Lynn Silsby answers “The flyleaf posits that this book "offers...”

Dana DesJardins asked this question about Between the World and Me:

The flyleaf posits that this book "offers a transcendent vision for a way forward." While Coates insists on self-interrogation, education, solidarity, and awareness as survival strategies, I did not find a "transcendent way forward." Some help please?

Lynn Silsby Coates has written about the incompatibility between history and hope and I think it speaks to your question: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a...…moreCoates has written about the incompatibility between history and hope and I think it speaks to your question: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/a.... He writes that in the study of history, it seems one mostly finds chaos rather than justice and righteousness, and as a result, historians tend not to be optimistic sorts: "Hope may well be relevant to their personal lives, but it is largely irrelevant to their study. Moreover, the search for a crude inspiration, for a narrative which dictates that America triumph in the end or justice necessarily win out, seems immaterial to their actual discipline."

An individual's way forward and a writer/historian's way forward are not, and probably cannot be, the same. Both at least must acknowledge and reckon with the truth before progressing and that's task enough. I like Susan Odetta's answer that "The struggle is the way forward." May not (probably will not) see the change in one's own lifetime but what else is there to do and at least one isn't standing on delusions then.(less)

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