andie nachgeborenen wrote:
>
> --- John Thornton <jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
[Quoting Justin] "But we won't get this. We won't the get Bangladeshi SUV's either. We will get further polarization, continents devassated by AIDs and war, sweatshop labor, fundamentalist terrorism, first world imperialist self-righteousness. We will get the importation of third world living standards home. In short, we're fucked.
[John] I try to keep a positive outlook but too often I do believe this may be humankinds fate. I try not to allow myself the luxury of this attitude. John Thornton
[Justin] It's too depressing to believe on a daily basis, I agree. The last thing left in Pandora's box is hope. jks
It's not so much that it's depressing to believe on a daily basis but that it is, I think, almost physiologically impossible to. Abstract pessimism simply doesn't connect as far as I can see with either personal joy or personal depression. Translating abstract pessimism into personal feeling would be like trying to 'really feel' that the square root of a negative one makes sense or 'really feel' that time is slowing as velocity increases. [Or vice-versa -- can't remember it just now. :-)]
Hope and deep (political) pessimism seem to me to go well together. The pessimism helps deflect silly hopes (like the anti-war movement slogan getting the electricity turned on overnight in Iraq), hence focusing attention of the (RELATIVELY) realistic hope -- like the anti-war movement shortening the carnage from 10 years to five, and perhaps even being the seedbed of a struggle to extend Social Security benefits rather than 'reform' them out of existence.
Samuel Johnson remarked that being sentenced to hang (hanging followed sentencing more quickly and surely in those days) marvellously cleared the mind! Same with the proper foundation of real pessimism as to the political future.
Carrol