Choose Optimism

One of the reasons I hang out with people different than I am and read rather widely is to expose myself to ideas I would not otherwise get.  It enriches my life and gives me opportunities I could never create on my own.  I frequently tell students my association with others has provided me better things in life than I ever could have come up with on my own.  If I had only followed my own dreams, my life would have been much poorer.

A recent article I discovered on Twitter, which is actually an extended interview, provoked me to think about the theme of optimism.  I have thought about it in the context of hope.  But I had never really explored the theme.  The article is by Steven Pinker, who is a cognitive psychologist and linguist at Harvard.  He is a popular figure, but one who is doing serious work.  He is one I trust.

One question Pinker was asked was why so many folks are such negative nellies.  His response comes from his scientific research.  Pinker tells us that “we have a great diversity of negative emotions than positive emotions.”  That seems right to me.  I know from my own research that people have a proclivity to fear rather than not.  That is why trust is such a rare commodity in some situations.  Pinker adds this corollary, which sounds like common sense.  He rightly claims, “There are a lot of ways to be upset and not as many ways to be happy.”

Let’s follow Pinker as he unpacks his findings.  I am particularly interested finally in whether spirituality can affect what he says about human nature in general.  Given the fact that it is easier to fear and that we have a greater diversity of negative emotions, how can we make any change?  Pinker says, “It depends on our assessment of how our actions can affect the world.”  Two important things are in the equation here.  One thing is our assessment of how our actions affect things.  Surely most of us think our actions do matter---they matter.  Pinker is ready to explore the next step.

Now he poses this possibility.  “…if you are optimistic in the sense that good things will happen no matter what you do, then there’s no need to do anything.”  I feel squeamish about this form of optimism.  It makes me feel sure things will work out.  It comes out in spiritual language in a form like saying, “Don’t worry, God will make everything turn out ok.”  The only way this is true is to be content with however things turn out, that is what God intended and it is ok.  That is not my theology.  Neither would it be Pinker’s perspective.

Instead, he offers an alternative kind of optimism.  He says, “if you have an attitude of what Hans Rosling called ‘possibilism’ and what Paul Romer, the winner of the Nobel Prize in economics, called ‘constructive optimism,’ that attitude can lead to action.”  Clearly, there are a couple strange words here, but they don’t need to trip us up.  “Possibilism” implies that something is possible.  It can be, but it doesn’t have to be.  In my own life there were many things that were possible, but they never came to be.  Pinker also turns to an economic term---constructive optimism.  That is an interesting term, which I take to me it is a form of optimism that I mentally construct---build in my mind or even create. 

Both of these ideas---possibilism and constructive optimism--- are ways of talking about how my actions can create a future.  He calls these a variety of optimism---different than the kind of optimism which says good things will happen, no matter what.  Pinker’s optimism is not guaranteed, but my actions make it much more likely.  This is where I think Pinker goes in his argument. 

He concludes, “with that variety of optimism, it’s not that good things will happen; it’s an if-then statement---namely, if we perform the following actions, then positive results could ensue.”  I like this because it relies on some agency on my part---on me doing something.  And this is where the God piece comes in for me.  I do think God expects to co-labor with us.  We are in it together.  God is not some magician pulling things out of a divine hat.  To the contrary, the world is an ornery place---even for God.  We need to work together to make things better.

I like Pinker’s line when he instructs us, “Don’t confuse pessimism with profundity: Problems are inevitable, but problems are solvable, and diagnosing every setback as a symptom of a sick society is a cheap grab for gravitas.”  Problems are solvable; that is what gives us hope and should lead us to choose optimism.  My own theology also informs our optimism.

My faith says that God is love and desires only loving and good things for us---for all of us in our world.  We are instruments of that divine love.  We can be difference-makers.  That is God’s will for us---the divine desire.  Pessimism is easy, but Pinker reminds us, that is not profundity.  It is more profound that God creates us to be co-workers in building what Jesus calls the kingdom. 

The kingdom is not some pie-in-the-sky destiny after death.  Rather it is the hard work on earth to bring justice, to be loving and to save our earth.  Pessimism is easy.  Optimism can make a difference.  Choose optimism.