On pessimism
I haven't posted in a while, so here's a piece from a book called Pessimism: philosophy, ethic, spirit, by Joshua Foa Dienstag.
"Perhaps I should get the most difficult matter -- to some no doubt the most shocking matter -- out of the way first: namely, that this book on the pessimistic spirit is not an attack on that spirit but, instead, an appraisal and, indeed, an endorsement of it, at least in a certain form. That this will strike most readers as perverse cannot be helped. Indeed, it is my first request of readers that they take this reaction, quite common in itself, and examine it. Why is it that pessimism, once a respectable if not popular philosophy, has become so despised in our culture that the word 'pessimist' can be used today as a term of political or intellectual abuse? Look in any American newspaper for a few days and one will immediately see that this is true. It is enough to label an idea (or a person) 'pessimistic' in order to be allowed to dismiss it (or him) without further discussion as irrational, emotional, indefensible, or, worst of all, unpatriotic.
Why should this be? After all, an expectation that things will go badly is not, on the surface, any more or less rational than the expectation that things will go well. An extended examination of the question could well yield a judgment in favor of the one or the other -- but the label is used precisely to foreclose such an inquiry. Pessimism is dismissed before serious debate begins, not during or afterward. One might venture that, somehow, the idea of pessimism is so threatening that people decline to consider it seriously because they are afraid of the effects such a consideration might produce. But then this phenomenon itself should be enough of a curiosity to require investigation. While those so fearing might be tempted to stop at this point, I can at least dispute the common perception that pessimism must somehow necessarily issue in behaviors of resignation and withdrawal.
[...] Instead of blaming pessimism, perhaps we can learn from it. Rather than hiding from the ugliness of the world, perhaps we can discover how best to withstand it. As I noted above, pessimism's critics have often assumed that it must issue in some sort of depression or resignation. But this assumption says more about the critics than about their targets. Who is it, exactly, that cannot bear a story unless guaranteed a happy ending? Pessimists themselves have often been anything but resigned. Indeed, they have taken it as their task to find a way to live with the conclusions they have arrived at, and to live well, sometimes even joyfully. If this cannot be true for all of us, it is not the pessimists who are to blame, but the problems they grapple with."
"Perhaps I should get the most difficult matter -- to some no doubt the most shocking matter -- out of the way first: namely, that this book on the pessimistic spirit is not an attack on that spirit but, instead, an appraisal and, indeed, an endorsement of it, at least in a certain form. That this will strike most readers as perverse cannot be helped. Indeed, it is my first request of readers that they take this reaction, quite common in itself, and examine it. Why is it that pessimism, once a respectable if not popular philosophy, has become so despised in our culture that the word 'pessimist' can be used today as a term of political or intellectual abuse? Look in any American newspaper for a few days and one will immediately see that this is true. It is enough to label an idea (or a person) 'pessimistic' in order to be allowed to dismiss it (or him) without further discussion as irrational, emotional, indefensible, or, worst of all, unpatriotic.
Why should this be? After all, an expectation that things will go badly is not, on the surface, any more or less rational than the expectation that things will go well. An extended examination of the question could well yield a judgment in favor of the one or the other -- but the label is used precisely to foreclose such an inquiry. Pessimism is dismissed before serious debate begins, not during or afterward. One might venture that, somehow, the idea of pessimism is so threatening that people decline to consider it seriously because they are afraid of the effects such a consideration might produce. But then this phenomenon itself should be enough of a curiosity to require investigation. While those so fearing might be tempted to stop at this point, I can at least dispute the common perception that pessimism must somehow necessarily issue in behaviors of resignation and withdrawal.
[...] Instead of blaming pessimism, perhaps we can learn from it. Rather than hiding from the ugliness of the world, perhaps we can discover how best to withstand it. As I noted above, pessimism's critics have often assumed that it must issue in some sort of depression or resignation. But this assumption says more about the critics than about their targets. Who is it, exactly, that cannot bear a story unless guaranteed a happy ending? Pessimists themselves have often been anything but resigned. Indeed, they have taken it as their task to find a way to live with the conclusions they have arrived at, and to live well, sometimes even joyfully. If this cannot be true for all of us, it is not the pessimists who are to blame, but the problems they grapple with."