Hope Links the Past and the Future
Let’s go back to the notion of anamnesis or remembrance. Remember that it works backwards in time with regards to our ancestors. But it also works forwards in terms of our anticipation of the future. Thus remembering our connection to our ancestors can be an active influence on the behaviour of a living person. Therefore we live in relation to the judgement which our successors will make about us after our death.
Thus I can live my life in anticipation that my successors will engage in acts of anamnestic remembrance for me. I live my life in honour of the memory of my ancestors. Surely my successors will do the same for me?
Can we not live in the expectation that our successors would try to remedy the negative impact of our legacy? Could they not seek to understand our personal and ethical shortfalls through the act of imaginatively remembering us?
Redemption, Forgiveness and Hope
This could provide a platform for the offering of redemption and forgiveness for such inadequacies. By so doing they would maintain our anamnestic solidarity with them in the universal fellowship of humankind. We have, therefore, a rational basis for putting aside despair and believing in the value and agency of hope.