Written by Mimoza IRTEM, Prospect UN Youth Representative to the United Nations Department of Global Communications of The Light Millennium, Charitable Global Human Advancement Organization

Radical Hope: Courage or Wishful Thinking?|

[LMGlobal.Org[ What happens when the concepts we live in disappear all of a sudden? This is the question Jonathan Lear tries to answer in his book Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation. The book focuses on the cultural collapse of the Crow due to cultural and historical oppression and how their chief, Plenty Coup, faces these challenges guided by dream interpretations. In this essay, I will explore the struggles of Plenty Coup and the Crow in regard to how Plenty Coup’s courageous virtues and imaginative capacities played a crucial role in the journey toward what Lear refers to as radical hope.

The book focuses on the dreams that Plenty Coup has envisioned regarding the future of the Crow and also the role he plays in this uncertain future. In the Crow culture, it is believed that dreams can predict the future and help understand the inner world of individuals, which is otherwise inaccessible to the conscious mind. Therefore, people are encouraged to dream-vision in nature. Accordingly, the meaning of dreams is taken seriously, and as Freud also argues dream interpretations are necessary to understand unconscious wishes and desires (Lear, 2008, p.68).

However, the Crow also believes that the spirit world guides the dreamer through visions, thus creating a relationship with the spirits, ancestors, and God. According to Lear, Plenty Coup dreams that the buffalo disappears and a huge storm destroys everything except a tree and chickadee birds. This is interpreted by the elders of the tribe as a warning for the struggles they are going to face as a tribe and in order to survive they have to acquire the virtues of the chickadee. Lear also describes this as an anxiety dream, whereby he argues that “[Plenty Coup] dreamt on behalf of the tribe; and the dream transformed these anxious

 concerns into narrative form” (2008, p.78). On the other hand, this can also be described as a selfscape dream as Hollan defines it. According to Hollan, selfscape dreams tell something personal about the dreamer, revealing their inner world, and the world they are living in, and providing feedback about their relationship to this world (Hollan, 2005). Here, Plenty Coups is imagining something in the aftermath of the cultural devastation, which is only possible due to his imaginative capacity that allows him to think beyond the troubles the Crow are struggling with. In accordance with the dream, Plenty Coups becomes a Chickadee person, by being wise, listening well, and learning from other people, thus leading the Crow to a new unimaginable future leaving their culture behind. Lear argues that through the dream and his imaginative capacities Plenty Coups becomes a courageous person, and consequently an exemplary leader of the tribe.

The third chapter of the book is devoted to understanding courage as a virtue and how this virtue enabled Plenty Coups to become a leader. According to Lear, there are various factors that contributed to Plenty Coups becoming an exemplary leader, such as his imaginative capacities and courageous acts. Lear uses the term radical hope to define how he responded to the collapse of the civilization, which is “directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is” (2008, p.103). This implies that Plenty Coups has utilized the dream and the dream interpretations as a tool to “fight” against the chaos that awaits his tribe. Additionally, choosing not to physically fight but rather adapt to the changing environment and conditions is a courageous act on its own. Plenty Coups’ courage also shows that he had faced the reality that the culture was being destroyed and he had the awareness to look into a very cruel future through these dreams. Lear elaborates on this awareness and risk-taking into an unimaginable future by stating that we are “finite, erotic creatures” (2008, p.120). Here, he expands on the fact that humans are vulnerable, limited, and dependent on others. Therefore, courage is necessary to succeed. Lear uses

 Aristotle’s understanding of courage, which “lies between cowardice, which is a deficiency, and rash boldness, which is an excess” (2008, p.109). In other words, Aristotle argues that courageous people find the middle way between despair and depression, realize what is fearful and what is shameful, and exercise good judgment. The last point Aristotle and Lear touch upon is that “bold acts that derive merely from optimism are not themselves courageous” (2008, p.112). The danger of wishful thinking and imagining you are bigger than you actually are results in turning away from reality and puts you in a risky spot. Such that, Lear gives an example of how the Sioux leader Sitting Bull interpreted the vision completely differently and acted wish-fulfilling way which ended up badly for the Sioux tribe (2008, p.151). This illustrates how dreams can be interpreted in various ways, and sometimes taking the desire in the dream as the reality might result in despair as it did for the Sioux tribe compared to the Crow. Here, the distinct ways of leadership skills once again underscore Plenty Coups’ success in preserving some of the traditions of the Crow while surviving the present.

Lastly, Lear touches upon another dream Plenty Coups had after the death of his older brother. In his vision, legendary creatures called the Little People visit Plenty Coups to provide him guidance to become the chief with honorable virtues (Lear, 2008, p.125). This vision is described in the book as Plenty Coup’s ego ideal. Freud argues that an internalized other creates ideals we want to live up to and makes us feel shame when our ideals fail. This dream gives him a lot of confidence that the world is supportive of him. Additionally, Plenty Coups was visited by a golden eagle, which he believed gave him the power to become an exemplary leader and warrior (Lear, 2008, p.91). This could be described as a transitional object as Winnicott refers to it, due to the fact that he wore such a feather on his hat. Here, Plenty Coups invests the feather with emotional significance, giving it a special meaning. The feather is real but due to the deeper personal significance, while wearing it he feels more competent and stronger than he might otherwise.

Jonathan Lear provides many insights into the life of the Crow and especially Plenty Coups by describing the various ways they have tried to survive in the face of cultural devastation. Lear touches upon various concepts such as Freud’s ego ideal, his dream interpretations, and also Aristotle’s understanding of courage in order to depict the culture of the Crow and the struggles they have encountered. As Lear strongly argues, I also believe that Plenty Coups’ hope and leadership are acts of courage and wisdom due to the way he had interpreted the dreams and acted in a resourceful way to find alternative ways to sustain the Crow culture in cultural and historical oppression.

Works Cited

Hollan, D. (2005). Dreaming in a global world. A Companion to Psychological
Anthropology, 90–102. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996409.ch6
Lear, J. (2008). Radical hope: Ethics in the face of cultural devastation. Harvard University Press.

About Chief Plenty Coups
The Apsalookee (Crow) people arrived in Bighorn country in very early times and remained. They called this place home-the best place in the entire world. From their arrival in the early 1700’s they were constantly challenged by strong tribes from every direction. From the north and west they fought Assiniboine, Blackfeet, and Flatheads. From the east, the Sioux and Cheyenne were constantly at war with them. Fortunately, the Crow have been blessed with great leaders. One of these leaders was Chief Plenty Coups who was born in 1848, a time of great change for the tribe.
Source: https://www.nps.gov/bica/learn/historyculture/chief-plenty-coups.htm