Benjamin Kerstein has been one of my favorite authors on the web ever since his days on the Anti-Chomskyite blog. His essays, whether on film or current affairs, are always a joy to read. So my decision to disagree with him completely is not one that was taken lightly.
Recently, Kerstein reviewed a book by the well-known radical Barbara Ehrenreich, in which the latter conducts a full-scale assault on the American "feel-good" industry. Kerstein bemoans the fact that Ehrenreich simply replaces one kind of rose-colored fantasy to a more left-wing one. Instead, Kerstein suggests an attitude of "healthy pessimism", one fully attuned to the horrors of reality.
Excuse my French, but I think this idea is complete bullshit. As one who has struggled with the demons of depression for half his life, I find the idea of a "healthy" approach to life which mainly sees the bad stuff to be a contradiction. There is nothing healthy about pessimism. Indeed, pessimism, with its constant searching for the flaws, its refusal to see the good or to discount it, does not admit of a "healthy" disposition. Much like boundless optimism, it is a monster that feeds on itself, until all obstacles have been removed and the victim descends into a fantasy land, or hell, of his own making.
I think a much better cure for the "feel-good" industry is my own version of realism. Realism, according to my understanding, understands that there is both good and bad in the world, and that no amount of one cancels out the other. We realists work to increase the good and bemoan the bad, but we do not let ourselves get carried away by either. We are not God.
Realists, moreover, have a sense of humility about their ability to perceive the world and its direction. Optimists think things are great and getting better; pessimists think the opposite. Realists aren't sure; we hope things will get better, but we prepare for the worst. We do not pretend to take on the role of angry prophet or revolutionary, preferring instead the more mundane but satisfying task of the good, normal human being.
2 comments:
I think you are making Kerstein's point for him. His "healthy pessimism" means confronting the reality of things like depression, rather than ignoring them or papering them over.
The sentence "Indeed, if there is such a thing as existential courage, it will have to be found in a brave willingness to confront the world not simply as it is, but in the full measure of just how horrible it often can be." doesn't speak to you at all?
Eric,
No, it does not speak to me in the slightest. I do not consider the view which sees nothing but the horrors of the world to be any more realistic or less delusional than unbounded optimism.
Existential courage that can't appreciate the many good and beautiful things in this world is, to me, just a self-important form of cowardice.
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