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I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said P

I learned everything I need to know about optimism from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander when it explains why optimists are dangerous. --- Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was. A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four? That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist. Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.

phantarch 10y ago
This feels like a very sad way to view optimism. It's from a work of fiction which only makes a guess about Hitler's worldview. If optimism is a delusion, then so is pessimism, but only in the other direction. Neither view can tell us more than how we feel about the things around us.
braythwayt 10y ago
As the presentation says right at the beginning, "Optimism" in this context has a specific meaning defined by Dr. Martin Seligman for his work. It refers to the way people explain good and bad things that have happened to them in the past. It does not speak to people's expectations for how things will happen in the future. In technical contexts, practitioners often use words in ways that do not match the common parlance.
sdegutis 10y ago
Yeah, that's not really optimism. But rhetoric is a powerful thing and can make pessimism seem like optimism, and Shalom knows that. Real optimism is waking up and saying "I have hope that this world can be a better place, all I have to do is do my part to be a better person, and be encouraging and inspiring to others that today can be a better day than yesterday." Speaking of rhetoric, is it any wonder why journalism, media, and politics are all pure rhetoric, with no real substance? About 2500 years ago, there was a large group of people who said rhetoric was the path of the future, and a small group that said "the truth" is the real key to a better future. They had a great debate, and the smaller group lost. For losing, the leader of the smaller group had to drink poisoned hemlock.
Kenji 10y ago
This is a pessimistic view of optimism. You have to work on your optimism =)
CPLX 10y ago
After reading through that whole slide presentation and considering it reasonably pleasant, I did not predict the top comment would be an immediate, violent short-circuit to Godwin's law. Perhaps I am unduly optimistic.
ZenoArrow 10y ago
> "Pessimists don’t build gas chambers." What does optimism or pessimism have to do with genocide? The truth is you can view it both ways. On one hand you can see the perpetrators as optimists working towards their idealised society. On the other hand you can look at the desire to kill stemming from a pessimistic attitude towards those they are killing, viewing them as subhuman or beyond redemption. Jews weren't targeted in the Third Reich because of a drive towards ethnic purity, they were targeted by painting them as subversive. From an outside perspective, it was only by embracing pessimism about Jews that allowed that society to go along with the genocide.

phantarch 10y ago

This feels like a very sad way to view optimism. It's from a work of fiction which only makes a guess about Hitler's worldview. If optimism is a delusion, then so is pessimism, but only in the other direction. Neither view can tell us more than how we feel about the things around us.

braythwayt 10y ago

As the presentation says right at the beginning, "Optimism" in this context has a specific meaning defined by Dr. Martin Seligman for his work. It refers to the way people explain good and bad things that have happened to them in the past. It does not speak to people's expectations for how things will happen in the future. In technical contexts, practitioners often use words in ways that do not match the common parlance.

sdegutis 10y ago

Yeah, that's not really optimism. But rhetoric is a powerful thing and can make pessimism seem like optimism, and Shalom knows that. Real optimism is waking up and saying "I have hope that this world can be a better place, all I have to do is do my part to be a better person, and be encouraging and inspiring to others that today can be a better day than yesterday." Speaking of rhetoric, is it any wonder why journalism, media, and politics are all pure rhetoric, with no real substance? About 2500 years ago, there was a large group of people who said rhetoric was the path of the future, and a small group that said "the truth" is the real key to a better future. They had a great debate, and the smaller group lost. For losing, the leader of the smaller group had to drink poisoned hemlock.

Kenji 10y ago

This is a pessimistic view of optimism. You have to work on your optimism =)

CPLX 10y ago

After reading through that whole slide presentation and considering it reasonably pleasant, I did not predict the top comment would be an immediate, violent short-circuit to Godwin's law. Perhaps I am unduly optimistic.

ZenoArrow 10y ago

> "Pessimists don’t build gas chambers." What does optimism or pessimism have to do with genocide? The truth is you can view it both ways. On one hand you can see the perpetrators as optimists working towards their idealised society. On the other hand you can look at the desire to kill stemming from a pessimistic attitude towards those they are killing, viewing them as subhuman or beyond redemption. Jews weren't targeted in the Third Reich because of a drive towards ethnic purity, they were targeted by painting them as subversive. From an outside perspective, it was only by embracing pessimism about Jews that allowed that society to go along with the genocide.