09.14.04
Posted in culture, philosophy at 10:19 am by
First off I’m not sure whether one spells optimism, optomism or optimism. Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass, so all you grammar nazis can stick it. I’m going to stick with optimism because I like the way it looks, or I may use them interchangably. After all, wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who said that it is a poor person who can only spell a word one distinct way?
Headless requested a bit of expose on my comment about cynicism and optimism. The quote was this:
After all, an optimist who is critical is a person who has hope–a pessimist who is critical is a cynic. I think I am the former.
I believe, strongly that an optimist should indeed be the most critical person in the world. I strong statement, I know. Here’s why I think it. An optimist is a person with a vision, a desire for a good future. They can see that good future. At this juncture an optimist has two choices. They can critique society and work to confirm their hypothesis about the general possibility of goodness, or they can sit on their ass and while away the time hoping for external change.
I would clearly distinguish between these two types of optimism. The latter is an empty optimism. There seems to be a belief that finding the good is somehow outside of their realm of effectiveness. I don’t buy this. We’ll call this “rose-colored glasses optimism.”
The former is the kind of optimist that I am, I hope. I have a vision and I believe strongly that I can affect change so that my vision can be realized. This doesn’t mean that I will ever completely realise my vision in my lifetime. But, I will die trying. Let’s call this optimist “transformational optimism.”
Within transformational optimism, the optimist seeks to isolate all of those things that plague society, the academy, the church, the state, the family, and the global community (not an exhaustive list.) Once those things are isolated–and it’s a never ending process–the transformational optimist sees wrong, speaks out against it, and takes action to rectify those things which she sees as injustice.
Too often–if not in every case–realism is simply a thinly veiled pessimism or cynicism. (I’m really using pessimism and cynicism synonomously here.) The realist, in my estimation, is really fooling her or himself. Either the realist is a cynic or an optimist. I would argue that realists are not.
For example, the realist that sees hope in a situation and seeks to affect change in a situation. To me, regardless of whether or not they believe that they can affect change in their lifetime, this person is a transformational optimist. I think that this realism though is a rarer breed than it’s more defeatist cousin.
That other realism is the realism that seeks to call optimism foolhardy and pointless.
Okay, let’s dip down out of the abstract clouds for a moment to bring this back to reality. I was writing about my church, and why I think it sucks the shit straight out of my ass sometimes. (How’s that for a metaphor, Just Pat? 
) BUT, my reasoning for doing so is that my church has the makings of being a wonderful, inclusive, and loving community on a number of different levels. Were I to keep my mouth shut and not “do” anything about the bad things I see at my church that would squarely put me into one of two camps. Either the cynical and defeated camp or the rosecolored glasses optimist camp.
Truly transformational optimists NEED to speak out criticism. It’s one of our highest callings. But along with that critique there needs to be another component that distinguishes us from our cynical sisteren (different than sistern, or a cement holding tank for water, this term is the gender justification for years of using the term bretheren mindlessly to the exclusiveness of the term). That component is hope.
Hope, to me, is what distinguishes an optimist from pessimist. Indeed if all that hope came from me alone, I wouldn’t have enough to be called a transformational optimist. Fortunately, hope comes from the vision of a transformed society that scripture gives us.
Thank the Lord, my hope is not my own.
So, what do y’all think?
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Posted in culture, philosophy at 10:19 am by
First off I’m not sure whether one spells optimism, optomism or optimism. Frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass, so all you grammar nazis can stick it. I’m going to stick with optimism because I like the way it looks, or I may use them interchangably. After all, wasn’t it Thomas Jefferson who said that it is a poor person who can only spell a word one distinct way?
Headless requested a bit of expose on my comment about cynicism and optimism. The quote was this:
After all, an optimist who is critical is a person who has hope–a pessimist who is critical is a cynic. I think I am the former.
I believe, strongly that an optimist should indeed be the most critical person in the world. I strong statement, I know. Here’s why I think it. An optimist is a person with a vision, a desire for a good future. They can see that good future. At this juncture an optimist has two choices. They can critique society and work to confirm their hypothesis about the general possibility of goodness, or they can sit on their ass and while away the time hoping for external change.
I would clearly distinguish between these two types of optimism. The latter is an empty optimism. There seems to be a belief that finding the good is somehow outside of their realm of effectiveness. I don’t buy this. We’ll call this “rose-colored glasses optimism.”
The former is the kind of optimist that I am, I hope. I have a vision and I believe strongly that I can affect change so that my vision can be realized. This doesn’t mean that I will ever completely realise my vision in my lifetime. But, I will die trying. Let’s call this optimist “transformational optimism.”
Within transformational optimism, the optimist seeks to isolate all of those things that plague society, the academy, the church, the state, the family, and the global community (not an exhaustive list.) Once those things are isolated–and it’s a never ending process–the transformational optimist sees wrong, speaks out against it, and takes action to rectify those things which she sees as injustice.
Too often–if not in every case–realism is simply a thinly veiled pessimism or cynicism. (I’m really using pessimism and cynicism synonomously here.) The realist, in my estimation, is really fooling her or himself. Either the realist is a cynic or an optimist. I would argue that realists are not.
For example, the realist that sees hope in a situation and seeks to affect change in a situation. To me, regardless of whether or not they believe that they can affect change in their lifetime, this person is a transformational optimist. I think that this realism though is a rarer breed than it’s more defeatist cousin.
