RelentlesslyOptimistic

Ideologies and Reason, Right and Left (applies also to -ologies, cults, religions, and some -mies)

The Mahablog
Great essay on how ideology shapes thought, with which I agree almost totally. This is what causes the "our answer is the only answer" phenomenom, which drives far too many political, philosophical and economic activities. At many points in its history, America has been described as pragmatic - focused on what works over normative prescriptions about the way things should be; it seems like that's one of the things we've been losing in the last five years or so. Al Gore said it in his famous speech last year: the problem with the current administration is "ideology over reality." This expands on the theme:

Most ideologies are partly right, or relatively right, about at least some things. But none of them are always and absolutely right about everything.

We might define wisdom as the ability to recognize a truth that doesn't fit one's old cognitive filing system, and then to change the system to accommodate the truth. But hard-core ideologues can't do that. Instead, they reject the truth, or twist it around somehow so that it fits the ideology.

I'd add that probably none of them are always and absolutely wrong about everything, either. That's what makes cults, for example, work for some people - because what they claim does work in some way for the participant.

The Meaning of Optimism

My brother teases me about the name of my blog, because he sees many of these entries as not being very optimistic. As is so often the case, I turn to the words of others to make my case:

Bnoopy: Startups and the Stockdale Paradox.

The Stockdale Paradox is named after Admiral Jim Stockdale who was the highest ranking US military officer imprisoned in Vietnam. He was held in the “Hanoi Hilton” and repeatedly tortured over 8 years...to understand how he survived 8 years as a POW, ...[h]ere’s how Stockdale put it.

“I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.”

...“Who didn’t make it out”?

“The optimists. They were the ones who said ‘we’re going to be out by Christmas’. And, Christmas would come and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. Then they died of a broken heart.”

...

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

Holding those two seemingly contradictory notions in his head simultaneously was the key to Stockdale surviving, even thriving, in his experience. And, I believe, it is a perfect summary of the mindset you’ve got to have in starting a company.

You have to believe that your vision will come to pass. You’ve got to do everything you can to make it happen. But, you can never let your belief and faith cloud your confrontation with reality.

Relentlessly Optimistic.

 

Thoughts On Violence And War Via Not Geniuses

I just finished The Proud Tower and am halfway through rereading The Guns of August in that context (I'd read it before but years ago) (as an aside, I realized last night that now I want to know more about the pre-Proud-Tower period, and especially the war of 1870, which apparently set the stage for much of what led to WWI).

Years ago I worked as a peace activist, and spent a lot of time thinking about pacifism. My conclusions then resonated with the conclusions of Joe, below, from Not Geniuses, who came up with the listed conclusions after reading the same two books above, plus some others. I'm not sure I remember my conclusions fully, but they were something to the effect of:
 

Unreality Based Community Explained

Three-Toed Sloth
3TS makes a great link from Ron Suskind's NYTimes piece that launched the "reality based community" meme to thoughts on the effect of power by Bertrand Russell:

The most important effect of machine production of the imaginative picture of the world is an immense sense of human power. This is only an acceleration of a process which began before the dawn of history, when men diminished their fear of wild animals by the invention of weapons and their fear of starvation by the invention of agriculture. But the acceleration has been so great as to produce a radically new outlook in those who wield the powers that modern technique has created. In old days, mountains and waterfalls were natural phenomena; now, an inconvenient mountain can be abolished and a convenient waterfall created. In old days, there were deserts and fertile regions; now, the desert can, if people think it worth while, be made to blossom like the rose, while fertile regions are turned into deserts by insufficiently scientific optimists. In old days, peasants lived as their parents and grandparents had lived, and believed as their parents and grandparents had believed; not all the power of the Church could eradicate pagan ceremonies, which had to be given a Christian dress by being connected with local saints. Now the authorities can decree what the children of peasants shall learn in school, and can transform the mentality of agriculturalists in a generation....

There thus arises, among those who direct affairs or are in touch with those who do so, a new belief in power: first, the power of man in his conflicts with nature, and then the power of rulers as against the human beings whose belief they seek to control by scientific propaganda, especially education. The result is a diminution of fixity; no change seems impossible. Nature is raw material; so is that part of the human race which does not effectively participate in government. There are certain old conceptions which represent men's belief in the limits of human power; of these the two chief are God and truth. (I do not mean that these two are logically connected.) Such conceptions tend to melt away; even if not explicitly negated, they lose importance, and are retained only superficially. This whole outlook is new, and it is impossible to say how mankind will adapt itself to it. It has already produced immense cataclysms, and will no doubt produce others in the future. To frame a philosophy capable of coping with men intoxicated with the prospect of almost unlimited power and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time.