Your opinions.
I don’t think pessimism is a taboo at all. Nine times out of ten, the pessimist is pretty much right on the money, if only theoretically speaking.
What with Suicide rates, depression, mental illness, prescribed drug use, indifference and apathy, it would appear Pessimism is the Social Standard, no taboo at all, but rather the generalised norm.
The pessimist is never disappointed…because they always have another disappointment to look forward too.
whatever you do do not get the pessimist mixed up with a realist. Two different critturs.
Kriswest,
That is not necessarily true. Several studies have shown that people who frequently use pessimism have a much more accurate view of their own influence than people who frequently use optimism.
It seems this way to me, as I am a pessimist, that people start to shun you and immediatly generalise you. I would actually think society is run by optimism, and pessimism is frowned upon.
my fiancee says i’m the biggest pessimist in the world, I don’t think i’m all that good at it.
Pessimist = giving up and accepting bad things while making others miserable around them.
realist = Knowing things will probably go wrong and yet will try to make it better.
Optimist= Miss. Piggy chasing Kermit to be her mate. Unwilling to accept defeat even if it is impossible to win.
Unrealistic optimist = Mr. Rogers. A disaster is a wonderful thing in your neighborhood, won’t you be my neighbor?
Wow, did you pull those straight out of the Oxford Dictionary?!? Those are so strikingly similar to all the definitions I’ve read about the difference between optimism and pessimism. [/sarcasm]
I’m surmising that pessimism would have to be tabboo by necessity because the concept of pessimism doesn’t actually imply any specific physical thing. It’s a concept of inciting and distorting everything that’s bad. Because of this prelogical notion, it lacks the regulation to be enforced in any way. Absolutely any optimistic statement (encouragement) can be changed into pessimism by discouraging the opposite of what’s being encouraged. The two statements are always an identical meaning, but one is optimistic, and one is pessimistic. This is why I like philosophy. Because it’s disinterested in the manner of inquiry, if it can get to the point and offer answers. Pessimism and optimism are irrelevant to philosophy in its prelogical sense.
A lot of people whom are afraid of philosophy will resort to a standard mode of thinking which is optimistic and morally relieving. They say whatever is generally morally preferred, and keep it in the notion of encouragement. When in fact, it’s often the morally tricky discussions, and the shortening to “Do / Not Do” which can be very practical.
EXAMPLE
“It’ll be good for you to kill that person.” (Optimistic. Morally frightening.)
“It’d be bad for you not to kill that person.” (Pessimistic. Morally frightening.)
“You shouldn’t kill that person.” (Pessimistic. Morally relieving.)
“It’d be good if you didn’t kill that person.” (Optimistic. Morally relieving . . . “happiest” of the four.)
Pessimism is not distorting things to be worse than they actually are, pessimism is revealing the truth. It just so happens you’re labelled as one for telling it.
Aidan_Mclaren,
You might be interested in the work of Martin Seligman on the subject of pessimism and optimism.
He is an American psychologist and has been researching the subject for decades. His work might provide you with some food for thought.
For instance he has done extensive research on the subject of explanatory style. His work highlights three dimensions of explanatory style: personalization, persistence and pervasiveness.
When a bad event happens to someone using the pessimistic explanatory style they will say to themselves, “It is my fault, it is going to last forever and it is going to effect everything that I do.”
One of his important discoveries was that explanatory styles can be changed. Optimism and pessimism have a large learned component thus we can unlearn or learn either one.
He also points out how pessimism is useful whenever the consequences of failure are very severe.
Check this out for an overview of his major book on the subject:
shearonforschools.com/learned_optimism.htm
A prime example of what I’d consider optimism which doesn’t have to be “happy”
Of course, I use common sense. It’s just that my pessimism concerns society and humanity, and how I think it is a tautology that does more pain than good to keep it going.