Podcasting “Hope, Not Optimism”

A theory of change based on truth, not fiction.

This week on my podcast, a reading of my latest Medium column, “Hope, not optimism,” in which I describe a theory of change that distinguishes activism from novelism.

https://doctorow.medium.com/hope-not-optimism-943e88291b

Plotting a novel is a process of radical simplification: a character goes through a linear progression of challenges of increasing difficulty and consequence, until the stakes are raised to their utmost when the tale reaches its climax.

That’s nothing like the real world (perhaps that’s why fiction is so satisfying!). Here in reality, the terrain we’re trying to traverse is so complicated that we can’t even know it, much less plot an efficient route through it.

Actually it’s worse: the terrain isn’t just complex, it’s adversarial — our ideological opponents devote enormous energy to rearranging the terrain to put blocks in our way, suppressing human rights from the right to shelter and the right to vote to basic reproductive rights.

Trying to plot a course through terrain this complex isn’t just a waste of time — it’s counterproductive. By the time you’ve drawn a map, or even planned a map, the terrain will be so altered that you need to start over.