Thursday, March 22, 2012
Where are you from?
A question I considered in why someone would adopt either optimistic or pessimistic outlooks on life may have something to do with the concrete social situation a person find themselves in. For an indiviudal who has been divorced, suffered many losses within their family, and were economically destitute, we would not be surprised to find this person is not the most charitable in believing the world is not entirely ill conceived. Interstingly enough those who are in situations of extreme poverty often try and perhaps at times succeed in authentically believeing that things could get better and that at its core humanity is not cruel, aggressive, and violent. Perhaps they do so only in the hopes to one day escape the misfortunes they are plagued with, but again it seems that from what social situation you approach interpeting humanity may offer insight into why you draw specific conclusions about the world.
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The idea that people in situations of poverty or other unpleasantness sometimes have more optimistic views on humanity is, I think, quite accurate. Furthermore, I think that the opposite can often be true of rich or otherwise prosperous people. Perhaps this is because people in bad situations tend to either maintain an optimistic attitude, or give in to their circumstances and either numb their emotions with alcohol, drugs, or other addictions, or kill themselves. The number of people in bad situations who have a pessimistic outlook, yet persevere in spite of it, seems likely to be relatively small. In contrast, people who are well-off do not need such faith in their fellow humans. Of course, prosperous people can still take pessimism to the point where they give up, and perhaps that is why a surprising number of rich people are alcoholic or addicted to drugs.
ReplyDeleteSchopenhauer and Melville, as literary and philosophical men from relatively prosperous families, fell closer to the latter type of person. While of course being rich or prosperous is hardly a foolproof indicator of pessimism, it seems possible that Schopenhauer's and Melville's backgrounds could have contributed to their rather negative views of humanity.
P.S. I also posted this on my blog if you'd rather read it there.
I also responded to your post.
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