A lot of people, when they begin to delve into philosophy, are taken aback by the amount of pessimism found within philosophy, especially modern philosophy.
Most people, I’d think, desire optimism, because that is what most of us have grown up on. When we’re troubled by something, we’re reminded that the situation will get better. When we’re hurt, we’re comforted by family or friends. All of this is optimistic in nature, because optimism is the hope that goodness lies in the future, that bad situations will turn out alright, and that everything will be okay. I’ve unfortunately not encountered many philosophers that espouse such optimism, for I feel that many of the popular and more well-known philosophers take a more pessimistic approach towards life.
For example, I immediately think of the Stoicism found in Ancient Rome. Stoics in general were quite appalled by anything optimistic; for the Stoic, to hope that things will ever get better was to fool oneself. You have to avoid ever having hope, because hope is merely the catalyst for inevitable let-downs. According to the Stoic, you ought to always assume the worst, because if the worse happens, at the very least, you expected it, therefore it shouldn’t impact you as heavily, and if the worse doesn’t happen, then it wasn’t as bad as you had imagined. Some Stoics even held that if you thought your life was truly difficult and you couldn’t bear it any longer, then the option to kill yourself was always there.
Modern philosophy is also not free from pessimism. More famous and contemporary philosophers, like Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Camus (just to name a few), all have pessimistic ideas that they espoused in their own unique way. Schopenhauer, for example, argues that all satisfaction is derived from satisfying some desire, which once satiated, rarely stays satisfied, and if satiated enough becomes a bore. Our life therefore is like a pendulum, swinging to and fro between the pain of desire and the boredom of satisfying that desire constantly. From this, Schopenhauer concludes that life is ultimately vain and “the purpose of our existence is not to be happy.” Camus, as well, argues that life is absurd and to attempt to live a meaningful life is to fool oneself into injecting meaning where there is none. Camus uses the old myth of Sisyphus, the man cursed to push a rock up a hill for all eternity, as the representation of our life: everything we do is ultimately futile, but we do it anyway.
The only philosopher I can think of off the top of my head who argued in favor of optimism is the co-founder of calculus, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz. He argued that God, being a perfectly righteous being, would not create an imperfect world. We therefore must be living in the “best of all possible worlds.” Unfortunately for Leibniz, many of his contemporaries didn’t fancy this idea much. The philosopher Voltaire in his famous work, Candide, writes about a boy who goes on an adventure and suffers terrible accidents and the worst of luck throughout the entire journey, simply to ridicule Leibniz’s idea that we live in a perfect world.
The question that follows from all this, is why? Why is pessimism so common throughout the ages? Why do so many philosophers, men who presumably are the most rational people among us, so prone to concluding pessimistic thoughts? Does life favor pessimism? Is pessimism a more accurate depiction of reality? What are the problems with optimism?
I think by simply observing the world around us, we can obtain the answers to these questions. For starters, I think pessimism is commonplace because we’re simply bombarded with pessimism. Evil exists in the world, and it tends to shape our mentality more effectively than goodness. It’s because of the way human beings function, we tend to give negative events more power over us than good events. This is why most people are more easily upset than cheered up or pleased. The negative affects us more easily than the positive.
I suppose one could argue that such a superfluous amount of pessimism and negativity in the world is a sign that life is truly all about pessimism, but as comforting as the thought of simply giving in and accepting such a melancholy conclusion is, I can’t help but disagree. I feel as if it is because there is so much pessimism and negativity in the world, that those things which bring about positivity and optimism are rendered all the more valuable, and the people who inspire others to live positive lives, all the more special.
It’s not to dismiss the valid and rational arguments of pessimistic philosophers, but rather conclude that because life is so marred with cruelty, we have no choice but to live our lives optimistically if we are to remain sane. I use the word sane, because most people are driven to sadness and depression by the most trivial of things, so I presume concluding the meaninglessness of life won’t do their psyches too well. Of course, many will note that this is a very secular conclusion. If you believe in God and in an afterlife, then you have the assurance of knowing that this life is merely a crude caricature of the next, and our focus ought to be not on this life but the next, further trivializing the pessimistic parts in our lives.
In conclusion, the problem with optimism is that pessimism is more rampant. We’re more prone to negativity, which affects our perspective, which makes us more prone to pessimism. Personally, I acknowledge that this does not answer the following philosophical questions, “Does reality reflect pessimism or optimism?”, or “Which is the more rational perspective: pessimism or optimism?”, nor does it address the arguments of the philosophers I mentioned. I’m merely explaining why I think pessimism is popular, and concluding, under the assumption that life really is pessimistic, that we ought to focus on those parts which, for a moment, shine with a positive brilliance. As if acknowledging that the negative parts of life, only make the positive more meaningful.
Thanks for reading!
