Recently I was watching an episode of Bojack Horseman, in which one of the main characters - a journalist - was asked by her boss to do more feel-good stories. This turned out to be an impossible task, because, well, all is rotten in the USA. You know: systemic oppression, extreme inequality, evil corporations, and the coming apocalypse. What’s to feel good about?

The next day I came across an opinion piece that extended the all-is-rotten attitude to its logical conclusion: if the whole system stinks, there is no reason to be optimistic about the future. If you are optimistic, you are deluded. To quote:

“Optimism is naively believing that everything will be all right, when we know that reality is far more complex and messy…. Optimism is like a sugar high that quickly fades…” - “Why to choose hope over optimism for 2020” by Kevin O’Brien/San Francisco Chronicle Dec. 27, 2019 (Updated: Dec. 28)

Well, that’s a pretty novel definition of optimism. Compare with the standard dictionary definitions:

…hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something.  Oxford English Dictionary  

…an inclination to put the most favorable construction upon actions and events or to anticipate the best possible outcome.  Example: “The early sales reports are cause for optimism.” Merriam Webster Dictionary

…the feeling that all is going to turn out well. Example (from the 12/28/19 Washington Post): “Other youngsters stepped up as well, providing reason for optimism at a few positions entering the offseason”. Vocabulary.com

Note that nothing in the dictionary definitions implies optimism is inherently unrealistic. In fact, the examples given suggest optimism often has a basis in real events (e.g., “early sales reports”, “youngsters stepping up”). Of course optimism is sometimes naive or unwarranted. But guess what? There’s another word for that: over-optimism, defined by Lexico.com as “excessive or unjustifiable optimism”.

So why did O’Brien decide to misrepresent the meaning of optimism? To suit his political agenda. Here’s the giveaway, a couple paragraphs down:

“When I am tempted to cynicism or discouragement, young people on my campus summon hope in me. Through their climate activism, Gen Z-ers urge us to just change policy and change the ways we live, eat, waste, consume and buy.”

O’Brien may feel that optimism undermines the spirit of political activism and thus makes people less open to “structural change”. This is not an unreasonable proposition: if optimism is based on positive experiences, why would anyone want to hobble a system that has produced plenty of positive experiences for most of humanity? Less abstractly: if profit-minded entrepreneurs are responsible for the most effective climate change mitigation and adaptation technologies to date (e.g., energy efficient buildings, electrical vehicles, drought-resistant crops), why would anyone want to eliminate the capitalist system that feeds the entrepreneurial spirit?

Which brings me to another recent attack on optimism - specifically, the “techno-optimism” of Midwest farmers:

[Environmental techno-optimism is a] “‘belief in human technological abilities to solve problems of unsustainability while minimizing or denying the need for large-scale social, economic and political transformation’” Gardezi, M., & Arbuckle, J. G. (2018). Techno-Optimism and Farmers’ Attitudes Toward Climate Change Adaptation Environment and Behavior (definition quoted from Barry, 2012)

Note that Gardezi and Arbuckle do not explain why solving problems of unsustainability requires the “need for large-scale social, economic and political transformation”, yet they seem to assume that this is an incontestable reality. As with O’Brien in the first example, they are presenting a strawman version of optimism, one with no nuance whatsoever. They could have defined techno-optimism as the belief that technology would solve many or most problems of unsustainability, but I’m guessing that sounds too reasonable and would be inconsistent with their argument that Midwest farmers are in denial.

Oddly, Gardezi and Arbuckle acknowledge that farmer techno-optimism may stem from the undisputed fact that technological innovation has indeed led to consistent growth in corn and soybean yields over the past decade, despite increasingly variable weather in the region. Yet they dismiss this “possible explanation” for techno-optimism, because “it is increasingly recognized that increasing weather variability has led to a substantial gap between current yields and the genetic potential of major crops” - a claim for which they cite one measly study.

About Ideology

Few people would describe themselves as ideologues - it’s a pejorative term and almost always describes the other guy. Yet there is something called “ideology”, which I’m going to define as “an army of convictions about how the world is and how it ought to be.” As befitting a military force, ideologies are often fueled by a sense of threat - kept at bay through a fortress-like structure called the ideological square (Van Dijk (1995), a nifty construct consisting of two exaggerations and two minimizations:

  1. Exaggerate how bad things are now

  2. Exaggerate how great things will be if We prevail

  3. Downplay the current system’s capacity to make things better

  4. Downplay Our capacity to screw things up

Basically, revolutionaries are ideologues and ideologues hate reformers. Reformers tend to be optimists who see the potential for positive change within the existing order - in contrast to revolutionaries, who typically downplay the current system’s capacity to make things better. Hence, the need for radical, structural change. Hence, the left’s hatred of Pete Buttigieg:

“Buttigieg is a young professional with an elite pedigree who’s chosen to buy into the system as a reformer instead of attacking it as a revolutionary…activists are baffled by [his] optimism and adherence to tradition in the face of the Trump era’s grimness and vulgarity…But he does appeal to a certain kind of young person, as now represented in the cultural imagination by the “High Hopes” dancers [who are Buttigieg supporters]. And to the self-renouncing meritocrats who act as thought leaders to the young left, those people represent both a personal frustration and a political fear—that the institutions of tomorrow may yet be built by those with faith in yesterday’s ideals.” - Why Pete Buttigieg Enrages the Young Left by Derek Robertson/Politico  January 1, 2020

Does this resonate with anyone?

—

Updated 1/1/20

Note: My definition of ideology is consistent with dictionary definitions (e.g., per Merriam Webster Dictionary an “integrated assertions, theories and aims that constitute a sociopolitical program”).

Reference:

Van Dijk, TA (1995). Discourse Semantics and Ideology. Discourse & Society, 6(2): 243-289. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926595006002006