A Politics of Hope

I’m reading a remarkable book I just happened upon when I sold eleven boxes of spiritual books to a local bookstore. It’s called The Cure Within by Harvard-based Anne Harrington. It’s a history of mind-body medicine and it’s fascinating.

In it, Ms. Harrington tells the story of two doctors involved in a clinical trial for a combination of four drugs they abbreviated with the letters EOHP. One doctor had a 75% success rate with his patients; the other had a 25% success rate.

In discussion it was revealed that the first doc had rearranged the initials of the drugs to spell a word:

HOPE.

Barack Obama is the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president as I write this. Part of his political philosophy is hope. He has hope. He offers us hope. Hope is currency in Obamania.

He’s not wrong. Some people are asking if he’s crazy, but consider the results of the doctors above. Hope cures. In and of itself.

The United States, after eight years of pummeling economic catastrophe, needs curing. We need hope. Even false hope cures.

Who knows if the drug cocktail caused the doctor’s results or if the hope itself did? Does it matter? I don’t think so. I think a politics of hope is the perfect prescription for our suffering economy.

Hope away!

And VOTE in November, please.