"Hopeful skepticism"
It's a term I stumbled upon recently when I listened to the "How to Be Less Cynical" episode of the How to Be A Better Human podcast. The episode featured psychologist Jamil Zaki, who discussed his research on empathy as a learned concept. It's a great listen: https://buff.ly/3z9nnlo
Hopeful skepticism means to choose skepticism, i.e., to seek out evidence as a way of generating a basis for hope. This is not magical thinking of hope as a feel-good and ambiguously defined mystical force that will somehow cure everything despite all evidence to the contrary.
No, "hopeful skepticism" is a process of understanding the evidence as it presents itself, seeking out additional understandings and ways of seeing until you remove the misunderstandings and doubts that prevent you from seeing what might be in front of you. It means finding reasons to hope based on what is known and valued rather than leaving hope up to chance and wishful thinking.
Here's how it plays out:
"This organization seems to be doing great work. I'd love to see how I might help them out, but I'd also like to see some evidence they help the community in the ways they claim before I commit."
Or, "This CEO and founder is frickin' amazing-- sign me up! But I also need to see that the money flows how they say it flows. Can I see the books?"
Hopeful skepticism is (at least in my mind) not a way of moving you further away from working with others but, rather, a way to move you closer to removing any potential trust barriers. This mentality says, "Hey, this work matters to me. This is an opportunity to show me that it matters to you, too."
And you know what? The people who have spent a lot of time doing the authentic work of community engagement, repair, and desire-based research will probably have no issue sharing their info. I'm willing to bet most who know what they're doing will be willing to share how they've arrived at their own hopeful skepticism.
Also, mapping out how we arrive at our places of hope will help us when others will inevitably try to dictate the terms and conditions of our hope. This has always bothered me, when others try to dictate how I should direct or act upon my sense of hope or control who or what I should my hope to.
"Oh, you know, everyone who's asking for money is trying to pull one over on you."
"Look, if we go easy on him, he'll just keep pushing our boundaries. Incarceration is the best response. Besides, just look at his case file."
"We've done this before, and it hasn't worked. Why bother?"
Each of these sentiments may be based on tangible evidence, or they may instead reflect bias and internalized stereotypes, a misjudgment that most people are inherently bad, even though plenty of evidence suggests that people are actually mostly good and decent.
Hopeful skepticism is asking for receipts while refusing to let others dictate the terms of our hope, compassion, and empathy.
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