This article contemplates the tension between apathy and hope, between the dystopic and the utopian as drivers of the human condition, and our theories about it. I look, more specifically, at how these two tendencies manifested in the aftermath of WWI; the dystopic in Freud’s invention of the death drive, the utopian in Ernst Bloch’s exploration of hope. I argue that our present poses a challenge similar to that posed by WWI; a collapse of the frameworks around which subjectivities and societies are organized, and a potential for the development of both better and worse outlooks. I argue that as was the case then, psychoanalysis has crucial theoretical and ethical choices to make. I suggest that rather than follow Freud’s death driven fatalism, we should seek inspiration in Bloch’s view of hope as a driving force of human experience and destiny. I contemplate these ideas as I record events taking place in the world and in my practice during the weeks just before and after the 2020 elections in the US.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07351690.2021.1944776