Individually, Americans have high hopes for their personal futures, however the national hope levels have declined. According to a survey by the Human Flourishing Lab, people’s national hope and hope for progress are diminishing. In the survey, only 56% of Americans expressed that they hold an optimistic outlook of the future for the United States.
Eskaton residents Beverly McLaggan, BJ Asher, Jo Parker and Jan Freeman formed a close friendship through their Eskaton creative writing group. The women, all in their 80s and 90s meet a few times a month to read, write, reflect on current events and just enjoy each other’s company.
“We’re all very concerned about the current political situation, not only locally, i.e. the United States, but worldwide, because we’re globally growing smaller all the time, and we didn’t used to be concerned about Africa or the Middle East. … But now, because we’re so globally oriented, we are very concerned about what is happening to all of the people in the world.” Asher said, “I think, in our history, when we came out of college, we were concerned about ourselves. And now with age we really are concerned about the greater world and what good we can still do.”
The Human Flourishing Lab survey asked how much people agreed with the statement “I am hopeful for the future of the United States,” 61% of 60 or older respondents said that they somewhat/strongly agreed with the statement and have a hopeful outlook of the future for the United States. 39% of the respondents replied somewhat or strongly disagreed with the statement.
While the national data reflects that a majority of respondents in their 60s see the future of the US as hopeful, the Eskaton residents in the generational group known as the ‘Silent Generation,’ seem to have a different perspective.
“I don’t have a lot of hope for our nation or for the world, and I get more pessimistic all the time, and I wonder, why are people so evil?,” Freeman said.
National hope levels vary for different age groups. When 18-29 year olds were asked the same question, 55% of respondents said they have hope for the United States, 42% said they were somewhat hopeful or disagree with the statement while the remaining 3% didn’t know or didn’t respond to the question.
“I have three grandchildren, one who plans not to get married or have children because she sees no hope in this world. She’s only 25 or six, and that’s why a lot of people are not having children. They see no hope. And to tell you the truth, I’m glad I’m on the way out, I see no Hope for our society,” Freeman said.
But not everything is black and white, people’s hope and optimism for the future often can depend on each person and their experiences.
“We were so impacted by the Depression and World War Two that by the time we got to high school, our family lifestyle was to recuperate from World War Two, to maybe buy a car or buy sugar without ration points, but to resume a normal pre-war, pre-depression lifestyle was foremost in family thought,” Parker said. “The future wasn’t something we feared. We thought it would get better, and mostly, it did.”
The members of the ‘Silent Generation’ hold out hope for the new generations and look towards the future where the younger generations push towards improving the nation and progress.
“We made progress in our time, but I think this generation is going to go even further. They’re braver in many ways. They speak up,” McLaggan said.