That other realism is the realism that seeks to call optimism foolhardy and pointless.
Okay, let’s dip down out of the abstract clouds for a moment to bring this back to reality. I was writing about my church, and why I think it sucks the shit straight out of my ass sometimes. (How’s that for a metaphor, Just Pat? ) BUT, my reasoning for doing so is that my church has the makings of being a wonderful, inclusive, and loving community on a number of different levels. Were I to keep my mouth shut and not “do” anything about the bad things I see at my church that would squarely put me into one of two camps. Either the cynical and defeated camp or the rosecolored glasses optimist camp.
Truly transformational optimists NEED to speak out criticism. It’s one of our highest callings. But along with that critique there needs to be another component that distinguishes us from our cynical sisteren (different than sistern, or a cement holding tank for water, this term is the gender justification for years of using the term bretheren mindlessly to the exclusiveness of the term). That component is hope.
Hope, to me, is what distinguishes an optimist from pessimist. Indeed if all that hope came from me alone, I wouldn’t have enough to be called a transformational optimist. Fortunately, hope comes from the vision of a transformed society that scripture gives us.
Thank the Lord, my hope is not my own.
So, what do y’all think?
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Headless-in-GR said,
September 14, 2004 at 4:33 pm
WHOA! What a word picture! YUCK!!!
As for optimism and optomists (in the spirit of Jefferson), I’m with you…and nobody knows the pain of being a critical optimist - when I talk about the gender issue, I get responses like “why do you want to divide the church?”, which, it’s besides the point that the gender issue DOES divide the church - men and women, but we are willing to sacrifice whatever and whoever to avoid conflict. Why? Because conflict is THE DEVIL! What we really want is for everyone to be just like us, or at least shut up and be quite enough for us to pretend you are!
Benjamin said,
September 14, 2004 at 11:02 pm
I think you have a very interesting church - what you describe is something most people have to pay good money for down in Vegas.
As for the rest - hope would be nice - but with hope comes responsability. The beauty of cynicism is that you can always tear down, and don’t have to build anything up. I call it the “prophetic voice”, when I’m in a justifying mood.
Just Pat said,
September 14, 2004 at 11:11 pm
You are a metaphor god, BC…blows my ‘bang ‘er and then what” metaphor clear out of the water!
Brandon said,
September 14, 2004 at 11:31 pm
For the record, though I disagreed with the comment (I think, tis’ hard for me to remember past yesterday) your metaphor was a work of art as well.
Brandon said,
September 14, 2004 at 11:34 pm
And Benjamin…I’ve read your stuff…though you state it strongly–which I love–you can’t fool me. There’s hope in there somewhere. Burn the flags…indeed. Quality stuff, man, quality. And if y’all don’t know what i’m talking about read http://romanes.typepad.com you’ll get it.
Benjamin said,
September 15, 2004 at 12:24 am
I’m a cynical idealist, if that makes any sense.
Paul (lull) said,
September 15, 2004 at 10:04 am
I would say I’m a realist … which means a mixture of pessism and optimism (and good ol’ common sense and logic)
Kristen M said,
September 15, 2004 at 8:57 pm
Interesting trying to define these tricksy words, ain’t it? At our last church where Micah was youth pastor, the pastor’s main complaint with Micah was how “cynical” he was. For the record, I like your definition, although I’m sure the pastor would have a different one!
What the pastor was criticising about Micah was the same thing I loved about him.
Mainsheet said,
October 11, 2004 at 9:43 pm
Welllllll,
Brandon, you should remember that Optimism is the philosophy of Leibniz, the belief that everything is for the best (in this best of all possible worlds). I think that’s your Rose-Colored Glasses optimism.
What you call Transformational Optimism, I would call realism.
Voltaire had a marvelous time skewering Optimism in Candide, and we can all have a marvelous time reading Voltaire’s skewering of Optimism. Or, if you don’t like to read, listen to what Bernstein, Green and Lillian Hellman did with Voltaire in their oper(ett)a Candide. I recommend the concert performance with Lennie conducting in London.
I like to think that ‘cynical’ is a label invented by (rose-colored glasses?) optimists to use when they want to bash realists.
Anton said,
June 10, 2005 at 11:47 am
Hmm, to me a Realist is someone who accepts both positive and negative aspects of life. A person who accepts the world as it is and deals with it accordingly.
Triumph said,
July 28, 2006 at 11:19 am
“Too often–if not in every case–realism is simply a thinly veiled pessimism or cynicism.” This statement does nothing more than perpetuate the predominant American Christian cultural attitude of diametric polarization — black or white, good or evil. It excludes the possibility of any shades of grey in the reality of life.
“(I’m really using pessimism and cynicism synonomously here.)” To use the two terms “synonomously” is a mistake and shows that you don’t truly understand the meaning of each word, because they’re not synonomous and only marginally related.
The realist, in my estimation, is really fooling her or himself. Either the realist is a cynic or an optimist. I would argue that realists are not.” You’ll find that most people who consider thenselves “realists” accept the happenings and machinations of the world in a nonjudgemental fashion, meaning there is no quality of “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad” applied to situations. There is only the reality of what “is” without the burden of “meaning.” A realist posesses the outlook and processing capabilities of both the optimist and pessimist and is better suited to navigating the “every day world” because of the expanded options available. As for cynicism, it is a necessary ingredient, (in carefully measured quantities), to fully appreciate and understand human interaction.