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IN THE LITERATURE OF PSYCHOLOGY and religious biography it is commonly recognized that human beings can survive enormous hardships and handicaps as long as they have hope. But people disintegrate and even die, without other apparent causes, if they are deprived of hope. All of us have experienced in some measure the effects of hope and despair and know the ravages of profound hopelessness upon the lives of close friends and relatives—if we have not undergone such crises ourselves. Probably few families are spared the experience of acute despondency striking some member like a ravenous cancer.
What is true for the individual is also true for the group. But hope and despair are highly contagious, sweeping at times as social storms over whole populations and civilizations. The psychology of mass hysteria operates by its own laws and rhythms when the defenses of individual judgment and discrimination are down. Periodically civilization has suffered its dark hours of collective desperation and moral insanity when crimes have been committed by those presumed to be the best of people for allegedly the finest of causes. More frequently, the opportunity to make a better life for ourselves and others is allowed to pass without recognition, or at least without decisive action, because we believe ourselves impotent to change our lives or to effect history.
When we are down, we are told to cheer up—usually with the effect of making us feel worse. When we are defeated, we are urged to try, try, again, to struggle harder against our sense of exhaustion. We praise courage and recommend it to those who are fearful or anxious, but like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, we are not always able to locate the courage we require.
A fundamental requirement of any living faith or philosophy