Trust me, I'm a pessimist
Do we have a prejudice against good news? Or at least an inclination to put more trust in pessimism than in optimism?
I suspect we do, and will come back to the point in a later post. But here’s a preliminary concern:
I’ve never understood what people think they’re doing when they describe themselves as ‘optimists’ or ‘pessimists’. Assuming that they’re not engaged in a high metaphysical argument about Leibniz’s Theodicy, all they seem to be saying is that they have a personal disposition to look on the bright or the dark side of things. In which case they are just confessing to a bias and we ought to take heed and avoid relying on their judgments. It’s like someone who says ‘I always put too much vermouth in the martini’ or ‘I always overcook the vegetables’: the only sensible response is not to trust them when they offer to mix you a drink or cook you a meal.
If you say, ‘I’m an optimist, so I think the problem of climate change is going to solve itself’ then surely you’re undermining your persuasiveness: the fact that you have a sunny personality is not going to help prevent global warming. And equally, if you say ‘I’m a pessimist, I think we’re all going to fry’, you’re making a bonfire of your credibility once again: you’re implying that you have chosen your analysis not on the basis of evidence or arguments, but simply because you’re an old grump – which could be true, but is hardly relevant.
But that’s not the only paradox about optimism and pessimism.
It’s always struck me that Pangloss, the wacky optimist in Voltaire’s Candide, contains more depths than he’s usually given credit for. (Perhaps indeed he’s more complex than Voltaire himself realised.) It’s usually taken to be ridiculous that he sticks to his catchphrase – ‘everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds’ – while the world collapses around him. Is he mad, we wonder? Can’t he see how bad things really are? Is he wearing rose-tinted spectacles? Is he perhaps wrapped up in a rose-scented whole-body condom?
Wait a minute though. The fact that things are going badly does not mean that they could have gone better. Stuff happens, as they say; perhaps stuff is bound to happen. And when Pangloss says that in spite of it all, it’s the best of all possible worlds, he need not be deluding himself with a kind of philosophical prozac; he might be making the sober assessment that, terrible as things are, they really could not be better. In which case his optimism is as pessimistic as could be: and who needs pessimism, if this is where optimism leads?
I try be a realist BUT I avoid the news, as it always seems to be bad news, they report bad things, never all the good things that happened that day.
Life is better, if you avoid the news :)
People call me pessimistic and cynical, and I think what they're doing is categorising me so that they don't need to listen to me. I agree that calling oneself an optimist or a pessimist is often to undermine your judgement (though sometimes, among self-proclaimed optimists, it isn't such a bad idea to out yourself as a pessimist).
I think we put more trust in optimism than pessimism, since optimism is the major vehicle of go-getting business types, as well as the naive youth culture that seems to define our country these days. When it comes down to facts, I think 'pessimism' and 'optimism' are a confused way of expressing one's general attitude towards this business-youth culture. Even though the optimists fail thereby to rationally support it, and the pessimists to rationally attack it, we should note that it is on giddy optimism and unearned self-confidence that people become representatives of such culture, and not the merits of formulating sound arguments.
"I suspect we do, and will come back to the point in a later post. But here’s a preliminary concern:"
I always have a problem with people who 'suspect' something. They are always suspecting as opposed to those who always 'pleasantly surprised'.
J believes or rather suspects - not sure if a 'suspect' is a belief or something just before one. However "suspects that in the main WE have a prejudice against good news.
Facts J - where is the evidence that this is so and are you talking global, national or just journalists reports.
I SUSPECT that the majority of the people are not prejudiced one way or the other - I have no evidence of this like J has none either. We are simply displaying our 'suspective minds' and then asking people 'What do YOU think about all this?'
J suggests that having a prejudice either way is risky and we should stick with 'facts' and 'logical' reasoning. Ever heard of 'intuition'
There is no evidence on this planet that human logic and facts works any better, otherwise the planet would be in a far healthy state than it is in right now.
I SUSPECT, that intuition is the way to go - rely on that 100% - fine tune it to the nth degree and you will never be wrong and you won't need to 'suspect' anything - you will KNOW.
And when you meet people who say I'm an optimist or pesismist you will know that is where they are coming from - but that doesn't mean you cannot trust them or rely on them at certain times - you just need to make allowances for their particular view on life - as we do for J's
The terms optimist and pessimist don't just describe a bias, they describe a strategy for dealing with the world. One is "no one ever won a game they didn't play". The other is Murphy's Law.
That said, there is something odd about "I follow this strategy for dealing with the world, that's why I pick X". It doesn't make rational sense unless the listener follows the same strategy as the speaker. Perhaps there is a subtext of "you should follow this strategy as well" embedded in such argument.
I am tired of pessimism.
Candid is one of my favorite books. Pangloss' optomistic pessimism reminds me of Zen Buddhist philosophy in a way.
Myself, I am always saying, it could always be worse.
I always thought Pangloss was describing something more complicated than a Leibniz like philosophy of optimism (ingoring Voltaire's satire). It seemed to me that he was simply stating cause and effect with its intertwined pathways; in spite of good or evil -as both were necessary for the story to conclude; in spite of possitivism or negativism -as both are prevalent in the story. The story culminates with them discussing their wild adventures with its numerable trials and pleasures and with them concluding to "Cultivate their garden" which I read as "Sod the world; are those tomatoes ripe yet?"
Being of the type that refuses to see things from a shallow persepctive, I found this particular blog of great interest and have spent some time pondering the benefits of optimism and pessimism, what role they play in the life of Humankind. For sure, we are neither one nor the other, and like Candide despair of both at some point in time: only to pick up a banner of + or - and carry it and ourselves forward once more, to drop it once more, to switch it once more, and on and on. So it seems as though the two are aspects of the one and serve to balance: check the boundless optimist or bear the boundless pessimist.
