Reading this post, my first thought was that the whole thing is a very sad commentary on what passes for optimism in 2018, and I think that's the most charitable take.
I saw a thread on Twitter which basically said, though not in so many words, that hopepunk as people have defined it relies on a very telling denial of (the possibility of, the hard reality of) politics, and that really seemed to be the key to me. As you say, it's very black and white, and that elides all the messy contradictions, disagreements, arguments, and work of politics, especially politics in a time of crisis. And that seems to me to be a very 2018 framing too, though one I have much less sympathy with.
And yes, sometimes I find myself reaching for doorstopper novels about totalitarianism where everything is terrible, because that's what I want or need to read at that point in my life. But that doesn't make me or the books Impure or Immoral.
no subject
I saw a thread on Twitter which basically said, though not in so many words, that hopepunk as people have defined it relies on a very telling denial of (the possibility of, the hard reality of) politics, and that really seemed to be the key to me. As you say, it's very black and white, and that elides all the messy contradictions, disagreements, arguments, and work of politics, especially politics in a time of crisis. And that seems to me to be a very 2018 framing too, though one I have much less sympathy with.
And yes, sometimes I find myself reaching for doorstopper novels about totalitarianism where everything is terrible, because that's what I want or need to read at that point in my life. But that doesn't make me or the books Impure or Immoral.