Paper Short Abstract:

'If I had...' is a way of dreaming. It contains hopes for a better future, contingent upon having. Bringing the "if-ing" of poet Langston Hughes and the theory of “cruel optimism” of Laurent Berlant into conversation with my research on real-estate practices, dreams and sustainability, I show why some house-dreaming may have to be deferred.

Paper Abstract:

My argument borrows beauty and voice from Langston Hughes, writer and social activist (1901–1967) and cultural critic Laurent Berlant, (1957–2021). I bring their contemplations to bear on my real-estate research. I analyze building-site billboards, property-ads, Instagram project-visions, object-descriptions from Hemnet (website for finding 'dream houses'), and do participant observations at house-showings. Hughes’ Harlem-renaissance poetry here illuminates an aspect of the human condition which makes happiness contingent upon such dreaming, consumption of goods, the backbone of capitalist society. The pursuit of it, in Berlant’s words, only “immiserates” (2006), and trust in its promises may actually need to be suspended?

“If I had some small change//I’d buy me a mule//get on that mule and //ride like a fool,” starts the poem “If’ing”. A man on the sidewalk "ain't got a dime," but is still cheerily engaged in an act of ‘American dreaming.’ The inherent criticism becomes incisive, when Berlant is juxtaposed as illusory conversation partner: “when we talk about an object of desire, we are really talking about a cluster of promises we want someone or something to make to us and make possible for us” (2006). The house-dreams painted by realtors, building companies, make-over shows, buyers’ imagined futures, are untenable in light of ‘strong sustainability.’ They constitute ’if’-ings,’ dreams dangerous to pursue, but decisive to defer, if planetary concerns be heeded. They may in effect threaten our ‘good lives’. Ironically, attachment to often creative, life-affirming house-dreaming may be theorized as a 'cruel optimism' (Berlant 2011), leading to undesired consequences for all.