The problem with the common-sense view of pessimism is that it relies on a mistaken conception of what pessimism, in its deepest and most significant manifestations, really is. We ought not to be pessimists if to be a pessimist means giving up on our common future, and on our fellow man.įar from resting in a belief that things are going to get worse, pessimism in most cases doesn’t have to do with the future at all: rather, it is a philosophy that tries to give a place to the darker side of life, to the reality of evil and pain and suffering in human (as well as animal) existence. If this is indeed the choice before us, then Chomsky is right, and ethics itself moves against pessimism. These, again, are Chomsky’s alternatives: we can choose either optimism or despair (that is: pessimism). The intuition is that pessimism leads to despair, which will in turn lead to resignation: to giving up. If the two outlooks are supposed to tell us what we can expect, and therefore what we can hope for from the future, then optimism obviously wins, on moral grounds. Aside from the fact that this definition gets pessimism (as well as optimism) wrong in important ways, the main problem with this representation of both optimism and pessimism is that it sets the latter up for failure. So, what are optimism and pessimism? The standard view is that these terms simply refer to our chosen expectations about the future: an optimist believes things will get better a pessimist believes things will get worse. For the truth is that pessimism represents a much richer, deeper, and more interesting view on life than the dulled-down version lets us see. But the things we most often associate with pessimism are far removed from what it really is they are based on a mixture of misgivings, prejudices, and concerns that fail to do it justice. This caution, this tentative nature of his self-description, and the very adjective he chooses to moderate it, are each telling: they reveal what pessimism is often accused of and has to defend against. Thus John Gray, perhaps the philosopher most notorious for his pessimism, will not take on the term without qualification: “I am hopefully pessimistic”, he says on the BBC-programme Desert Island Discs. It is in fact much more difficult to find a self-proclaimed pessimist than a self-proclaimed optimist, whether in politics, philosophy, science or everyday life, and the few examples we can find are hardly ever straightforward cases. After all: who, these days, calls themselves a pessimist with any conviction? When was pessimism ever a thing that was “in vogue”? And who says that pessimism is the same thing as believing in decline or resigning in despair? It is generally a good idea to be at least mildly sceptical when encountering such sweeping statements, such denunciations of what is obviously or evidently a widespread fad – and we should be all the more suspicious when no convincing examples are given of a phenomenon of which we are all supposed to be so acutely aware. Similarly, and almost simultaneously, Steven Pinker in his book Enlightenment Now makes his plea for the belief in progress against what he sees as a widespread current of “pessimism”, or a belief in cultural decline. Noam Chomsky, in the tellingly titled collection Optimism over Despair, puts the question of optimism and pessimism as something of a forking path: we can either be optimistic about the possibilities for the future, or we can be pessimistic, i.e. ![]() ![]() In an age marked by such overwhelming cause for concern for the state of the planet and the future of mankind as ours, the word pessimism has received a surprising amount of bad press. ![]() ![]() Indeed pessimism can ultimately be more motivating than optimism, argues Mara van der Lugt. That need not lead to resignation and hopelessness. Instead of seeing pain and suffering as unlucky, accidental phenomena, pessimism recognizes them as intrinsic parts of existence. Far from being about making gloomy predictions about the future, pessimism is a philosophical outlook that acknowledges the darker side to life. But pessimism is unfairly maligned and misunderstood.
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