to both family members, or more generally the leaders and administrators in civic philos (such as judges, police, and the entire civil service, the system of civic fabric itself, as well as to the quality of workmanship that goes into a thing.
Hope as both a moral work and the product of moral work, starts from the standpoint that not only is someone looking outside of themselves but that they are deliberately thinking the bext of them. As applied to people, there are two classic stories which encompass the idea of Hope as a moral work; both of which have been adapted into movies.
The tale "Beauty And The Beast" is the story of Belle, who in the book is described as a victim of horrible circumstance when she is selected by The Beast against her will to be the object of his affection. The moral work of Belle in that story is mostly done by Belle who has to overcome the obvious and very scary thought that The Beast in in fact beastly. We learn throughout the course of the narrative that the moral work that Belle does is learning to love the Beast despite the fact that he looks beastly on the outside and in fact has a truly horrible past for which he is being punished. The moral work of pretending to love the the Beast to appease him, eventually becomes the actual act of doing so. This is the act of Hope not as a ethereal idea but as a hard thing being worked out.
The other story which is similar is the story of "The Magic Mask" in which a man who looks horribly disfigured, puts on a mask which makes him look beautiful to the rest of the work. Eventually after years and years, his own face has grown to conform to that of the Magic Mask and when he takes it off after many years, he has become beautiful. This story was adapted in part to become "The Mask" starring Jim Carrey in which the main character develops confidence in the process of wearing The Mask and pretending to be the character that lives inside of it.
Now both of these stories touch on the idea of Elpis in that in the act of pretending to be the qualities which the characters set out to be, they eventually acquire it through living out those qualities. The idea that one hopes in someone else, or in something else, or for some future set of circumstance, can only be achieved by the decision to hope in someone else, or in something else, or for some future set of circumstance; including if that something else is at the moment not possible. The Beast is only changed into someone worthy of affection because Belle has chosen to make him the object of her affection because she hopes he will be worthy.
This obviously has all kind of implications across a whole range of disciplines where the abstract overlay is not necessarily immediately concrete. People at the cutting edge of science have some kind of hope that what they are doing will contribute to the body of knowledge. People who have hope in political ideologies want to make the world better through the act of political policy. Religious people have hope that the belief set that they have is true, while irreligious people have a similar hope that there isn't anything beyond. Investors have a hope that the money that they spend will eventually give back a return on their investment. Parents have a hope that their children will go on to grow up and lead lives of their own. All of the above has to do with the deliberate act of hope in a future which has not yet arrived. Even at the smallest level, I for instance have hope that a Mars Bar will be delicious, as opposed to not being delicious.
Of course it would be remiss of me to talk about Hope without mentioning the absence of it. People without hope are in a place which is awful and pitiful. The outcome of not having any hope can lead to a mind which is left unchained and ends up doing work upon itself, to the point of depression, despair and in the worst cases, suicide. A person without hope lacks the expectation that there is any kind of good future or good things happening to them. If therefore seems almost cruel to demand that someone with an absence of hope, somehow generate it for themselves. The act of giving people hope, either through changing their circumstances, or changing their mindset, requires practical demonstration of civic philos; which as with any moral work is expensive for the people doing that work.
Yet again we are brought back to the idea of practical civic philos, which in this case means deliberately thinking the best of other people, despite and perhaps in spite of what they actually are. This may very well require us to be like Belle and think of others as worthy of saving and showing philos to, even though they look like and possibly are beasts. It might require us to look upon others as though they are wearing The Magic Mask, with the expectation that they will be eventually changed to match the expected or imagined outer appearance. It may even require us to think that we too can be better people and then work and act accordingly. The entire self-help industry, gym memberships, 12-step programs, therapy and counselling, education and training, are all based on that same premise of hope, that some aspect of ourselves can be made better.
Moreover, the practice of Hope, that is the work of the expectation of wanting the best for other people, is related to an alignment position because in expecting and wanting the best for someone else invariably means changing the circumstances so that that can happen; even if it is only changing the dialogue between people. That too requires moral work.
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