[dredmorbius]

That's Doctorow's prescription of hope rather than "optimism" or "pessimism".

Hope reserves agency.

Optimism and pessimism both presume an outcome regardless of action, and absolve responsibility.

[DicIfTEx]

As a counterpoint, Derrick Jensen's “Beyond Hope”: https://orionmagazine.org/article/beyond-hope/

[dredmorbius]

That reminds me of Ashleigh Brilliant's aphorism: "I feel much better now that I've given up hope".

<https://www.ashleighbrilliant.com/book4.html>

That's more about hope as expectation than hope as possibility, I think. And that's certainly Jensen's vibe.

Thanks for the reference.