Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will

In trying to distinguish optimists from pessimists, we often say that there's two kinds of people: Those who see the glass as half-empty and those who see the glass as half-full. How can two people see the same glass in such opposite ways? Well, because they're not just seeing it that way, they're making it that way.

"Pessimism,” notes radical historian Howard Zinn, "becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reproduces itself by crippling our willingness to act." Does this make pessimism wrong? Not really. Optimism, after all, is a self-fulfilling prophecy, too.

"What I hope for is more hope,” says James Richardson. "Hope," says Jim Wallis, "is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change." So, really, the question isn't which view is more true, but rather, which self-fulfilling prophecy do you want to sign up for? The one where the world gets worse and confirms your worst opinions of it, and you get the thin satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so!" Or the one where the world gets better and confirms your best opinions of it, and you still get the satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so!"

Ha! If only it were so simple. Because, of course, the world doesn't always get better. In fact, given climate change, we know it's definitely going to get worse. So, if "I told you so!" is what you're in it for, then pessimism is clearly the way to go. Saddle up, Eeyore, time to ride!

Being optimistic in the face of adversity is a choice—an ethical choice, a choice that requires spiritual effort and a mustering of will.

But what if the choice between optimism and pessimism isn't about the likelihood of one outcome or another. What if "optimism is an ethic and an attitude, not a belief," as progressive blogger Josh Marshall wrote the morning after Trump's 2016 election. For Marshall, being optimistic in the face of adversity is a choice—an ethical choice, a choice that requires spiritual effort and a mustering of will.

When I was young, some author (Erich Fromm?) made the point that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather doing what you need to do in spite of being afraid. I soon learned this was a cliché, but I didn't care because it was a cliché that changed my life for the better. It made me feel courageous, or at least potentially courageous. Because I had fears. And there'd been a time or two when I'd stepped up in spite of my fears. Can we think of optimism and pessimism in a similar way?

"An optimist," says Peter Ustinov, turning our usual understanding upside down, "is one who knows exactly how bad a place the world can be; a pessimist is one who finds out anew every morning." In other words, a pessimist is someone who feels entitled to a better world. You did promise me a rose garden, says the pessimist. I keep looking around for it but it's not there. This pessimist is actually a disappointed ex-optimist who wakes up every morning feeling betrayed by reality.

Meanwhile, an optimist is someone who knows—and, crucially, accepts—how bad things are, and still believes she can do something to make a difference. Every morning she asks herself what can I do to make this steaming pile of shit we call our world a little bit better because I know I can. In this reading, the optimist is actually a hard-headed realist, while the pessimist is a disappointed idealist who can't get over his disappointment.

So, is the glass half-full or half-empty? The answer, of course, is both/and. Climate social-psychologist and scenario planner Per Espen Stoknes suggests we think of optimism and pessimism not as personality traits or belief systems or moods, but as "tools"—tools we must choose wisely. Absolute pessimism and absolute optimism are faulty tools, he says. Both lead to "very poor scenarios,” locking us into a fundamentalist storyline that can lead only to salvation or damnation (and contributing to the manic-depressive cycle activists are all too familiar with). Instead of letting our pessimism come up with ever more reasons to despair, then turning to optimism to repress that despair, Stoknes suggests we use both in parallel to help us imagine plausible futures and plan for them. Yes, we must feel our despair (after all, it is real, and one of our many antennae that tell us what is broken in the world), but we must also act. No easy task, of course. How do we set about it?

"My heart is on fire," goes the Zen Buddhist adage, "but my eyes are as cold as ashes" When I am despairing and need to act, this is the wisdom teaching I turn to. It spans my full soul. It names the contradictory qualities—commitment yet detachment; fierce engagement along with a letting go of results and ego—that I need to embrace. There's a pop-culture version of this: "Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose!" Along with millions of grown men and women across America, Coach Taylor's locker-room pep-talk works me into a heart-swelling mess of tears, hope, and smashing shoulder-guards—even though the climate pragmatist in me knows that no matter how clear our eyes are with realism and how full our hearts are with idealism, we could still definitely lose.

In a similar spirit, Italian revolutionary Antonio Gramsci commands us to embrace "Pessimism of the intellect; Optimism of the will!" Here he neatly and fiercely captures our twin tasks. (And you would be neat and fierce, too, if all your words had to be written on toilet paper and snuck out of a fascist prison.) Innovative leader of the 1920s-era Italian Communist Party, and Mussolini's most dangerous foe, Antonio Gramsci would die in that prison. He knew something about struggle and hope in a difficult time. He understood that we need to be lucid, critical, precise, and hard headed about the material reality of our circumstances, however dire it may be; and at the same time, we need to be passionately committed to our vision of a better (or at least less worse) world.

Taking his commandment to heart, I try with one hand to honour the truth of what is, and with the other, to reach for the dream of what could be. This is never easy. In Gramsci's era of rising fascism, it was devastatingly difficult. In our era of rising seas and rising fascism, we, too, will need both clear eyes and full hearts. (Especially if, instead of "…can't lose!" the only pep-talk finale a climate-informed Coach Taylor could in good faith give us is "Clear eyes! Full hearts! We could definitely fucking lose!")

These disparate wisdom teachings—Zen spiritual instruction, high-school football locker-room spiel, and moral-strategic commandment from an Italian communist-are all telling me the same thing: The glass is not half-empty or half-full; the glass is half-empty and half-full. This is, of course, literally true (think about it), and also true in our souls: I for one need both halves (my optimism and pessimism both) in order to act in the world.

Reprinted with permission from I Want a Better Catastrophe by Andrew Boyd, New Society Publishers, 2023.