Psychologically we have to conclude that we are disposed to optimism; yet, as with any theory it is only ever one experiment away from being disproved. Game theory has something else to say again, and demonstates that we happily accept losses (loosely correlated to pessimism) if they benefit the wider community (lossely correlated to optimism).
The "Is the glass half empty or half full" thought experiment causes my blood pressure to go up whenever it is mentioned: for me it is clearly both: and I'll not be forced to choose. Viewing from a classically logical perspective the glass is a contadiction, luckily though we have a fuzzy system of logic that helps to resolve the problem: demonstrating yet again that for all our acclaimed knowledge we are always atleast equally ignorant.
Which to be in our time? Shall I be a misanthropic man and let my garden perish? Shall I be a votary and fertilise the world? Unlike Jason I keep a watchfull eye on the world and it has caused me much consternation and much joy. To see the Hindu's throw down their peevish caste makes me want to grab the banner of optimism and run like the wind, yet, to see death in Darfur or anywhere in the world, in full knowledge that it is unnecessary; makes me want to burn both flags and damn the world to its impending doom. But, like I said the glass is both, as am I, and I'll not choose.
Very intersting point. When Dr Pangloss say's it's the best possible world, if I remember correctly, he also said that it was it was also the worst possible world as well. This was because he believed there was only one world in which case both statements would be true. As an optimist I can find comfort in the thought that if there is an infinity of Universes and there is an infinite number of me and an infinite number of possible outcomes to every event. So if something bad happens to me I can at least know something good is happening to another me. I don't actually believe this but it's a nice thought. When bad things happened to a pessimist would he blame his other selves because good things were happening to them.
Candide is a great book and not what I expected, it's very funny and Voltaire gets to have a go at everyone even the English. Maybe Candide should not be so optimistic, but unfortunatly he appears somewhat oblivious to everything and just seems to blunder his way through in the belief everything will work out ok and sometimes it does. Maybe that's how Voltaire sees optimists as somehow blundering along, while maybe he feels pessimists are more practical and down to Earth.
It's a while since I read it so my memory is a bit hazy.
My personal take on optimism isn't that optimists sit back and do nothing, but they do things as they think they can have an impact on the outcome. Your example about the environment is a good one, the optimist, no matter how much evidence to the contrary that there is nothing they can do to stop the damage done to the environment would still believe there is something they could do, the pessimist would give in as they felt there was no point as there was nothing they could do.
As an optimist my feeling is a boring simplistic one that both would try to save the environment. The pessimist would possibly be the first to think that there was a problem, the optimist might be the one to think there may be a solution. The pessimist would be the first to give up. I've never seen the point of pessimism until now, my take is that in difficult circumstances you're better off if you're an optimist as you'll probably try harder and for longer if you think there is a solution than if you don't. Also if things are bad, and there is no immediate solution optimism just makes it easier, as there's allways hope. It must be hard for pessimists as they must allways think things can only get worse.
I suspect a pessimist would allways see the glass as half empty. To an optimist it's usually half full, because it will get filled again, but when it's the last drink then even to an optimist it's half empty, as long as they are also realists, I suspect that Voltaire's take on optimistsis is they can't be realists.
Who knows what the future holds? What I do know is it'll allways be the best possible future, won't it?
Peace, Love and Equality.
Pessimism and optimism are completely dependent on each other, and should not be treated as though they could exist in all seperation. Anyone who considers themselves optimistic has surely had pessimistic thoughts or they would have no need to justify themselves as happy. As Khalil Gibran said, "Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced ."
My suggested reading would be chapter eight on Joy & Sorrow in Gibran's Prophet.
Fitz (09:21 PM on 13 Oct 2006) has given us, inadvertently, a much better converse to free thinking than has the discussion on prejudice so far : 'SUSPECT, that intuition is the way to go - rely on that 100% - fine tune it to the nth degree and you will never be wrong and you won't need to 'suspect' anything - you will KNOW ', a most frightening proposition which fuels the wickedest behaviour. Fitz needs to know that intuition however finely tuned is not a pathway to knowledge; it is intuition only if it leads to truth, otherwise it is deception. There are no paths that ensure you are never wrong- there are beliefs you will never give up (religion or ideology) and beliefs you are prepared to test and give up if they are inadequate (science or commonsense). Intuition is knowing something without knowing how, and therefore often unfairly dismissed by people who think they know why they believe something. But this doesn't mean it shouldn't be put to the test. That path leads to tyranny (the opposite of free-anything).
Also, he should know 'suspect' is a term of art for academic philosophers. They get really bored saying 'think' and 'believe'!
good news, bad news or the 'ought' in sates of affairs
Are good news something we simply expect from current states of affairs, leaving bad news to upset our expectations? Perhaps good news are under-heard because they are things that we expected to follow a given context. Maybe this presupposes the generalized optimistic evolutionary imprint in our world-history views. Do bad news denote a set-back in this sense?
Is there an implicit 'ought' in our perception of things? For instance, cultural and economic development, increasing acces to information from around the world 'should have' inmunized against or prevented against furhter aggravation of culturally motivated social conflicts. Yet this does not seem to be the case.
I like the way your comment on Pangloss inmunizes states of affairs from necessarily good follow-ups.
Your comment that by defining yourself as an optimist or pessimist undermines your credability is rubbish. You can call your self an optimist and believe that 'God helps those who help themselves' which does not lead to the assumption that the optimist is deluded. The pessimist could just as easily say that they believed that there was no way that he could change anything, which can be interpreted as a realistic conclusion about one persons influence in a global community.