Tarrying with Hopeless Angels: A Theo-poetic, Lacanian Exposition on Hope.

Abstract

This paper is a theo-poetic exposition on hope via the series Neon Genesis Evangelion. The authors work to counter the dilemma of the modern human-cyborg: a subject saturated with digital technology who wants to fight the horror of their continual experience of a commodified hope. What emerges in this paper’s analysis is the articulation of three kinds of hope. The first kind is a prosaic general hope of the imaginary; the second is a rational hope of the symbolic, while the third is an occult, excessive hope in the real. The ethical injunction of this paper’s conclusion is that to refuse the horror of the digital, we must preserve this third-order hope through an ethics of antagonistic uselessness.