Hope is indispensable in public and private life. I don't mean brainless optimism in the face of facts. I mean hope that finds a way to persist in honest awareness of how bad things are.
Take the economy. Everyone knows that the disaster of 2008, which has clearly not gone away, had nothing to do with excess government spending. It had/has to do with other things: loss of good jobs; wage stagnation; jumps in consumer debt to cover the losses; "financialization"; fraud; greed; lack of oversight -- blah blah blah. Any rise in deficits came mainly from bailouts to banks, or needless war-making. The point is: The catastrophe had/has no connection to government social or economic spending. Yet the only solutions proposed everywhere are public spending cuts.