I was watching a small live stream by a somewhat notable YouTuber the other day and he started talking about the concepts of optimism and pessimism. He raised some interesting points that got me thinking about the topic. That individual made his own argument and it was intriguing in its own right but I began to see something else in our society's emphasis on optimism that I find to be troubling. Corporate propaganda will tell us to be optimistic about our working conditions and their products, even when our workplace is unsafe and their products are of low quality. Military propagandists will tell us how optimistic we should be about the wars that we are fighting or are about to fight, even though they are highly destructive and cost countless lives. We are told to be optimistic about this political party or that political party and this agenda or that agenda even though both parties seek to control and exploit the masses and their agendas are purely self-serving. The list could go on but I think that you see the pattern. The question is, what effect do all these "positive" outlooks have on us and who really benefits from our warm and fuzzy feelings about the future? I believe that the false optimism which is forced on the population by the systems of authority and the powerful elites, who thrive under those systems, functions (quite effectively) to keep us from questioning the shady things that they do but we can learn to see past the lies, if we are willing to try.

Before I go on, I want to clarify a few things. Optimism on its own isn't a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. It can be very helpful, in a number of scenarios, to keep one's spirits high. In personal situations, it is often essential to hope for the best or one risks falling into depression or a generally grim mode. The problem only arises when the concept made to seem as though it is a requirement to be a functioning member of society or when we are expected to be optimistic about things that really shouldn't inspire hope. It is the forced and false varieties of optimism that I take issue with.

We are bombarded with reasons to be optimistic about some pretty negative things and are expected to disregard our nature in order to do it. It starts when we attend schools. We were told that we should smile and be happy little children. Motivational posters covered the walls and there was constant talk about how bright our futures were. However, kids are treated like prisoners in schools, their individuality is scrubbed away, and their minds are being filled with the establishment narratives. To put it mildly, there is very little for them to be happy about. When they, naturally, have a rough day or don't enjoy having every aspect of their life controlled by a public institution, they are made to feel flawed. They are treated as though they are abnormal and the real lesson begins to take effect. Sometimes, they are sent to a councilor and other times, they are punished. They eventually begin to believe that deviating from the approved outlook is "wrong" and they make efforts to conform so as not to be seen as an outcast. Over time, this erodes their desire to question anything. They don't want to step off the path of optimism and they keep quiet about the abusive thing the teacher does to their classmates. They won't speak out against the information that they know is false. They won't stand up for themselves when they are mistreated by the system. In short, they are pressured into submission by happy thoughts.

Forced optimism doesn't end with our graduation either. We see the same motivational posters in our work places. We are lectured about how happy we should be in our jobs. We are told that our mission was "accomplished" several years before the war ends. "We are going to make America great again with hope and change because I like Ike," the political propagandists might say to make us enthusiastic about one tyrant or another. The effect here is the same as it is on the children. All this false optimism whether, it is about a war that is far messier than we were expected to believe, a job that isn't as great as an employer might say, or some corrupt political party, serves to make us feel as though we are in error when we are concerned or dissatisfied. This makes vocalizing those feelings to others more difficult which prevents us from creating "inconvenient" discontent among the population.

Keeping us quiet seems to be the real goal here and optimism serves that purpose in two ways. As I mentioned to above, it creates an environment in which we are less like likely to speak out because we believe that we are wrong to feel the way that we do. However, also functions to keep the true believers from wanting to question things. They feel happy because they believe that things are always getting better (often in spite of reality). Why, then, would they want to examine anything that they believe? They think that they have been told the truth and that "truth" looks great. In a sense, this ties the official narratives directly to their emotional well being. For them, seeing the real truth about at thing requires "self-harm" and that is something that we have a natural aversion to doing.

Optimism, itself, is an effective tool because it is attractive by its nature. We all want good things to happen for us or our societies. When someone tells us that those wonderful things are coming, the idea of believing that person is much more appealing. Of course, there is usually an agenda buried in their hopeful vision of the future: "Buy my 'amazing' product and and your life will be better." "Support my 'easy' war, and our country's future will be safer." In addition to diminishing people's drive to question, optimism also works as a sort of bait that attracts us into a state willing submission.

Creating an overly optimistic society also provides an easy way to demonize anyone who does speak in opposition to the approved narratives. When someone says "hey, this law won't make us safer" or "this war doesn't seem like an easy undertaking" they are branded as a pessimist. Their concerns and arguments are invalidated in the eyes of the oppressed optimists simply because they are negative. This produces a culture in which only one viewpoint is allowed and all others are ignored which opens the door for unquestioned corruption, exploitation, and oppression.

Luckily, the target of this oppressive optimism is the mind and, that being the case, we can guard ourselves against it with a change in the way we think about things. There are a few steps to doing this but none of them are particularly difficult (with one or two exceptions). It is, perhaps, best to start by being immediately suspicious of anyone who seems to want us to be optimistic about something. This is not a guarantee that they are trying to push some bad belief or other falsehood on us but it can be a good indication that something is up. Suspicion should be increased if there is a condition attached the optimism. "Support [insert thing] and our future will be bright" or something of the like should raise some red flags. Again, this doesn't prove that something is wrong with what we are being told but it is good cause to investigate the claim to the best of our abilities. Seeking opposing viewpoints (even if they are also suspect) is helpful. If one can't get the full picture of an issue from a single source, he or she can still gather a few crumbs of truth from several sources. Those things are straight forward enough. Anyone can try them without much effort. However, there is more we can do on a personal level to protect ourselves but it may be a more troublesome change to make. Specifically, one must come to understand that it is both natural and healthy to feel pessimistic about some things. It is important that we don't feel defective for wanting to question something. We must also stop attaching so much emotion to beliefs. If we affix our feelings to ideas too firmly, it becomes very painful to prob them. We are left unable to examine them objectively. Detaching oneself in this way isn't the most natural thing for a person to do as we are, after all, emotional creatures but it is a step that will help us weigh ideas more objectively, which helps to shield us from any efforts to mislead us.

I won't blame this group or that person for the abuse of optimism in our cultures. There could be some fantastical "conspiracy" style organization calling the shots or this could all be the result of regular old greed, corruption, and lust for influence among the powerful and wealthy of the world. Whether we have one tyrant to blame or ten thousand doesn't really matter in the end because the produced effect of the pretty little lies about our future is the same and so is the solution. Whatever the source may be, the attempts to control our thought and suppress our ability to question through false optimism seems to function to keep us docile and that is something worth calling out. If we can learn to recognize optimistic propaganda, disregard its efforts to make us feel abnormal, and emotionally detach ourselves from the attractive ideas that it tempts us with, it will cease to have an effect on us.

Peace.

All the images in this post are sourced from the free image website, unsplash.com.